TOKYO -- Japanese companies are getting serious about changing the nation's culture of overwork. Some business leaders think it is their responsibility to take the lead.

On Nov. 7, labor standards inspectors raided the Tokyo headquarters of Dentsu, a major advertising agency. This followed the death of a 24-year-old employee, who took her own life in December last year after working an excessive amount of overtime.

A few hundred meters down the road, business leaders were holding a meeting to discuss how to reduce overtime work. "To reform working conditions, top management must continuously call for change," said Hitoshi Uemura, president of Tokyu Land, a developer. "Employee satisfaction eventually leads to better earnings," he said.

Representatives from 27 companies and organizations gathered at the meeting, including Japan Post Insurance, Japan Airlines and Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, a department store operator. They shared measures to tackle the problem and their results. "Unless large companies improve their [working] conditions, their client companies cannot change," one of those representatives said.

Among them was Noriyuki Onishi, the 43-year-old president of Saint-Works, a staffing company specializing in the nursing care industry.

On the third Wednesday of every month, some employees at Saint-Works put on purple capes. The capes show the time they wish to leave the office on that day. Thanks to this system, monthly overtime at the company has dropped by more than half, from an average of more than 25 hours four and a half years ago.

Overwork is common in Japan. The ratio of people who work 49 hours or more each week is more than 20%, compared with 16% in the U.S. and 10% in Germany.

Food manufacturer Ajinomoto plans to shorten its standard daily working hours to seven in fiscal 2020. President Takaaki Nishii thinks what is normal in Japan is abnormal outside the country. "Working conditions that count on overtime cannot retain talent," he said. All members of the board that decided on the change have overseas experience.

Johnson & Johnson, a major health care and household products manufacturer, banned work email after 10 p.m. and on holidays. That changed life for Shigekazu Ryu, a 41-year-old employee. He used to handle about a third of his work email after 8 p.m. In charge of sales system maintenance, he often had to correspond with people in different time zones, including when he was at home. "In a way," he said, "I was working around the clock." These days, he enjoys spending time with his child after work.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 22.7% of companies in Japan have employees working more than 80 hours of overtime a month. Over that threshold, workers can be recognized as victims should there be any health consequences.

A week after Dentsu's offices were raided, Sadayuki Sakakibara, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, an influential lobby group, urged its 1,300-odd member companies to take action. "Top executives themselves must make efforts to prevent excessive work," he said.

(Nikkei)