Graduates from high schools are drawn from a wider geographical range than are university graduates. Since able students in the metropolitan areas usually go on to colleges and universities, candidates for employment from urban areas who have no college ambitions are seldom worth a company's consideration. Thus the future operational hands in the factory are recruited largely from nonurban high schools. The company usually asks high school teachers to recommend qualified candidates, or the principal of the school and the teachers approach the company to request that their students be considered for employment. Therefore, almost all candidacies are arranged by the teachers and recruitment proceeds as planned. Very few errors in selection have been reported.
Indoctrination of New Employees
The uniform quality of education provides Japanese industry with an excellent supply of generally competent workers who are prepared for and receptive to learning specialized skills in the workplace. Japanese firms, taking advantage of the lifetime employment pattern, can deploy a long-range plan to train these employees in specific skills and mold them into useful and governable human assets.
There are numerous programs for training company employees, including the Young Executive Development Program, the Middle Management Development Program, the Supervisory DeveloprrSt Program, the R&D Personal Development Program, the Sales Training Course, and the Skilled Workers Training Course. These are all similar to the training programs in other industrialized countries. But there is one unique program of Japanese management: The New Employees Orientation Program.
Many large and medium-size firms spend three to four months—sometimes even six months—indoctrinating fresh young workers who join the company in April of the cherry-blossom season each year. Newcomers are not assigned to any specific jobs during the orientation period. They are first briefed on the company's perspective and are taught about the particular business circle the company belongs to—for instance, the automobile world, the banking world, or the oil world. They then learn the organizational structure and all the functions of the company. After the briefing, they are assigned to offices and plants on a temporary placement scheme and are rotated at short intervals (one week at most) from section to section in these offices and plants. Each one of them is proud to wear the brand new gray company smock and enjoys being a migratory bird. Through this job rotation program, new workers learn the functional activities of the company and gain the companywide views. In each section, the chief and all other members who are superiors to a new employee welcome him and imbue him with a strong group spirit and a sense of the importance of conforming to precedents.
In addition, some companies do not hesitate to send their young recruits to the Self-Defense Force to inspire them with a militaristic rigor. Some even take them into a Zen temple for spiritual training in meditation. A few conduct a "training camp" program by keeping new employees in the company lodge or dormitory for a week or so. They sing the company song and get a briefing on the day's schedule each morning. They prepare meals and beds, do laundry, clean the premises, take lessons on business subjects, and do physical exercise. A few companies even take trainees to see a classic play like Chushingura.
The purpose of these special training programs is to transform the new employees into energetic, dedicated company workers. Japanese management strikes while the iron is hot— while the work habits of the newcomers are still unformed—and thus controls the quality of its human resources.
Periodic Transfer
New graduates from universities are not experienced or trained to assume management responsibility. At the same time, owing to their status when employed, they cannot be placed as floor workers in the plants. They are therefore developed under the long-range company plan and are usually assigned to a number of staff and administrative posts by the periodic transfer program. In this job-rotation program, selected white-collar employees are moved from one section to another every two or three years (three to four years in some companies). The program gives the employees an opportunity to become skilled in the various functions of the organization and to broaden their proficiency.
Japanese management shies away from creating specialists. In the lifetime employment system, specialists offer no flexibility to the organization and are usually kept to a minimum. Even in the plants, skilled workers are occasionally transferred within the various plant operations to learn new production skills. Traditionally, management has tended to create multipurpose generalists who can be at the company's disposal if any organizational change should be required to meet current economic conditions. By reshuffling these "utility players," Japanese industries have successfully reorganized the production lines and sales forces to overcome the two oil crises of the past.
In the vertical organization, everybody tries to move upward on the escalator and become kacho (section chief) or bucho (department head). The society pays much more respect to the title of cho, which means a man in charge of others, than to the tide of a specific profession, like senior engineer or market researcher. Naturally, everyone wishes to train himself in the skills of various posts and have broad capabilities commensurate with a cho position. Thus the periodic transfer system meets the needs of both management and employees.
Each company has its own policy on transfers. In addition, employees themselves may request a transfer through the self-notification system. Annually or semiannually, every employee is given a chance to express his desire for career development on the self-notification form and to submit it to his designated chief. The chief and the subordinate discuss the matter in a counsel interview and examine possibilities for the employee's future development. The employee might express a desire to stay in the same section and keep on the same course. In any case, the transfer proposal will be presented to the personnel department for consideration.
Perhaps the greatest significance of the periodic transfer program is that it counterbalances the lifetime employment and seniority systems of Japanese organizations. If employees of one section or department were to stay with the same group for 30 years or more in the rigid hierarchy, they would almost certainly become bored and discouraged by their jobs. Morale would stagnate and conflicts might arise to destroy efficiency. Workers definitely need a change periodically. Misplacements, grievances, and interpersonal conflicts are all alleviated by the periodic transfer system. Some people are promoted. Others may be transferred. For some employees it is a mere horizontal transfer; for others, a demotion. The exact nature of the transfer is never clearly announced, but it becomes obvious sooner or later to everyone. These transfers usually take place in April—the season for personnel administration in Japan.
Most of the large and medium-size firms follow this system. Only a few of them transfer employees, out of necessity, other than periodically. The small firms do not have enough posts to rotate employees and do so only occasionally. All in all, the quality of employees is well corralled and balanced by this system.
Balance-Keeping Appraisal
In accordance with the seniority-based pay scales, everybody gets an increase in pay automatically each year. Since employees are grouped as members of an "annual class," their positions are also pushed up each year with the entry of new workers. There is little competition across age or status lines. In principle, a subordinate cannot leapfrog an incompetent superior, and the superior has no fear of challenge from an able and ambitious subordinate.