We interviewed Mr. Masaya Taniguchi, Director and in charge of the Engineering and Manufacturing Departments, and Mr. Yuji Yamamoto from the Administration Department.
Could you tell us why you started working on recruiting foreign personnel
Mr. Taniguchi: It is because it has become difficult to recruit Japanese students in the science and engineering fields. We used to be able to interview about 10 people a year every year, but in the past few years, the number of applicants has suddenly decreased.
Mr. Yamamoto: At the 2019 company information session, there were no Japanese engineering students attending. Even though we increased our budget to attract applicants, hiring Japanese students is still difficult. Since we could not increase the number of applications from Japanese students, we started hiring foreign personnel in the technical department in 2017.
Mr. Taniguchi: We have been aware of hiring foreign personnel for 5 to 6 years, and we actually interviewed some foreign students. Although they were able to speak Japanese to some extent, I still hesitated because I sometimes had to converse with them in English, and I was also perplexed by the fact that I could not easily evaluate their skill level. However, as I mentioned earlier, we were finally unable to hire Japanese students, and we decided to start recruiting at a critical juncture.
What did you do first when you started recruiting foreign personnel?
Mr. Yamamoto: At first, we did not have any know-how at all, so we had a meeting with a company that provides support for recruiting foreign personnel and narrowed down our target. We thought that countries and regions that are familiar with Japan might be more receptive, so we targeted Taiwan and participated in joint interviews held in Taiwan. We offered job offers to 4 people in both 2017 and 2018, 2 declined, and 2 people actually joined our company. We now have a total of 4 Taiwanese employees working with us.
What are some of the differences between hiring Japanese and foreign personnel?
Mr. Taniguchi: I feel that the biggest difference is that we cannot evaluate them in the same way we interview Japanese students. In the first place, we do not know their academic ability at the document screening stage. Even if we hear that they have a good university, we cannot determine what level they are at. after working with the two people we hired in 2017 for about a year, we are just now beginning to understand, “This is the level of this university.
During interviews, we have an interpreter for conversation, but because of the difference in customs between Japan and Taiwan, the traditional standard questions often cannot be applied. For example, when I ask about club activities during their school days, while Japanese people will come up with some episodes, Taiwanese people do not seem to have any club activities and do not come up at all. It is hard to imagine how they spent their high school and college years. I was also surprised that when I asked them what they would like to be in five years’ time, they replied, “I don’t know.
In the end, we decided that we would hire someone as long as we didn’t get a bad feeling about their personality, and we also thoroughly pursued what the candidate liked to do and what appealed to them in order to confirm their background. For example, if someone says they like assembling PCs, we ask detailed questions about how and why they like to do it, how much it costs, what OS is installed, and so on. I believe that people who can answer these questions are the type of people who can get into things. This is a necessary quality for engineers, and in the case of a small company like us, a group of people with strong personalities will be more distinctive, so we want to hire people who are geeky regardless of nationality.
Mr. Yamamoto: After hiring foreign personnel twice, the thing I pay the most attention to is “whether the job description matches what the person wants to do. In fact, there was a case in which a student who had received a job offer from a major company chose our company because “it is the kind of work I want to do. In the case of major companies, I think it is difficult to clearly communicate job assignments and job descriptions before entering the company. However, at our company, for example, we are able to provide information about their tasks in detail, such as whether the design work involves parts or equipment. It is said that job-based hiring is common overseas, and we are hiring in that direction as well.
Mr. Taniguchi：Major Japanese companies are also getting out of the old employment system, but only “gradually”. In this respect, our company adapts quickly, so we do not expect foreign employees to work until retirement. We want them to work for at least three years, but if they are lucky enough to find a match with our company and stay with us for five or ten years, we will be lucky. If they express a desire to return to their home country to start a business in the future, we tell them, “If that is the case, you can learn Japanese technology at our company and then return home.” This is how we approach the hiring of foreign personnel. I think it is tough for large companies to adopt this stance in hiring, so I think it differentiates us from other companies.
Mr. Yamamoto: At the interview, I want to confirm “how long will you stay with us” rather than “do you want to work here forever? Even if it is only for five years, we let them know that we have no problem with that, so this may help reassure the candidates.
Mr. Taniguchi: We still have only four foreign employees, but when we have about 10, if half of them stay for 10 years, I think that will be enough as a return. Of course, we would like to avoid early retirement, but there is nothing we can do about this. If it is difficult to get people to stay longer, we have no choice but to assume from the outset that “this person should work hard for five years. As a result, if they stay for 6 years, they are lucky for one year. On the other hand, if we expect them to stay for 10 years, we get angry if we have high hopes for them.
At the same time, we would like to multinationalize our foreign personnel in the future. If we hire foreigners from the same country, we risk creating a group from that country, and if one person quits, all of them will quit subsequently.
How much importance do you place on Japanese language skills?
Mr. Taniguchi: We hire people who cannot speak Japanese. Before they join our company, we arrange for them to attend a local Japanese language school, and after they join our company, we support them at the school and at home through web-based learning. During interviews, we tell them, “We will follow up on their Japanese language studies, so please do the work you can do well and produce good results.
In the case of the first two we hired, one had almost mastered Japanese, and the other could not speak much. However, after a year of study, they were able to communicate in Japanese. The two we hired the following year are struggling with Japanese conversation after 10 months joining, but the two senior employees are assisting them in Chinese. So, even if someone who cannot speak Japanese at all joins the company in the future, I think we can manage with the help of existing foreign employees. In the past, there were people who said they applied for the job because they could not speak Japanese, so I think this is one of the appealing points of the company.
What kind of measures do you take to accommodate them from their countries? And What about religious support?
Mr. Yamamoto: We have asked a contractor to handle visa and government-related procedures, and HR has prepared for the house search with a corporate sales person in real estate. No special measures were required for the 4 existing employees from Taiwan, but the Indian employee who is scheduled to join us in November 2019 is a vegetarian. Although there is no vegetarian menu in the cafeteria, he said that he would bring his own food and does not need special consideration, so we have no immediate plans, but we believe that we will eventually need to make arrangements for him.
Mr. Taniguchi: Other religious accommodations will be adjusted accordingly after they join the company. If the time spent in pray is subtracted from the break time, both the employee and those around them will be satisfied, and as long as the rules are properly set and there is no unfairness to anyone, I think there would be no problem. Some of our customers leave for pray during meetings, and at some overseas exhibitions, there is a space set aside for prayers. We consider that it is natural to take this kind of action on a global scale.
Hiring foreign personnel involves costs that Japanese hiring does not, such as visas, government procedures, and Japanese language training. What are your thoughts on this point?
Mr. Taniguchi: In total, the cost of hiring is not much different. We allocate our budget to recruiting foreign personnel, which has a high degree of certainty. The best thing about hiring foreign personnel is that we are able to recruit the right number of people we want to hire. Foreign students do not have many options when they want to work in Japan. That is why there are few uncertainties of declining job offers. Currently, we are able to secure the excellent human resources we are looking for as planned. We are allocating the cost of education for Japanese language acquisition to the people we have hired. Since the total cost has not changed, we believe that this is a good effect.
Finally, please tell us about the changes that have occurred in your company as a result of hiring foreign personnel.
Mr. Taniguchi: I think it has probably changed, but I am not really sure because they have become accustomed to the company naturally. Every employees in our company is welcoming and friendly with foreign personnel. We don’t divide them into Japanese and foreigners, and I don’t think they are conscious of that either. We have just started hiring foreign personnel in the technical department, but there have been foreign personnel and naturalized Japanese citizens working in other departments, so this may have some influence.
Mr. Yamamoto: A large part of this is due to the efforts of foreign employees, and we appreciate it. For example, in the case of an employee from Taiwan who cannot speak Japanese very well, I don’t think he was always so friendly, but he actively talked to many people and try to improve Japanese. I appreciate how hard he is working.
Mr. Taniguchi: Of course, I do give attention to any inadequacies in their work, but no one complains because they are foreigners or because they cannot do the same things as Japanese people. Is it a lack of effort on their part, or a problem in teaching, or cultural differences? As long as we are good judges of where the reason for not being able to do the work lies, I don’t think it matters what country you are from.