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Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

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Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#61

Post by throwaway2016a »

jodrellblank wrote: post #10
throwaway2016a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful My personal management policy is I get in before and leave after all my employees incase they need me and to show them that I am there for/with them (within reason - if someone is putting a really late night I may leave first). The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my…

If they get their work done they shouldn't feel guilty leaving at 5:00. If they get their work done, should they feel guilty leaving at 3:00?

Serious answer... if they really have nothing else to work on then sure. But that's obviously rare. So more realistically... if the project was early I'd actually suggest to them that if they want to take some PTO time they can.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#62

Post by chipperyman573 »

jedberg wrote: post #57
chipperyman573 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In college nobody knows if you really do pull an all nighter

Just out of curiosity, how old are you/when did you attend college? I ask because "back in the day" everyone knew. If you were a cs student in 1995, you pretty much had to work in one of the basement labs. One of the profs liked to come to the lab at 3am before a deadline and laugh at us.

I'm attending right now

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#63

Post by johansch »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #58
pgz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several people argue that working long hours will have a negative impact on productivity. For example if you look at EU countries, the ones with the economy in worse conditions are those with longer working hours (Greece, Italy).

That's such a weak correlation. Greek is in a crisis because people are working too many hours? Do you honesty believe that?

For the record:

Greece is in a crisis because of the combination of:

a) massive, pervasive tax evasion

b) insane overspending in the public sector.

Or, well, cooking the books.

Also: Knowing what I've learned about Greece the past five years I wouldn't really put much trust in government-collected data on how much they work.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#64

Post by throwaway2016a »

obstinate wrote: post #48
throwaway2016a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful My personal management policy is I get in before and leave after all my employees incase they need me and to show them that I am there for/with them (within reason - if someone is putting a really late night I may leave first). The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my…

At the company I work for, managers are encouraged to keep normal hours so as not to set a bad example for employees. Your reports may take a different message from your long work hours than you intend. "This is what it required to make it to the next level." "He's judging me when I leave." Just something to consider the next time you evaluate this decision.

While I understand that is a real risk (which is why I added my edit)... the average time someone in our company works is 45 hours with most being closer to 40 so I don't think it is having that effect.

More precisely, some people come in late (10:30 or so) and some people come in early (7AM or so)... I come in before the 7 AM people and leave after the people who came in at 10:30. But none of them work excessively. (except for me)

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#65

Post by cookiecaper »

vivekd wrote: post #5

If the Japanese are working so much that some a literally working themselves to death - why is their economy so bad? My guess is that a lot of that time is getting used up with unnecessary busy work rather than actual productive labor.

Of course. Oriental cultures place immense value on the concept of "face", that is, appearing adept, productive, and excellent in all things [0]. In the U.S., sometimes we think "it'd be a good idea to try to save face here" just as a sidenote, really. In Japan and China, "face" is a recognized thing with its own formalities and children are taught to avoid losing face even at significant personal cost. In such cultures, you can see how one guy pulling a bunch of overtime quickly escalates into forcing everyone else to do so too. This escalation is assumed so readily that this is just considered a given of the culture, as we read about in this thread.

[0] http://www.internationalman.com/articles/what-is-face-in-asi...

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#66

Post by throwaway2016a »

keithpeter wrote: post #11
throwaway2016a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful My personal management policy is I get in before and leave after all my employees incase they need me and to show them that I am there for/with them (within reason - if someone is putting a really late night I may leave first). The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my…

"If they get their work done they shouldn't feel guilty leaving at 5:00." Good for you. Do you spread this message widely? OA5[1] on a t-shirt or something? [1] Scott Adams Out at Five as an organising principle.

Or perhaps a motivational poster? ;)

No, but as I pointed out in another post. The average number of hours worked is barely more than 40 so I think people get it.

As far as "out at five" goes... we have flex hours so some people don't even get in until 10:30... if they left at 5 it would be a very short week for them.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#67

Post by prodmerc »

gragas wrote: post #31
rjeli wrote: post #16

Great blog post here recently on Japanese work culture: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ "Traditionally, salarymen (and they are, by the way, mostly men) are hired into a particular company late in university and stay at that company or its affiliates until they retire." "The employee hereby promises the company: Your first obligation, in all things, will be to your company. You will work…

>Salarymen work large amounts of overtime, although much of it is for appearance’s sake That's just stupid. It makes me wonder, though: is the work culture similar for ex-patriots working in Japan?

> Ex-patriots

Expatriates.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#68

Post by chaostheory »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #15
pgz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several people argue that working long hours will have a negative impact on productivity. For example if you look at EU countries, the ones with the economy in worse conditions are those with longer working hours (Greece, Italy).

Correlation doesn't imply causation. Maybe people are forced to work more because the economy is bad.

There's already plenty of evidence that working beyond 40 hours a week translates into a reduction in productivity. This is not some new, revolutionary insight; it's old news yet so many people and organizations ignore it at the cost of efficiency. The 40 hour work week is not just for your sake, but it's in the company's interests as well. I could be wrong but a lot of the data from was from WWII. When your country's survival is on the line, most civilians will be very motivated to work as much as possible producing municitions and war machines. Some researchers measured productivity vs work hours during this time and they found a certain point where productivity just plummets.

Unfortunately these are the only links I can find given 2 min and I don't believe that they cite WWII research:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/12/working-...

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/

https://medium.com/building-asana/work-hard-live-well-ead679...

(What I like about Dustin's post is that he mentions that you can have a boost in productivity if you work longer hours temporarily like say for two weeks. Beyond that, there's no gain in productivity and most often there's actually a net loss)

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#69

Post by throwaway2016a »

pgz wrote: post #13
throwaway2016a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Japan, leaving before the boss is distasteful My personal management policy is I get in before and leave after all my employees incase they need me and to show them that I am there for/with them (within reason - if someone is putting a really late night I may leave first). The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my…

> The idea of not leaving before the boss leaves is weird to me. I get higher pay and more stock options, why should I be leaving early when my team is working their butt's off? For two reasons: - You get higher higher pay because hopefully you are more useful to your company than the other people in your team. - You are probably forcing your team to work longer than they would if you left before them.

As I pointed out in another post. The average number of hours worked is barely more than 40 so I don't think people feel pressured. And related to that, we encourage people to use their vacation time.

Re: Dentsu CEO resigns after overworked employee commits suicide

#70

Post by prodmerc »

freehunter wrote: post #12
jodrellblank wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they get their work done they shouldn't feel guilty leaving at 5:00. If they get their work done, should they feel guilty leaving at 3:00?

My experience is, there's always more work to be done if you finish your tasks early.

Yeah, you can always do some of tomorrow's goals, and continue until you hit some more difficult problem, at which point your work in advance will let you spend more time working on that problem.

People who don't like what they do won't do this, of course.

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