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Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

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Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#71

Post by quartesixte »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #48
grapeskin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the reality for big Japanese tech companies. They pay you in reputation, and reputation doesn’t transfer to other big corps since they see frequent job changes (sometimes capped at twice in a lifetime) as a red flag and won’t hire people.

If the reputation has no utility for the employee, why would the employee accept payment in the form of reputation? Is the employee oblivious to the lack of utility of reputation?

Social reputation is still big in Japan.

Reputation is also highly correlated with company stability in Japan.

Such reputation buys you things like A) easier time attracting a future spouse B) respect in certain social circles and transactions, transferrable to your partner and children (yes this is a thing) C) a network of individuals also “smart and hardworking” like you

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#72

Post by ghaff »

Arcanum-XIII wrote: post #35
thisiswrongggg wrote: post #15

Quoted post unavailable.

We could also say that you need the bay area salary to pay a colocation if you need to go into the office – that doesn’t remedy the issue. I’m losing 2 hours per day in my car (with the added pollution for it). There’s no decent solution to use public transport. At the office, I have the dubious joy of working on an open office – where I can’t focus. So my job is not great. That’s not to speak about the quality of th…

>Now, can’t we improve the situation so that everyone can choose to work the way they’re happier?

One of the issues I hear is that, at many employers who are saying "Work wherever is most effective for you," a lot of offices are ghost towns. So you may see a handful of people, you're often hoteling, and the cafeteria is scaled back. So people who want to don't really have the option of going back to a pre-pandemic office.

That said, I'm sure I'm in something of a bubble. The few times I've been driving near rush hour for some appointment, traffic has seemed to be pretty much pre-pandemic levels.

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#73

Post by pg_1234 »

quartesixte wrote: post #71
lotsofpulp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the reputation has no utility for the employee, why would the employee accept payment in the form of reputation? Is the employee oblivious to the lack of utility of reputation?

Social reputation is still big in Japan. Reputation is also highly correlated with company stability in Japan. Such reputation buys you things like A) easier time attracting a future spouse B) respect in certain social circles and transactions, transferrable to your partner and children (yes this is a thing) C) a network of individuals also “smart and hardworking” like you

F**k that, I'll take cash!

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#74

Post by chrischen »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #63
djhaskin987 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to expense your lunch breakfast dinner and rent as well? You need all those as well in order to work. If you work from home are you going to expense your electricity? Where is the line?

Yes. My employer (US fintech) gives me a daily meal stipend while working remotely, as well as covers my mobile phone, internet, and a portion to cover my home office. This excludes the annual equipment, desk, and chair stipend I receive. This was all outlined in our remote handbook provided with my offer letter.

It used to be that meals were tax deductible (which is why Google offered meals) but that got restricted. If a company offers a meal stipend how does that work? Is it just bonus compensation but ear marked for food only?

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#75

Post by toomuchtodo »

chrischen wrote: post #74
toomuchtodo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. My employer (US fintech) gives me a daily meal stipend while working remotely, as well as covers my mobile phone, internet, and a portion to cover my home office. This excludes the annual equipment, desk, and chair stipend I receive. This was all outlined in our remote handbook provided with my offer letter.

It used to be that meals were tax deductible (which is why Google offered meals) but that got restricted. If a company offers a meal stipend how does that work? Is it just bonus compensation but ear marked for food only?

Depends on the company and how they're paying it out. I've seen food services where a daily credit is issued to your service account (funded by the org), I've seen it as bonus comp, etc. Whichever mechanism is used is usually some sort of crude optimization attempt for what's best for the org and the employee with whatever services and regulatory framework they're working with (wrt to taxes).

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#76

Post by bobthepanda »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #48
grapeskin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the reality for big Japanese tech companies. They pay you in reputation, and reputation doesn’t transfer to other big corps since they see frequent job changes (sometimes capped at twice in a lifetime) as a red flag and won’t hire people.

If the reputation has no utility for the employee, why would the employee accept payment in the form of reputation? Is the employee oblivious to the lack of utility of reputation?

There's a couple of things not mentioned here.

Due to the more or less deflationary economy, Japanese wages have not increased for the better part of three decades. (Deflating prices mean that even with stagnant wages, you're still able to buy more.) Job hopping is unlikely to actually result in increased wages. (Inflation is now coming to Japan due to the general global inflation from the war in Ukraine, so that will be an interesting scenario to watch.)

Japan is a heavily reputation based society. In the way that US uses credit score to determine a lot of things, Japan uses this sort of reputation as a proxy to determine eligibility for many things. As a general example, finding in apartment in Japan requires a guarantor (essentially a cosigner who agrees to act as a fallback option in case you can't pay) and landlords want a Japanese national person or entity to do it most of the time. https://blog.gaijinpot.com/what-is-a-rental-guarantor/

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#77

Post by oblio »

DeathArrow wrote: post #40
permalac wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you work for them in Barcelona the salary is still pretty bad.

How bad is pretty bad?

I don't know about NTT, but salaries for software devs are really low in general. Think €30-40k per year. How FAANG are not leveraging such a poorly paid workforce in countries with a great climate, developed, safe, etc, I will never know.

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#78

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

grapeskin wrote: post #46
mkl95 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Southern Europe NTT is mostly a bodyshop. Their target demographic is junior engineers willing to do unpaid overtime for abysmal pay. Pretty sure remote work doesn't make a big difference.

That’s the reality for big Japanese tech companies. They pay you in reputation, and reputation doesn’t transfer to other big corps since they see frequent job changes (sometimes capped at twice in a lifetime) as a red flag and won’t hire people.

Kind of makes me wonder why there hasn't been a brain drain from Japan like there has been from elsewhere in Asia and Europe to the various tech hubs. Is the culture just too difficult to leave behind? Yes, it is a G7 country with first world living standards but expatriates from other first world countries are not rare in the tech hubs.

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#79

Post by oblio »

ehnto wrote: post #17
slimsag wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's seems a quite naive/brash take. Isn't it the case that Japanese work culture, "stay until the boss leaves", is what contributed substantially to loneliness in Japan? A lack of work-life balance? It seems to me that remote work could lessen this effect greatly. Also, you seem to be assuming it will just lead to people working from home alone. Japanese housing is notoriously small, and cafes ever-popular, it doe…

Maybe you mean suburban sprawl? Or maybe you just mean the urban area is less disjointed? Urban sprawl is exactly how I would characterize Japan, but maybe I just have the terminology wrong. It's actually one of the reasons I suspect such dense cities work so well, as the mixed zoning creates self serving blocks of commerce and residential. Like you've pointed out, it could actually make remote work a very vibrant li…

> Maybe you mean suburban sprawl? Or maybe you just mean the urban area is less disjointed? Urban sprawl is exactly how I would characterize Japan, but maybe I just have the terminology wrong.

No, he's right. Sprawl is inherently a negative term. Japan has large cities because you know, they can't put people in Manchuria (they've tried) or on the Moon, so they have to put them somewhere. So the most efficient way to house large numbers of people is in dense cities.

The US is a great example of both urban sprawl (outside downtown, American cities have town to village population densities) and suburban sprawl. The worst of both worlds, really.

Re: Japan's NTT to begin remote work as norm for 30k employees

#80

Post by ben_w »

oblio wrote: post #77
DeathArrow wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bad is pretty bad?

I don't know about NTT, but salaries for software devs are really low in general. Think €30-40k per year. How FAANG are not leveraging such a poorly paid workforce in countries with a great climate, developed, safe, etc, I will never know.

I think the sort of person FAANG wants to hire, knows how much they can get from moving and has either already relocated or found remote work.
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