Have you thought of working in Japan?
If you want to work as a full time employee, these things here might be helpful to be ready for working in a typical Japanese company.
Use Japanese / Use Keigo
Although it says “foreigners are welcome” or “Japanese skill is not necessary” on a recruiting page, they might require you to communicate in Japanese once you enter into a company. For example, in my husband’s previous job in a car- related company in Tokyo, there was no language requirements when he applied for the job but he needed to speak Japanese in internal meetings even though there were lots of foreigners working for the same company and all the Japanese people in his team could speak English.
Also, your boss would expect you to use Keigo, a polite way to say things in Japanese. You might have to say “Hai” instead of “Um” (“Yes”) or “Wakarimashita” instead of “Wakatta” (“I understood”). Some people consider that not using Keigo to elders is rude and they apply it to foreigners as well.
Do more jobs than contracted job descriptions
I think many foreigners who have worked in Japan have this experience.
In many cases, they require to do more than what is written on your contract, or it is written as “other incidental work” but that “other incidental work” is very broad.
This is because work contracts for Japanese full-time employees usually don’t have specific job descriptions for companies’ convenience so they can be relocated or transferred to different business departments or workplaces.
I believe they expect the same to foreigners too.
Work overtime
This is very depending on companies you work for, or even depending on the department you belong to. Some workplaces require you to do overtime.
I know it sounds stupid but some people think overtime work is a good thing.
If you don’t want to do unnecessary overtime, you should show it with your attitude in the very first place.
There are people who use your kindness or softness.
Also, you should be careful and make sure there is no “minashi-zangyo-dai (fixed overtime salary)” included.
If Kinashi-zangyo-dai is included in your salary, you should think that they are expecting a lot of overtime work.
Let’s say the minashi-zangyo-dai is set for 20 hours per month. You get considerations of 20 hours overtime work with your monthly base payment regardless the hours you worked overtime.
Some might think it is good that you can get extra money if you worked less than 20 hours of overtime.
In fact, lots of companies in Japan use this system and forcing employees to do overtime without paying for what they should really get.
Endings
By the time you read this section, you might of thought
“Japan’s working environment sucks!”.
Well… I want to tell you not every company is like that, but it seems there are still a lot of bad companies out there that deem their employees as just labor power.
On the other hand, there are companies that treat their employees like a family members too.
I hope you don’t get trapped in a bad one.
