[Jjinbit] Working Mom Achieves 'Well-being' with NTT's Remote Work

Editor's Note[Jjinbit] is a shortened form of 'Jeong Hyunjin's Business Trend' and 'Real Business Trend,' a segment that showcases trends in changes in work.

"Remote work leads to employees' realization of ‘well-being.’ The proportion of employees who had to shorten their working hours from the standard 7 hours and 30 minutes per day to 4 to 6 hours due to childcare issues has been reduced by half."

Kyoko Yamamoto, General Affairs Director of Japan's NTT Group, said this in a recent interview about the achievements since making remote work the company's basic working system in 2021. What was most impressive was her definition of ‘well-being.’ It is "a state where an employee is happy, filled with fulfillment or satisfaction." She explained, "With increased flexibility, employees from diverse backgrounds can work freely, experience growth through work, and feel more fulfilled in life including work, which supports the realization of well-being." It means going beyond simply ‘living well’ to feeling growth and fulfillment at work.

In contrast, when domestic working moms reflect on whether they are living a well-being life, the reality is close to mere survival. As soon as daycare opens, they hurriedly leave their children there. Upon arriving at work, they rush to finish their tasks on time without even catching their breath, and the day quickly passes. Even if they attend company dinners, they only briefly join the first round before heading home. Childcare starts again, and the backlog of housework never ends. If their child gets sick, they cannot find a place to leave them, leading to a complete ‘mental breakdown.’

More often than not, they feel their own inadequacy and guilt. Although they receive consideration from supervisors and colleagues at work, they feel thankful yet apologetic and self-conscious. On anonymous online communities for workers, pleas from working moms pour in. Cries like "I don’t want to burden my team, so I can’t show that I’m sick" and "Is wanting to succeed too much to ask for?" never cease.

The greatest advantage of NTT’s flexible work system reform lies in alleviating the ‘guilt’ of parents raising children. It is not about someone’s consideration but about the company’s system allowing employees to proactively decide their working hours and locations, freely choose, and fulfill their responsibilities without feeling guilty toward colleagues. This is expected to improve job performance and increase job satisfaction, creating a virtuous cycle within the company.

Domestic companies are also rolling out various welfare policies to support work-family balance in line with the government’s low birthrate measures, but the reality is that many cannot even take legally guaranteed parental leave, raising questions about whether these systems are truly usable. The core issue is the difficulty in finding replacement workers, which makes employees feel self-conscious toward the company and colleagues. In Japan, a groundbreaking system has even appeared that provides ‘cheering allowances’ to colleagues to encourage the use of parental leave. There is a clear difference between being considered and having freedom of choice. It is a point worth reconsidering what employee well-being the company can guarantee and what positive effects it can have on the company.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.