Japan Inc. Is Drinking Again

By Toko Sekiguchi / Tokyo

In a private room at a posh shinjuku crab restaurant, five twentysomethings surround Noboru Koyama, 60, CEO of Tokyo cleaning company Musashino. Koyama looks at his watch--it's 8:30 p.m.--and announces that the party is moving. "O.K.," Koyama says briskly, "we'll do hotel bar, sushi, drag-queen show, hostess club, in that order." The young salarymen, who volunteered to spend Saturday night with their boss, gasp. "We're going to all?"

If you think Japan's hard-drinking business culture is as dead as a Betamax, think again. After more than a decade of austerity (not to mention sobriety) during the nation's economic slump, many Japanese companies are thriving--and they're reviving some of the customs that were hallmarks of Japan Inc. during the booming 1980s. Not only are company-sponsored drinkathons back, so too are subsidized dorms for single employees as well as corporate outings and visits to the founder's ancestral grave. "We realized that workplace communication was becoming nonexistent," explains human-resources manager Shinji Matsuyama, whose company, Alps Electric, brought together 3,000 workers for its first company-wide undokai, or mini-Olympics, in 14 years. According to Matsuyama, the shared experience of playing dodge ball and skipping rope "helped unite people under a common goal."

It's that sense of team spirit and togetherness--called soshikiryoku--that many Japanese corporations are trying to rekindle. Up to a generation ago, college grads entered companies en masse, lived together, drank together, quite often married one another and retired together. This close-knit culture, which was virtually national labor policy, was widely credited for Japan's meteoric rise. But it all ended when the country hit the skids in the 1990s. Threatened by cheap labor and more efficient business models, Japanese companies began adopting American management concepts such as merit-based pay and job competition. "The Japanese equated globalism with not just the American way of business but with rejecting their past," says Jun Ishida, CEO of Tokyo-based business consultancy Will PM. "No more drinking sessions, no more company events. Suddenly it was about the individual out for himself and only himself."

But as the economy rebounded this decade, many executives began to wonder if they had gone too far. Introducing dog-eat-dog values into corporations that continue to prize the organization over the individual generated worker dissatisfaction. Trying to rebuild loyalty and decrease turnover, companies like Canon, Kintetsu and Fujitsu have altered or scrapped performance-based pay and reinstated seniority as a determinant of salaries. Trading house Mitsui last year reopened five dorms for single employees--at a cost of nearly $1 million annually. "We're hoping that group residence will nurture communication and interpersonal skills in our new young hires," says Mitsui human-resources development manager Hitoshi Takiguchi.

Employees have responded enthusiastically. Miki Masegi, 24, moved from her parents' house in central Tokyo to live with 105 female co-workers, despite the cramped conditions and shared bathrooms. Though her commuting time doubled, she says the move was worth it. "It really helps to have people around who you can talk to about your problems," says Masegi.

Companies are trying to foster camaraderie in other ways as well. Every new employee of Tokyo p.r. firm Bilcom, for example, must spend a weekend making a three-minute digital slide show that shares a most moving personal experience. One worker revealed how 9/11 changed his career outlook; another talked about how she drew strength from a gay classmate who came out in college. President Shigeru Ota says the presentations are designed to "create a new type of family company [by] sharing life history ... delight, anger, sorrow and pleasure."

Despite such experiments, Japanese firms may find it hard to restore the glory days. That's because today 1 in 3 Japanese workers is part-time; younger employees in particular tend to value mobility over job security. Indeed, during Koyama's Saturday-night drinking session, employee Eri Shimoda confides that his co-workers "feel like family." Yet most of those who attend the party say that, warm and fuzzy sentiment aside, they plan to leave within a few years. "Work is just work," says one of them. No amount of free sake, it seems, can convince today's young salarymen that their loyalty can be purchased on the company tab.

with reporting by Erika Hirokawa / Tokyo