Executive Upgrade
The need for good leadership has never been more pronounced. It impacts hiring, retention, employee engagement, and productivity. And its importance in landing complicated organizational shifts through successful change management is highly visible in the market right now. Half Managing Directors for Robert Half’s Executive Search in Japan Nick Scheele and Andrew Sipus share how to find the right leaders.
Why the right leader matters … and where to find them
Presented in partnership with Robert Half • Photos by Kayo Yamawaki
The need for good leadership has never been more pronounced. It impacts hiring, retention, employee engagement, and productivity. And its importance in landing complicated organizational shifts through successful change management is highly visible in the market right now, said Nick Scheele, managing director of Robert Half’s Executive Search division.
“What we have observed over the past several years is that many global organizations—and this includes both Japanese and foreign—have been making a concerted effort to upgrade their leadership capability,” he added.
With more than 70 years of history, plus 300 locations and some 14,000 employees around the world, Robert Half has a long and deep view of the talent market. “Simply put, we have a global network that’s unlike any other and spans nearly a century of relationships, which we can leverage,” Scheele explained.
Robert Half provides contract and permanent placement solutions for finance, accounting, technology, marketing, and HR in Japan. Protiviti, a fully owned subsidiary of Robert Half, offers internal audit, risk, business, and technology consulting solutions and we regularly partner to offer clients a full suite of services.
What powers it all is their global network. Fellow Executive Search Managing Director Andrew Sipus said this pool of diverse expertise and experience creates synergy between Japan and the United States, as well as the rest of the world, when it comes to Executive Search.
“We are experts in providing bespoke retained search advisory services for finance, accounting, technology, marketing, and HR sectors, with more than 100 Executive Search colleagues around the world who are just a phone call away,” Sipus explained. “If we look to the United States as an example, our Executive Search division received the Forbes 2022 accolade as America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firm, which is certainly a testament to the quality of relationships we have at our disposal … we can easily tap into them, their resources, and their markets to understand the latest market conditions and trends in whatever area we need to better understand.”
“Globally, Robert Half and Protiviti have been named by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation for five consecutive years as one of the best places to work for LGBTQ+ equality.”
Robert Half Japan regularly connects with peers from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region to gain the latest market insights. This helps them successfully fill difficult searches that require unique resources and expertise.
Such searches can arise as Japanese companies look to expand their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as remain competitive in areas evolving beyond traditional approaches to management.
Sipus recalls one such case.
“We scanned the market many times over and found that what our client was looking for simply didn’t exist in Japan; or, if it did, it was untouchable,” he explained. “There were no more than a handful of candidates, and even then, they had only 20–30 percent of what the client required. What that meant for us is that we had to be very creative. We had to do a lot of coaching with the client, and we had to look outside Japan. Through this rigorous process, we were able to identify Japanese talent located overseas, and the client was supportive of relocating them back to Japan.”
Nick Scheele (left) and Andrew Sipus
Robert Half has also helped companies factor DEI into their Executive Search process and consider non-traditional candidates.
“In the case of Japanese companies, we’ve shown them what other organizations are doing and how those organizations are benefiting from more inclusive practices,” explained Sipus. “This could mean highlighting impacts on engagement, creativity, employer branding, and how that leads to gains in productivity and overall business health. We can use tools such as market maps, which give a more accurate sense of the distribution of talent, to counter or confirm the assumption that there are no solutions in the market. This helps our clients identify opportunities where they can make strategic hires using DEI and relevant data sets as a consideration.”
Robert Half itself is awash in diversity. The nearly 100 employees in the Japan office represent 22 nationalities. And globally, Robert Half and Protiviti have been named by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation for five consecutive years as one of the best places to work for LGBTQ+ equality. They have also earned a perfect score on the foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, a national benchmark for US businesses’ dedication to LGBTQ+ equality in the workplace. They have also been selected for the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the fourth consecutive year, for their commitment to promoting equality, creating opportunities for women to succeed, and providing a culture that supports diversity.
Is Robert Half’s Executive Search division the right choice for you?
Scheele encourages those considering hiring leadership talent to think about the level of engagement they’d like, the level of services required, and what it is going to take to deliver the talent sought. “If you need a bespoke, dedicated project team that won’t simply present you with profiles but will manage the entire process and fully represent your interests as an extension of your talent acquisition and employer branding, then Robert Half’s Executive Search division is an ideal fit.
Stepping Up for Change
The global employment landscape has shifted dramatically during the past two years, with the coronavirus pandemic encouraging employers to be more flexible than ever in their arrangements with staff. Working from home, for example—virtually unthinkable for many companies not long ago—has quickly become perfectly acceptable and, often, expected. While Japan has, in the past, been criticized for failing to keep up with changes in the job market, there are plenty of organizations here that have embraced different approaches to work.
Companies move quickly as talent expectations evolve
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The global employment landscape has shifted dramatically during the past two years, with the coronavirus pandemic encouraging employers to be more flexible than ever in their arrangements with staff. Working from home, for example—virtually unthinkable for many companies not long ago—has quickly become perfectly acceptable and, often, expected.
Employees, for the large part, have seized upon these opportunities to improve their work–life balance, escape the drudgery of the commute, and spend more time with their families. And now that the genie is out of the bottle, it will be very difficult for many people to return to previously accepted ways of working—at least on an all-day-every-day basis.
Change Not Optional
While Japan has, in the past, been criticized for failing to keep up with changes in the job market, there are plenty of organizations here that have embraced different approaches to work. Human resources (HR) companies say they must if they want to continue to attract the best and brightest talent, with a dire shortage of candidates in many sectors giving skilled workers the luxury of choosing where they might go next.
Well before the pandemic, Japan already had been experiencing a worsening labor shortage, pointed out Bryce Conlan, president of Nagoya-based H&R Consultants K.K., which specializes in foreign staffing solutions. This shortage could be seen in a broad range of placements, from convenience store jobs to blue-collar positions to highly skilled artificial intelligence or information technology (IT) experts. The situation had been compounded by salaries significantly lower than those in the United States and even elsewhere in Asia.
“Another serious issue was the lack of innovation and flexibility in HR policies,” said Conlan. “Or, rather, a lack of willingness to change old habits and cultures, where long hours were the norm and the evaluation system was built around time spent rather than results achieved. The need to be seen to be working, rather than the need to achieve results.”
Accelerated Adaptation
There were signs of change before the pandemic. More companies had been introducing cultural and language training, and there was a new willingness to hire talent from abroad. But things have changed rapidly since the first cases of Covid-19 were reported in Japan in early 2020.
“One positive thing that has come out of the pandemic for Japan is an acceptance of the concept of remote work or working from home,” Conlan told The ACCJ Journal. “There has been more change in the way companies operate and people work over the past 24 months than over the past 10 years here in Japan. So many processes and old ways have been transformed, with things such as digital signatures now being more commonly accepted—reducing the need for faxes—and a greater reliance on email and document-sharing tools.
“This has allowed a totally new way of working and, I believe, has brought a huge increase in efficiency,” he said. “We have one client who has well over 60 IT engineers working from India, purely because they have not been able to get visas to enter Japan to come and work. They are now working full time remotely from India, something that would have been unheard of five years ago.”
Nancy Ngou, an associate partner with EY Strategy and Consulting Co., Ltd., shared that the pandemic has hastened changes that already had been taking place at some companies. These include:
- Changes to develop and retain younger employees who prioritize flexibility
- Removal of barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace
- Evolving workplace cultures to embrace change (e.g., inclusion, digitalization, global mindset)
And while some previously had been hesitant to take advantage of those changes, such as flexibility—managers because they didn’t believe it was feasible and employees out of fear such changes would negatively impact their careers—these perceptions began to erode when people were forced to work remotely, she said.
“Businesses are stepping up implementation of their globalization and digitalization strategies, and employees’ expectations of their work have changed,” she explained. “Employees have had time to reflect on their personal priorities and reevaluate expectations. They feel more emboldened to leave what they viewed as simply a job they did, for a more purposeful career or a job they want to do. Employees—and not just the younger generation or working parents—are seeking sustained flexibility, purpose, and balance.
“Both the business and employee factors are forcing an acceleration of many changes HR leaders sought before, but with the added focus on employee retention and recruiting,” she added.
Embrace Empowerment
The pandemic has, nevertheless, compounded what was already a candidate-short market, according to Charles Breen, associate director of recruitment company SThree K.K., which specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—or STEM—fields.
“Employees have always wanted interesting and challenging work with growth opportunities, but that’s something I see people focusing on more nowadays,” he explained. “With innovation happening faster across all forms of technology—whether that is engineering, IT, or biotechnology—leaders in their field want to work on cutting-edge projects.
“Work–life balance has shifted in definition for progressive companies, including my own,” he added. “With employees having more autonomy when it comes to scheduling their work, they can better engage more fully in all aspects of their lives. Companies that embrace this empowerment will attract the top talent in their field.”
Pay is as important as before and has not lost its relevance in the hiring process, Breen said. “But for the best employees, the company’s offering must go much further than just money. Top talent looks at potential growth, for the individual as well as the company, and whether their own values are aligned with those of that employer.”
Once in a company, every employee has a “different set of needs and values,” Breen added, noting that it us up to the employer to support those goals. But, he cautions, gimmicks such as beanbags and free food in the office are not very high on a potential new hire’s list of priorities.
Hire and Retain
Sean Lindley, business operations manager for Titan Consulting K.K., said the job market globally has become even tighter, as many of the best workers in their fields are already employed, are happy in their positions, and are not looking for a new job. The challenge for managers, therefore, is making sure that the person remains with the company.
“It is very clear from our experience that any company in Japan, when presented with a strong candidate, really should grab him or her, because the shortage of talent is so acute that any hesitation means that person will be gone,” he shared. “An employer needs to be agile and recognize the best people. That is where a trusted human resources partner is critical.”
Once aboard, an employee who feels valued, who knows that the company is growing and moving in the right direction, and who has “regular, meaningful conversations” with managers “about where his or her career is going,” is less likely to be looking to move, he added.
“The little things about a company’s culture and values make a big difference,” Lindley remarked. “People leave for reasons that we call the two Cs: compensation and culture. Compensation is easy to deal with, but it’s very important that a company work hard to ensure a good workplace culture.”
Driving D&I
There is also an increasing emphasis on diversity and inclusion (D&I) in hiring, said Sophia Plessier, business development manager for the company. In focus are concerns such as ensuring gender equality in the workplace, paternity leave, time off for people caring for elderly relatives, support for families or dependents, and identical opportunities for staff, regardless of race, religion, cultural background, or sexual orientation.
Titan Consulting recently launched a new service—its Spotlight Package—designed specifically to meet the growing demand for more women in senior management positions. New legislation in the United States mandates that 30 percent of a board be made up of women. Companies that have let diversity slide are now desperately seeking capable candidates, Plessier noted.
“The Japanese government did set a target of 30 percent of managers being female by 2020, but even now it is only 8 percent,” she explained. “That is disappointing, but we do see a changing mindset and expect demand for high-quality female candidates to rise.”
H&R Consultants’ Conlan agrees that a company’s requirements can often align very closely with those of potential candidates, and this must be emphasized to attract the best talent.
“Companies want innovation and efficiency,” he said. “To compete in the global market, not just in sales but in the ability to attract and secure the right talent, companies are realizing that they need to change. This means that what they expect from their employees is changing.
“Companies are also looking for diversity in their staff: different cultures, education, and languages bring a much wider variety of innovation, ideas, and thinking.” But, he added, they will also need experts in this area to manage a new, diverse workforce.
“And employees—especially the younger generation and those with an international mindset or foreign language ability, with experience studying or working abroad—have seen how other cultures work,” he added. “They have seen the opportunities and the diversity that exists.”
No Going Back
Asked what employees expect of their company today, Conlan counted off their priorities. As well as work–life balance and development opportunities, they do not want to see a rollback of the workplace flexibility that has been a byproduct of the pandemic. They also want their employer to commit to a strong environmental, social, and governance presence, and they want talent mobility as well as flexibility, and evidence of innovation.
With all those promises in place, he said, why would a valued and valuable member of staff look for opportunities elsewhere?
Life Beyond Covid-19
Since the first case of Covid-19 was confirmed in Japan in January 2020, the world as we know it has changed in many ways—not least of which has been a transformation in how we study, work, and socialize. In light of this, The ACCJ Journal spoke to professionals in business and education, as well as soon-to-be-graduates, to learn about the challenges they’ve faced—and the solutions they’ve implemented—in a period defined by the pandemic.
Professionals, graduates, and new hires share how workplace expectations have changed
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Since the first case of Covid-19 was confirmed in Japan in January 2020, the world as we know it has changed in many ways—not least of which has been a transformation in how we study, work, and socialize.
In light of this, The ACCJ Journal spoke to professionals in business and education, as well as soon-to-be-graduates, to learn about the challenges they’ve faced—and the solutions they’ve implemented—in a period defined by the pandemic.
They said work and study will not return to pre-pandemic methods, and agreed that employees and students in the so-called new normal era have different expectations than before about the future of work and education.
Flexibility Is Expected
For universities, the pandemic has led to changes in how they deliver courses and engage with students.
Matthew Wilson, dean of Temple University, Japan Campus, said that before the pandemic “remote work was not an option,” because all instruction was carried out in person. That has changed. Nationwide, social distancing rules encourage online instruction. In some cases, at Temple, teaching has been conducted from offices repurposed for remote lecturing, with some students—especially those overseas—being restricted to remote participation.
How has the university implemented the new rules? They began by identifying which departments could work remotely and which were better suited to on-campus work.
They settled on a hybrid strategic plan according to which some staff and faculty work from home while others remain on campus, depending on the needs of particular departments. Students have been studying exclusively from home, while others have been in the classroom.
Remote study, Wilson added, has been particularly challenging for the 1,400 students on the campus, all of whom suddenly were faced—for the first time—with having to learn online.
Looking back, he acknowledges that things will not completely return to pre-Covid-19 ways. “We realized how, in this environment, stability is key, and flexibility has almost become an expectation.”
Foreign Engagement
Like Wilson, Stephen Zurcher, dean of the Asian studies program at Kansai Gaidai University, faced severe challenges when Covid-19 hit. In his case, that meant facilitating hundreds of study-abroad students at the university on semester- or year-long programs.
Following a schedule common at institutions outside Japan, Kansai Gaidai University had started its winter semester when nationwide calls for remote work and teaching began in early 2020.
At that time, the university had only a handful of days to transition to online—and mostly remote—instruction, Zurcher recalled. By the next semester, when their foreign students had left Japan, instruction became fully remote.
One challenge was how to instruct students who were living across different time zones. To this end, some courses were delivered in real time while others were pre-recorded and made available on demand.
In hindsight, Kansai Gaidai University was ahead of the online learning curve: before the pandemic, they had incorporated remote instruction and study in collaboration with partner universities under a program called Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), a cross-border learning initiative involving institutions, faculty, and students.
“I don’t know how, but in the end, it all worked out,” Zurcher said. “We did a mid-semester survey of the students and, to my great surprise, the ratings of the classes and their interactions with the professors had jumped 15 points.”
While students, naturally, would have preferred in-person classes on campus, by some measures, student engagement with instructors had increased, he added, as had their level of satisfaction with remote learning.
Serving the Underserved
Zurcher’s experience is largely shared by Tom Mason, executive director of the United States–Japan Bridging Foundation (USJBF), a non-profit that provides sponsorship to underrepresented students so that they can study in Japan for a semester or a year.
Due to pandemic-related international travel restrictions, the USJBF exchange program was put on hold for about two years. But, rather than end it, the organization began online training programs, and these became a hit with students.
“We ran a webinar series called ‘How to find Japan-related careers.’ The purpose of that was to connect students to people who not only have found jobs in Japan, but also Japan-related jobs in the United States,” Mason explained.
Between 200 and 300 undergraduates participated in each seminar, suggesting that interest in Japan had not waned, despite the pandemic and restrictions on international travel.
However, Mason admits that most participants would have preferred in-person events. And industry experts acknowledge that, although remote learning—including interactive webinars and COIL—has expanded, it can neither fully replicate nor totally replace in-person cultural exchange.
“A lot of language learning is done by observing how people speak in real life,” he said. “And then there are the accidental interactions, which don’t really occur online.”
As the pandemic abates and international travel restrictions are set to be relaxed, the USJBF has launched online recruitment initiatives for its next batch of candidates.
“In the past, what we did was send them the finances and send them abroad. But now, we are able to run pre-departure orientations, as well as networking and mentorship opportunities, online.
“And, when they are in Japan, we can deliver supplemental infrastructure programs in person. Our students are based across Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, so they’ll have networking programs in major cities—and we’re able to build that out because of remote working technologies.”
University Challenge
For students, the Covid-19 pandemic upended studying in ways previously unimagined. That was the case for Toshimasa Hatori, a fourth-year international business student and former student government vice-president at Temple University, Japan Campus.
Luckily for Hatori, he entered the university in fall 2019, just before the pandemic spread to Japan, and thus was able to enjoy some on-campus life, if only briefly.
Were there challenges when remote learning began? There were many. One was adjusting to online classes.
“Another was test-taking: the professors were concerned about plagiarism, which is a valid concern,” he explained.
And students were not really able to enjoy life on the university’s new campus, which had opened in August 2019, or use its facilities. “I was playing basketball, and I was the captain, but we couldn’t use our brand-new gym.”
Hatori recalled being a freshman. “Social gatherings were constrained; I couldn’t go to regular restaurants, nor could I hang out with my friends at a house party. We couldn’t even go to a supermarket at the outset of the pandemic.”
Without the opportunity to socialize in person, students chose, instead, to maintain friendships online via video platforms such as Zoom and the messaging app LINE.
However, this way of socializing has come at a cost. Jun Ikeda (not his real name), a fourth-year student based in Tokyo, said: “All conversations are now online, making it difficult to feel the other person’s emotions. This is especially true for people you meet for the first time.”
New Generation at Work
The so-called new normal has altered Hatori and Ikeda’s expectations of the workplace. When they start their jobs later this year, both expect hybrid options to be the norm, a change from their pre-pandemic expectations.
“Many friends of mine want a hybrid work experience,” Ikeda shared.
Despite the disruption that many students have faced during this period, some have found a silver lining in the Covid-19 cloud.
Miku Hashimoto (not her real name), a fourth-year student, told The ACCJ Journal: “I stayed in my hometown for a year with my family, thanks to the pandemic, and found that I like living in the country, where I can enjoy my hobbies and be close to family.”
Mark Davidson, director of government and external affairs at Amway Japan G.K., is sympathetic to the experience of students such as Hatori, Ikeda, and Hashimoto. Davidson’s own daughter had to navigate her university career during the pandemic.
“I have a daughter who is a university student. She did an internship in New York last summer, and it wound up being—except for two days—all online. That was not the best experience for her.”
A co-chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) Education Committee, Davidson believes that first-time hires will be challenged in new ways in a post-pandemic world. To succeed, they’ll need a diverse set of skills.
“More than ever, students will need a broad-based liberal arts background,” he predicted. “While they’ll need technical skills, more than anything else, they’ll need resilience and an analytical mindset to figure out problems—especially in this remote environment—that they may not have seen before.”
Young Professionals
But it’s not only students who have been challenged during the pandemic. Young professionals, too, have faced difficulties.
John W. Carlson III, for instance, transitioned to a new role at Novartis Japan in the summer of 2021, when the pandemic was raging. Carlson is co-chair of the ACCJ’s Young Professionals Forum (YPF) and the Healthcare Committee.
He is the new commercial partnerships lead and a senior strategic assistant at healthcare company Novartis Japan, where most of his work has been remote.
For new transplants like him, the early days in a company can be the most challenging. “Orientation is actually the hardest part, because you have to get people engaged with the company,” he explained.
“And the big challenge is not working within a department, but working collaboratively with colleagues—whom you would have met if you were working in the office—in other departments.”
Due to the pandemic, Novartis Japan began a redesign of the office, complete with remote-work technology which facilitates hybrid workstyles, according to Carlson.
“Essentially, employees get to choose which workstyle or format they wish to use.”
While the final redesign is yet to be seen, the expectation is that employees will split their work between office and remote locations.
“The office has become a place for collaboration, which requires more in-person work, while individual tasks, such as writing and analysis, lend themselves very well to remote work,” Carlson added.
In-Person, Remote, Hybrid
Despite the advent of new workstyles, challenges remain for young professionals. As many of them do not have a developed social network, feelings of isolation are common, as was the case with the students above.
“Mid-career professionals tend to have a house, children, family, and are more engaged with the business community, whereas young professionals are cut off from their university and have a relatively narrow network,” Carlson explained.
As a result, some young professionals in the YPF have had their health—in particular their mental health—adversely affected. It is a goal of the YPF to mitigate such isolation via in-person or hybrid networking events.
That said, Carlson recognizes that some young professionals have thrived under the prevailing online networking events held by the YPF.
Co-chair Anna Kimuro agrees.
Speaking personally, Kimuro, who is a client leader at IBM Japan, noted that remote work has allowed more young professionals than before to join online YPF events. One reason for the increase is that being remote negates the need to commute to a physical venue, leading to more time—and more opportunity—to participate remotely.
In a recent online event, members discussed how to expand their network informally within the ACCJ. One suggestion was to hold speed dating-style networking games where committee members meet chamber leaders.
But with the pandemic potentially waning, there has been a growing clamor for in-person events—or, at least, multichannel, hybrid ones—Kimuro added.
The New Normal
For companies, the pandemic caused major changes to internal and external processes. At Amway Japan, for example, all recruitment shifted to online-only processes from around March 2020, explained Hiroyo Aihara, the company’s human resources director.
“Everything changed: candidate meetings, job interviews, actual onboarding, orientation meetings with division heads, even how we present our company to candidates. All went online,” Aihara said.
The transition to digital-only was not easy for staff and new hires. In-person onboarding, for instance, became a singular affair conducted during a one-off visit to the office to receive key items, such as a work computer. And even then, the visit was socially distanced.
What’s more, there was a sharp learning curve to be navigated by staff, especially mid-career professionals experiencing remote work for the first time, Aihara admitted.
Which is not to say that remote work has been a cakewalk for recruits; it has not. That’s because many of Amway Japan’s new hires are returnee Japanese, or Korean and Chinese graduates settling in Japan from overseas.
For them, remote work was a double blow. “They usually live alone and need to find an apartment in Japan,” she explained. “But then, once they were ready for work, we had to tell them, ‘Please work from home.’”
That said, the transition to remote work was made easier because, even before the pandemic began, the company already had in place flexible workstyles, including some remote work.
“We were already allowing some employees to work two days per week from home, and we had initiatives such as dress-your-own-way,” Aihara added.
Her colleague, Davidson, who is also chair of the ACCJ’s Government Relations Committee, agrees. In the future, he said, companies will have to ensure that remote work feels personalized.
A version of the proverbial water cooler—the glue that holds companies and society together—will be required to garner comradeship among colleagues and students, whether that’s in person, online, or via hybrid solutions, Davidson concluded.