When Akiteru Teraoka, 37, was working as a sales manager at the Tokyo headquarters of one of Japan’s largest employment companies, Pasona Group, he would leave home at 7am. Five days a week he endured an hour’s journey on a jam-packed train. Now, since moving last October to a remote resort island 600km away, he enjoys sea views on his 10-minute drive along the coast to work, after a relaxed breakfast with his wife and two sons.
Teraoka heads a team of 110 people on Awaji island in western Japan. He still deals with his Tokyo-based clients but remotely — arranging recruitment meeting schedules, formatting CVs of job applicants and working closely with his former colleagues in the Japanese capital. “Not only can I now spend more time with my family, I can continue building my career within the company from Awaji,” he says. “I am doing tasks that I previously thought were only possible in Tokyo.”
Teraoka is one of nearly 350 Pasona employees to have moved to the island since the company made headlines in September 2020 by announcing a plan to relocate many of its headquarters’ functions there, along with 1,200 staff, by May 2024. Pasona is just one example of how Japanese companies, ranging from entertainment agencies to beer breweries to software developers, are rethinking their working patterns as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.