I’m visiting home in America for the first time since moving to Japan back in 2019. But for some reason my work is requiring me to fill out an “Overseas Travelers action schedule” which asks for all my travel details from flight number, places I’ll visit each day, ways to reach me while I’m away, places I’ll be staying, passport information, and even the time difference.
Does anyone else know about this or have to do it? Or is my work just being super nosy?
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Depends on the type of work you are in. Are you a critical role in a multi million dollar company or are you just teaching English in a storage closet sized classroom by the station?
Beyond knowing your departure and return dates, it seems incredibly intrusive. Your work rules might detail the requirement for this or it’s just something that “everyone does”. You could make up a really wacky schedule in excruciating detail just to to be aggressively compliant. Then email them a travel diary every day. Have ChatGPT create something outlandish with all sorts of banal details about going to Walmart and purchasing toiletries. Then they’ll announce the end of this requirement. Just a thought.
They probably need it in case something happens to you, for insurance purposes. If something happens to you that you didn’t mention, you can end up paying out of your own pocket.
We had to do this to allow the company to ensure we were safe in case of natural disasters. This was actually helpful when there was an earthquake and we didn’t have to search for a colleague
When I travel abroad, I have to fill out a form saying where I’ll be staying, how long, the purpose, and if there are any known sicknesses (bird flu, etc.) currently spreading there. Have to list a Japanese person as an emergency contact and get the form signed by supervisor before sending it to HR.
It might be an insurance thing or just a stupid policy. My work has something similar, but my supervisor told me not to bother fill out details other than the countries I’m going to. Give them your phone number and email address if they don’t already have it so they can contact you if needed.
Just list your flights to and from home as well as your home address and say you’re planning on being there the whole time. (If your plans change while you are away and you “forget” to tell them, too bad for them.)
This is one of those hoops that some “traditional” companies make you jump through when you want to take time off (another popular one is making you go around the office and ask everyones permission before granting you your paid leave).
IANAL but I don’t think they have any legal basis and you can just refuse. Obviously you’ll be known as the troublemaker from then on out, you have to decide if that’s something you can deal with.
I do give passports, travel date and city I stay. But that’s because they pay all the planes tickets. But previous company nope, no info at all.
There also an app for checking if we are ok.
I’ve not encountered this before.
It seems sensible to at least provide flight details and destination, in case of disaster.
They should already have your company phone number in the HRE system.
As for the list of destinations, put down:
1. Gaikoku
1. More gaikoku
1. Gaikoku, but from a different viewpoint
1. Gaikoku at night
1. Chinatown in gaikoku
1. The place in gaikoku that’s a copy of that other place in gaikoku, in gaikoku
1. And so on and so forth
Just give minor details, list your outbound flight, 1 place you’re staying and 1 city, then your return flight, and that’s all they really need.
Many companies request this just in case something happens either where you are or here in Japan. For some reason Japanese companies seem to think they are responsible for every aspect of your life and that you must be contactable at all times.
Give them as much information that you feel comfortable giving, usually flight information and where you will be roughly staying. If you always will have wifi or there will be times where you don’t.
My old company had a similar policy in that they wanted to make sure they could reach you in case of an emergency (apparently they lost some employees during the 2004 tsunami and company policy was to try to keep track of everyone everywhere in case they needed to effect a rescue effort and scramble the choppers).
HR’s advice to me when I asked them about it was when I signed up for personal leave to just put “personal” under the reason for leave and that I had no definite plans and most certainly was not going to be sunning myself on the beaches of Phuket rather than vacation or something like that and they’d assume I was just sitting at home vegetating because my life obviously revolved around work 24x7x365.
I still remember getting dinged on a performance review because I took all my PTO one year (I wish I was kidding) – explaining that that was part of my compensation just elicited teeth sucking and “you made your coworkers feel inconvenienced because they needed to work while you were being paid not to be there.”
“Yes, but, you don’t want me here.” didn’t seem to smooth the injured fee fees at all.
My company asked for that too. I gently told them that I’m going home to visit my parents and the rest isn’t their business. We understood each other and no issues arose.
What I did was making sure that those responsible of collecting this information understand that what they are doing is creepy, intrusive and makes me uncomfortable. They quickly wrapped it up. Nobody wants to be seen as the unpleasant guy.
I had to give nothing but the dates I was traveling since they already had my Line info. Not much other than that, it was pretty slack.
Just put 未定
It is none of their business. I have worked here for 18 years in 3 different corporates and have been a hiring manager. All of my work is in foreign companies and I have never heard of this. FWIW – wife works at a mega Japanese company and she doesn’t have to do this stuff either.
Around Y2K I do remember some Japanese companies being concerned about travel and particularly multiple managers travelling at the same time. Other than that I haven’t heard of this.
Either reject it, “forget to do it”, or write in the flight number and your family address and say you’ll be there the whole time.
My company has allowed us to work from our home country since late 2020 and the process changed from “let us know when you’re there” to asking us to submit a day to day “where we are” plan. It’s not that detailed but they do need our address abroad and travel dates. I think it’s in case of emergency but what they’re asking you for sounds intrusive. I’d probably give them the basic info (city, home address, phone number abroad, time difference). They do need to know the time difference if you’re planning to work, but this is easily googleable…
In today’s practical terms, it’s best to give them the basic dates, flight info and contact in country. You’d do the same with a neighbor or family member if you were going to be out of the country. It just makes sense, in case of emergencies or in case something happens to you while abroad.
That said, the original nature of this comes from long ago when traveling abroad from Japan was a really big deal and employees had to get permission to travel abroad from their employers. Heck, regular Japanese citizens couldn’t apply for passports and were barred from traveling abroad until the mid-1960s. Times have changed, although many businesses haven’t.
Nah. This is some soumou bullshit. Was never asked to do this.
As far as I can tell, (this literally happened with me) many such policies were introduced with a lot more regular frequency as a result of the covid 19 pandemic, i.e. so they know where you have been / intend to go to help with tracking if a positive test case turns up. It felt a little intrusive.
However, now that everyone is somewhat “over” covid-19, a lot of these intrusive policies have remained in the company because nobody is bothered to fix or change it — kind of like how there is still an unusually high mask wearing rate in Japan, even outdoors.
This is normal yeah I have to do one if I go abroad. But its only for emergencies.
Just print out your flight itinerary, give them one address and tell them your usual phone + email is fine. The rest of the stuff is overkill. Time different they can search for it themselves, your visiting spots might change during the holiday (none of their business if it does) and passports are extremely sensitive information for your employer to have.
Wow didn’t expect so many responses, thank you everyone! I saw a few good causes and it makes me feel less annoyed at the company so I’ll just bring it up and if they push give them bare bones answers.
“I’m going to my family’s cabin where there is no cell service and no internet access. See you in 2 weeks!”
Just ignore this bs. Otherwise you are telling them to keep doing this to other people