I work at a Japanese company and we get no praise at all for our work. Just none. I’m not some kind of insecure baby who needs a pat on the back every five minutes but you can go for years in this office without so much as a ‘Well done’ or ‘You’ve improved’. You don’t even the blandest, simplest, most low-effort expressions of encouragement, except maybe a ‘There’s no major problem with your work’ when it’s time for your appraisal meeting.
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Some of the Japanese staff seem fine with this and others complain that it’s depressing and dispiriting, and wish they were overtly appreciated. I am told by these coworkers that our company is particularly inexpressive and depressing even by the standards of the Japanese office environment but I was wondering if anyone else has any experience that will throw light on this… Have you worked, or do you work, in an office in Japan? I don’t mean the Tokyo branch of some international or American corporation with a sizeable foreign section to its staff. I mean a Japanese company founded by Japanese people that employs almost Japanese people and you’re the only, or one of the few, foreigners there.
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Do you get any form of encouragement or praise, or are you expected to be entirely self-motivating? I have been in the same office job for ten years now, stuck because of a mortgage on a house located in a place where there are few other employment opportunities for me, and I was curious whether or not my employer was unusual. I have now sold my house and am thinking about whether to look for a job outside Japan or try and leverage my experience and language skills into something a bit more interesting in Tokyo and, therefore, am hoping for a couple of testimonials from people who have experienced Japanese corporate/office life in companies other than my own.
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Thanks a lot!!
35 comments
Your writing format is crazy
The only praise I get from my Japanese company is in the form of a paycheck and it happens once a month which isn’t bad. If I don’t feel like I get praised enough I would start looking for a new job.
Been working for 5 years now in same company. 0 praise. 😂😂. As long as I am getting paid , i dont care
There’s not really any praise in traditional Japanese companies. I do manager training and it’s something we highlight sometimes. Praise your reports when giving feedback, etc.
Have you tried talking to HR? I mean you answered your question yourself. No praise is not extraordinary, but even for Japan your office seems a bit gloom.
My first major project was met with so much praise that people in different offices somehow heard about it. Still getting compliments.
I seem to have finally lucked into a good company.
Ya it’s cuz Japanese work culture is absolute garbage. Seriously, every other country can look at Japanese work culture so they know what NOT to do. 🤦
Coincidentally, just this week I had to hand in a short report to my managers about why staff at Japanese companies are so unmotivated compared to western ones. I opened up with the ‘carrot and stick’ analogy, talking about how westerners tend to rely on praise and Japanese tend to rely on punishment. They pretty much all agreed and now keep talking about carrots and sticks in really weird contexts. Like a meeting title ‘what is a carrot?’
I do get praise sometimes just like a ‘good job!’ But it’s more like they’re petrified of me because I’m the white guy and they need to do it every now and then incase I decide to eat them???
Honestly, I have worked in Japan in a number of different companies.
So far, Japanese companies feel to have that same format. Wherein, they want you to just figure something out and think for yourself, versus them giving you any sort of recommendation or appreciation.
Personally, I find this style to be really annoying and stressful. I will grow anyway, and I don’t need the charade that you are doing here by putting obstacles in my way because you want me to grow. At best, I only ask for the necessary information in order to do my job and nothing else. Even in those cases, it is rarely given and they act like you are making their job harder.
Before, they asked me to work with their data and see what I can find. I was like, ah but with data, you need like a question or something so I will kinda know what to look for. They just stared at me, said they will get back to me with the questions. Two months later, I didn’t get the questions or the data even, and the project just fell apart. Even after I asked them multiple times. Anything that seems remotely out of their way they don’t do it. On top of that, if something isn’t in the rules and/or what they are told to do, they don’t do it.
Even if you go to a grocery store, you ask someone for something and it isn’t there, they will just kinda panick and wait for you to walk away. They won’t check the back, they won’t try to think if it is somewhere else or moved, they just go to a place and freeze. It is actually kinda crazy.
I mean you’re working to make shacho’s wallet bigger and probably your senior too never got any pat on the back so maybe following that tradition?
Well besides the gaijin works in japanese sugoi praise not much in past but currently I do get praised a lot for my skills in my new field
University. Praise is somewhat regular but only among those who teach in the same field. What’s a bit fucked is that the more traditional unis are set up like cliques where each faculty/department is practically its own school. Each faculty’s majority is specialists of that faculty’s field, with the gen ed teachers like English just along for the ride. I rarely ever see the other English teachers because they’re scattered among other faculties.
I don’t get praise as in “youre doing a good job” kinda praise but in different attitude. For example when I raised an idea/solution people go, “oh that’s clever!” or like, when people in a dip shit they go, “let’s ask what he has to say/advise” kinda situation which makes me super happy and felt appreciated.
So yeah, definitely similar to your case in terms of no explicit praise but in a different situation.
I think the bigger issue is lack of feedback in general, not just praise or encouragement.
Positive and negative feedback, when used and used correctly, help an employee know what they are doing well and what they should change.
I was in a similar position as OP in my first job here for a Japanese company. I worked for them for more than three years and never heard anything about my performance, what I could improve, etc. I brought it up once with a manager and they just looked a little confused and said there was nothing wrong with my work.
I’m sure there were things I could have improved though even if overall the work was fine. And I can’t imagine how demoralizing it was for colleagues who were just constantly criticized. If that criticism was paired with positive feedback it would be much easier to take and would lead to better employee performance. But alas, many are comfortably stuck in the old ways I suppose.
I work at a school and we praise each other all the time.
It’s great.
I couldn’t handle the stress of working in an environment with 0 praise.
Sorry the work environment isn’t more supportive where you are. I know you’re talking about overt displays of praise, but as you know “love and appreciation” displays in public may be challenging for some Japanese to express. You may try to seek it out or even model this kind of acknowledgement in indirect ways. Like praising the group effort, highlighting client satisfaction with recent outcome, or shared empathy for a really difficult time recently.
I work for a tiny japanese company (sub 25 people). Boss went to college in US. I work with japanese and foreigners about 50/50. Im in a management role and I’ve noticed I had to tailor my praise to ways my staff were receptive to it (it’s very person specific). I kind of watched how they interact with each other and took note of expressions and bids that seemed to be well received. I tried to emulate that and it seems to be working most times. Calling out excellence in public sometimes mortified people, so I learned a well timed note or pull aside was much better received.
I know you’re talking about your employer. But I find it’s unlikely I can or even should change a larger company culture. I try to control what I can directly affect. My team and the teams we work with are something I can set the tone for.
Wish you luck. I think everyone deserves to be appreciated for the effort they put in, especially in a way they find meaningful.
I’ve never understood the mentality of “your paycheck is your praise”. I know lots of people who do shit jobs and still get a paycheck.
It’s so beneficial to praise your staff. It’s not hard and only takes a few seconds. Honestly simple praise can really bring up your employees and help with retention, work ethic, and work moral.
I go to work for money. Praise and good feelings I get outside work
Positive feedback ends at elementary school, for the most part.
After that, people are expected to do their jobs and only receive recognition for major accomplishments.
Not saying that I agree with it, of course, but that is one flaw of our culture, and it isn’t likely to go away any time soon.
The “praise” you receive is the paycheck at the end of the month.
In this country, if you want to be praised then you have to pay for it (I.e. hostess clubs)
This is Asian culture in general. Even growing up in the US my Japanese grandfather never told me well done or good job. It didn’t mean he wasn’t proud of what you did he just wasn’t used to verbalizing it. Same goes for work culture in most of Asia. It would be the same in China or Korea if you worked in a company there.
My manager doesn’t praise me but my evaluation is great and my bonus is great so that’s enough for me. I don’t need the approval of an old man (except maybe my father lol)
while i get where you’re coming from, praise is nice, but being left tf alone after previous jobs with extreme micromanagement is so nice. as long as no one complains i’m happy.
Looks like this has been part of your company’s culture for many years, so it will be hard to change unless they actively try to do so by training management on how to manage people better. The change has to come from above.
You’re definitely not alone in your frustration.
I work at the team and management levels in different organizations and poor feedback loops are more often than not having a negative impact on the team’s performance.
For example:
-The team doesn’t trust that the manager knows what they’re doing so they hide problems that only the manager can fix
-The team resents the manager and talks mad shit behind their back
-The team’s growth stagnates because they never get feedback
-The team’s dynamics are polarized due to lack of trust (the team vs management)
I’ve done a lot of workshops for managers on how to give feedback because it’s a skill like anything else. Most people suck at it when they first start but that’s not a reason to not learn how to do it in my opinion.
Praise is cheap. Give me a salary raise.
Being told I am the top performer but getting peanut hurts more
I just don’t care anymore and don’t expect anything as long as I do my job. I clock in 1 minute before being late and when the work is done I don’t stay around to get communication.
If you overly invest with your emotion with your company/work/co-workers you’ll just get disappointed. So fuck those bs.
They likely still expect life long loyalty regardless.
Tell them to install an office GAL – Gaijin Abstraction Layer. The GAL’s job is to convert managements non-reprimand into full-on praise, and the Gaijin’s “it will be difficult” into “it will take some extra time and effort” when reporting back up to management.
Forget praise, just give me those Fukuzawas.
As a non-Asian I might be a bit out of my element here (though have lived in Japan for years)… isn’t this just stereotypically Asian parenting? Criticism in heaps, praise maybe once at your wedding or something. It stands to reason the workplace would be similar.
Invest in mental health futures?
What about お疲れ様でした？ because that technically means you get a “good job” every day lol
after working in a few japanese companies i learned a simple thing, dont work in a japanese company. Over 9000 improvement.
I think this is more a testament to how employers are nothing more than the humans they employ. If you were unlucky with the humans who happen to be your superiors then this is unfortunately a possibility. Either that or the company made it a specific policy not to praise their employees, which would be strange but not impossible.
German has a phrase translated roughly as “nothing criticized is praise enough”, Japan is an adherent of this too.