I’ve been working an office job in Japan for a couple of years now and one thing always caught my attention. Whenever we have company dinners where I’d expect the company to foot the bill, the employees are always made to split the bill between themselves.
These dinners are usually part of the annual departmental get-together or the end-of-year parties. All of the department-level managers participate too. Although attendance is not mandatory per se, all of the department is invited and most people go, so there’s real peer pressure to join.
Now I don’t believe my company is a “black” business, but it’s definitely a “Japanese” company in the way it thinks and does things.
I asked my supervisor one time about this and their reply was along the lines of “the company can only cover dinner expenses when there is a business reason such as a sales dinner with clients from outside the company.” So basically annual department or team-level dinners fall outside of this.
One particular weird situation arose when we had a big meeting in the Japan HQ and some key people from the overseas branches joining in person. After the meeting we had a dinner at a restaurant and the company covered the dinner for the overseas employees but not the local Japanese employees, who had to pay for the bill out of pocket!
How much each employee pays depends partially on their seniority. So for example, the bucho might pay 10,000, the kacho 8,000 and then everyone else chips in 5,000 yen.
Luckily such dinners don’t happen very often – only a couple of times a year. But it still feels weird. Back home if a company made its employees pay for such dinners out of pocket, I’m sure that nobody would even show up!
QUESTION: Is this a normal thing across Japanese companies? Or is it just my company?
27 comments
Yeah, that’s pretty normal. A lot of things that look and feel like corporate events are not, in fact, corporate events.
At the place I work at, managers (not me) get an allowance of 4000 per person in the group twice a year that can be spent on dinner/ drinking parties. Outside of that we gotta foot the bill.
The exception is if there are customers. Customer dinners are paid by the company.
What you described is normal but if you don’t feel comfortable, you have no obligation to join.
In my case. Anything that just involves employees, like 飲み会 will not be covered. 忘年会 being the exception.
As soon as there is a business reason, like customers being involved there is the possibility to let the company cover it.
My boss has paid for everything every time we’ve gone out. Even when we ordered 4000 yen steaks (per person). Didn’t expect that.
Even just the two of us, he’ll pay. Good company
I remember in one company, we had to pay like monthly dues. It paid for part of the company vacation trips, end of the year party, etc. If the company had some special guests, my boss would pay for everything.
Worked in two small Japanese companies (Real Estate, IT) never had to pay for any nomikai/bonenkai or any other company organized events.
Same for the current company (also IT, but 外資系)
I don’t drink now, and if the company wants to make me go and pay ¥6,000 for water and chicken skin, I would not want to work there.
I don’t care if I have to use my gaijin pass to get out of it, I’d rather be home alone or with real friends.
If they make it clear they are paying and the food is good, I’ll go for a bit.
If you wanted to go for a short time, you could say that you have plans with a friend about an hour in, and you can offer to pay for the items you ordered.
I think it is related to tax/accounting. It came up on some company compliance training in the past.
Dining related expenditure can’t be expensed if it’s for your own employees, only for external parties. The following is just my conjecture, but if dining related expenses could be expensed, it would be a loophole by which employees can be paid without being taxed?
If it’s a whole company dinner usually it’s covered. If it’s small department only, usually there’s quota but so far I have never paid for them out if my own pocket
I actually find it really weird when the boss wants to pay for everything. Can’t relax. Would rather pay for the nomihoudai myself even if it’s a pre-arranged amount.
If it’s actually some sort of like EVENT organized by the company, like they rent a space and throw a Christmas/end of the year party or something, and have it catered, etc. then it has been free, or there’s a small barrier to entry like you need to buy a gift worth ¥1500 or something to do a gift swap.
If it’s just going out with coworkers for a nomikai then the bill is split
My company covers pretty much everything. In fact I don’t think I’ve paid for a single dinner in the 4 years I’ve been at this company.
That being said this is kind of a remnant of the bubble era culture and is definitely becoming less and less common.
Huh, interesting. My japanese company pays for “work dinners” like bounen kai and pre covid we had annual trip/travel and the the company covers the bill.
Covid brought an end to all of the bullshit. My company has carried on the Covid tradition. No more bounenkai, shinnenkai, etc. They save money and we all save time. Before that, they paid for everything. I generally avoided them anyway.
Not sure where home is for OP but in canada i worked as a scientist at a big multibillion dollar, worldwide company. The company never paid for my dinners even when we had company organized events (which where extremely rare). I think i got a turkey for christmas once which admittedly was nice. No cafeteria in the building but there was a vending machine with 20dollar salads. Hell coffee and tea werent even free lol. OP let me be honest, you are blessed to be working in Japan whether or not the company pays for dinner (though they definitely should if they organized it imo). Most companys here will pay for a lot of other expenses (transportation for one, no company i ever worked at in canada paid for me to get to work) and give decent regular raises etc.
Usually if it’s not diplomatic events with customers then everyone shares bill. If participated bosses are generous enough, you may get treated. Then again treat is only privilege for new joiners or young fresh employees, else wise you are out of scope
Yes this actually quite normal. The only times I wasn’t asked to pay was when I came here as an Intra-company employee and the new employees’ welcome party.
Company pays for all dinners, and a nijikai (karaoke) if there is one. They fell off a lot during covid but have picked back up.
Usually either a bounenkai or shinnenkai, some welcome or farewell dinners, and a celebratory party at the end of the busy season. These are all office-wide, occasionally there are separate ones for specific teams.
We also have a huge national meeting twice a year, which has a bunch of presentation attached but also has a big dinner and most people stay overnight at the hotel. Company covers all of this.
People go out on their own sometimes, which they generally pay for themselves.
Anecdotally, my wife usually had to chip in for dinners at work, usually ~4000y.
If it’s an official dinner organized by the company like year-end celebrations, welcome parties for new employees etc. it’s all paid for by the company.
On business trips, all meals are paid for by my company. So if I have to travel to Osaka to visit a customer, the company pays for the Ramen I eat at the station.
I’ve worked for 6 companies in Japan and for monthly team level lunch/dinner (nomika
) or annual company end-of-year (bonenkai) dinners the company always covered them. The only times I’ve experienced needing to pay for dinners was when we had celebratory or thank you dinners for team members leaving etc.
I always have hated this aspect. At my first company, every work event was paid out of pocket, split evenly among everyone. It was very hard to adjust to. At my second company, it’s about half and half. The annual party and subsequent after parties have surprisingly been covered by the boss/ company.
Use ask
Mine like yours and its not a optional choice so I can refuse if I dont want to go
My take is that accounting/tax regulations became stricter in recent years but nomikai culture haven’t changed much from heisei era.
I tend to only go out with people I would consider friends who I work with. It’s been easier to do this since the Corona season, and I wonder how much side eye I’m going to get this holiday season.
After reading all the comments, I just realised my company is not as good i thought it was.
No, man this is all entitlement stuff on this forum …