I’m not talking about lunch break but regular break, I’m supposed to to have 2 breaks but it’s so busy that I take only one break but if I’m not paid then I should take it anyway. Thank you
If you are too busy at work to be able to take mandated breaks. I.e. you are unable to complete the tasks and the preparation needed to do those tasks within your compensated time frame, I recommend the following:
1) assess if you are managing your time appropriately. I don’t intend for this to be victim blaming. Rather it’s to protect yourself from potential rebuttals from management. I had a coworker who was constantly taking on tasks outside of their job scope. For example, they were voluntarily taking on extracurricular company initiatives like organizing a coffee club and tasks for other people outside of their direct reports without buy in from their team lead as well as us the rest of the team. These are certainly value add activities but they are voluntary opt ins. This resulted in them not being able to meet on their primary deliverables by which they are evaluated for performance reviews. We were skeptical whether they had a leg to stand on before talking to the our team lead. This was then given to them as a feedback point. Time management and managing ambition with capacity is an important skill in a professional setting. It also makes it difficult for your team lead to manage you properly or know if things are slipping through the cracks but are being hidden when someone takes care of them.
2) work with your manager to assess if your assigned scope is too broad for one person to reasonably handle. Left unchecked this could be an oversight by management and they could be ignoring the warning signs that would result into burnout of an employee. An oversight that could cost the company legal trouble with the labour bureau, the loss of an employee causing issues in productivity, delays on delivery, recruitment cost, and team morale. It’s extra bonus points if you can work together with your manager to identify areas of process improvement, gather data points, and pitch to them solutions on how to address these. If you help them and the team perform better it can open up opportunities for you, save the company money on manpower costs and could driving more value to the customer.
I will end on the note that yes I am well aware that there are many dubious companies here in Japan as are abroad. I have worked for a company myself where I felt that there was a sense of expendability in their staff. Fortunately that company is no longer around and one of the nails in their coffin was around their disingenuous policies for their employees and contractors. However I also believe that there are some skills that you can practice in order to improve your situation where you work or at least triage it until you can move in to another place.
No. I have a 45 min lunch break and 15 min break at 3pm (total 1h), and I am paid for 8 hours work (9am – 6pm minus 1hr).
I am free all school summer and winter vacations, all paid, no deductions 😎.
8 comments
[deleted]
I’m paid salary, so yeah
Working during your breaks is voluntary
Yup
I am not. But I can do whatever I want on my break, [even eat ice cream](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/hdp0iq/most_facetious_callouts_at_work/).
I’ve included some resources you may want to peruse.
[Here is some guidelines on breaks for working hours](https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/invest/setting_up/section4/page5.html)
[More resources](https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/tokyo-foreigner/english/seekers_1/spec/spec_1c.html)
If you are too busy at work to be able to take mandated breaks. I.e. you are unable to complete the tasks and the preparation needed to do those tasks within your compensated time frame, I recommend the following:
1) assess if you are managing your time appropriately. I don’t intend for this to be victim blaming. Rather it’s to protect yourself from potential rebuttals from management. I had a coworker who was constantly taking on tasks outside of their job scope. For example, they were voluntarily taking on extracurricular company initiatives like organizing a coffee club and tasks for other people outside of their direct reports without buy in from their team lead as well as us the rest of the team. These are certainly value add activities but they are voluntary opt ins. This resulted in them not being able to meet on their primary deliverables by which they are evaluated for performance reviews. We were skeptical whether they had a leg to stand on before talking to the our team lead. This was then given to them as a feedback point. Time management and managing ambition with capacity is an important skill in a professional setting. It also makes it difficult for your team lead to manage you properly or know if things are slipping through the cracks but are being hidden when someone takes care of them.
2) work with your manager to assess if your assigned scope is too broad for one person to reasonably handle. Left unchecked this could be an oversight by management and they could be ignoring the warning signs that would result into burnout of an employee. An oversight that could cost the company legal trouble with the labour bureau, the loss of an employee causing issues in productivity, delays on delivery, recruitment cost, and team morale. It’s extra bonus points if you can work together with your manager to identify areas of process improvement, gather data points, and pitch to them solutions on how to address these. If you help them and the team perform better it can open up opportunities for you, save the company money on manpower costs and could driving more value to the customer.
I will end on the note that yes I am well aware that there are many dubious companies here in Japan as are abroad. I have worked for a company myself where I felt that there was a sense of expendability in their staff. Fortunately that company is no longer around and one of the nails in their coffin was around their disingenuous policies for their employees and contractors. However I also believe that there are some skills that you can practice in order to improve your situation where you work or at least triage it until you can move in to another place.
No. I have a 45 min lunch break and 15 min break at 3pm (total 1h), and I am paid for 8 hours work (9am – 6pm minus 1hr).
I am free all school summer and winter vacations, all paid, no deductions 😎.