Local heroes?

Japanese companies are renowned for taking a long-term view of staff development. But a Japanese supermarket chain with more than 450 outlets in 16 countries appears to be overlooking management potential among its graduate trainees from countries outside Japan.

The 27,000-employee firm's graduate training program in Japan applies to the graduate shinyushain (new recruits) who are recruited as seishain (regular employees). There are two types of seishain - the sogo shoku, or general management cadre, and jimu shoku, or clerical staff. Traditionally, the former are male graduates and the latter are female. The supermarket chain offers lifetime employment to both groups, but most female graduates quit the company when they marry or bear children. The firm therefore regards the sogo shoku as its core employees.

Before prospective new recruits in Japan join, the company regularly sends them magazines and other information, to stabilize their attachment to the firm. It organizes a gasshuku (residential stay) so the new recruits can get to know each other.

The induction for the firm's male graduates in Japan begins with a nyushashiki, or entry ceremony. The company chairman delivers a shukuji, or congratulation speech. In return, a representative of the new recruits gives a touji, or response, which affirms their commitment to the firm. The ceremony concludes by the singing of the company song, the chanting of company slogans and banzai, the Japanese cheers.

The company's core induction program takes the form of a month-long gasshuku. An hour-long physical exercise program begins the daily routine. Lectures on company history, its accounting system, business manner, company philosophy and company religion make up the morning sessions. Group work, practical work and visits take place in the afternoons. Each evening, recruits write a report on the day's activities.

At the closing ceremony, the president makes a speech and proposes formal toasts (in Japan, drinking together symbolizes a relationship being sealed). The company song is sung, a traditional banzai is chanted and group photographs are taken.

New entrants are then assigned to different departments of the same store for an 11-month jisshuu (practical training). All the recruits stay in the same company dormitory. This further promotes the bond between the douhai (same-year cohorts), who will become important jinmyoku (human network and connections) in the future. During the jisshuu period, each trainee is assigned to a kacho (section head) mentor, to learn the store's operating skills and knowledge, problem-solving techniques and organizational culture.

Three months after the induction, a follow-up session is held to check progress and set new targets. This is again conducted as a gasshuku, to further reinforce group identity.

The new recruits are given progressively more difficult tasks, requiring much overtime. Their performance is constantly monitored. In return, they understand that their hard work will be rewarded by long-term career advancement within the company.

The firm's female Japanese graduates attend an induction course separately from the males. The women's training is shorter. It is largely concerned with etiquette and manners, with some technical training directly related to work routine. The training program offered to the company's Hong Kong graduates resembles that given to its female graduates in Japan.

While new recruits in Japan are recruited a year in advance, those in Hong Kong are recruited three months before entry ceremony. No preentry activities takes place. A simplified entry ceremony is followed by a one-month intensive course which takes place at the company training center, rather than at a gasshuku. There are more lectures and less group activity. Trainees then have a three-month assignment at a store, before being allocated junior supervisory jobs. There are no follow-ups sessions. The Hong Kong recruits, unlike their Japanese counterparts, work their way up the organization like other local employees.

The training budget allocated to each graduate recruit in Japan is four times that set aside for other Japanese staff. The training budget for each Hong Kong graduate is one tenth that of the Japanese male graduate recruits.

The company's graduate training in Japan seeks to develop teamwork, indoctrinate the new recruits with the corporate culture and adjust their behavior to suit membership of the firm. These are long-term aims. Training in Hong Kong aims to provide ad hoc solutions to some immediate problems facing the company. In particular, the program aims to provide enough graduate recruits to replace Japanese non-graduates sent to work in Hong Kong following the company's rapid expansion there in the early 1990s. The firm hopes also to build up its image in Hong Kong through the graduate training program.

In Japan, the line staff, in particular kacho, are responsible for organizing and conducting the graduate training program. Reports written by the trainees are submitted directly to the kacho, who are mentors for the new recruits. Senior executives and the personnel department take part in the program. Trainees build up relationships with their mentors during their first three years of training, when their future development and career prospects are determined. In Hong Kong, however, the training department is in charge of the training program. Trainees submit their reports to their trainers who are not, however, their mentors.

Graduate recruits in Japan formally become the management cadres who will be promoted by seniority until they reach the kacho level. They can therefore learn without fear of committing mistakes which will harm their career prospects. Trainers enjoy lifetime employment and seniority based pay and promotion. They therefore do not fear being replaced by their trainees in the future, and do not hesitate to impart theri skill and knowledge.

The Hong Kong graduates, in contrast, are often better qualified than their trainers. This fosters a competitive atmosphere between trainers and trainees. Cultural differences mean that the Hong Kong trainees are more likely than are their Japanese counterparts to raise and discuss management problems in group discussion and reports. But Japanese management is unused to handling trainees' negative comments and sometimes fears they will affect the company's harmonious working relationships.

The supermarket group's Hong Kong trainees appear to be getting a raw deal. It is hardly surprising, then, that Hong Kong graduate recruits do not stay as long with the company than their Japanese counterparts. The company's loss may be its rivals' gain. No firm can afford to overlook talent simply on the basis of country of origin.

This is a precis of an article entitled "Organizational learning through graduate training programmes: a comparison between Japan and Hong Kong in a Japanese organization," which was originally published in the Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol.20 No.5, 1996, pp. 13-19. The author was May M.L. Wong, of Lingnan College, Hong Kong.