Workforce

How diverse is your workplace? And how inclusive is it? While many organizations may feel prepared to answer the first question, the second often causes a bit of confusion. Isn’t it just the same question rephrased?

Rita Mitjans, ADP’s chief diversity and social responsibility officer, explains.

Diversity is the “what”; inclusion is the “how”. Diversity focuses on the makeup of your workforce—demographics such as gender, race/ethnicity, age, etc.—and inclusion is a measure of culture that enables diversity to thrive. People sometimes use these terms interchangeably, but they are quite distinctly different.

So, why is it important to focus on both diversity and inclusion? Again, Rita Mitjans:

Japan's Cabinet has approved a draft bill that would allow the entry of more foreign blue-collar workers as the country's rapidly aging population faces labor shortages.

The bill is a major revision of Japan's policy on foreign labor. The country has long resisted accepting foreign workers, except for doctors, teachers and others in highly skilled fields. The proposed legislation would create two new visa categories for foreigners employed in more than a dozen sectors facing labor shortages, such as nursing, farming, construction and services.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied that the new policy means Japan is opening its doors to immigrants, to reassure his nationalist supporters. Opponents are concerned about crime and jobs taken away from Japanese, while proponents say foreign workers are indispensable in sectors facing labor shortages.

Japan’s biggest banks are racing to adapt to changing business conditions amid the shrinking population and spread of online banking.

Many have laid out plans to downsize their workforce and massive network of branches while investing in “fintech”—technological innovation in the financial sector—to streamline their operations and make banking more convenient for their customers.

Mitsubishi UFJ plans to trim 6,000 jobs from the unit’s domestic workforce of 40,000 by the end of fiscal year 2023.

Group CEO Nobuyuki Hirano said he does not foresee layoffs but instead plans to do this “organically” by keeping the number of new hires down as staff taken on in bulk in the run-up to and during the late-1980s asset bubble economy gradually reach the age of retirement.

In a global study of IT security architecture, IT practitioners from Japan (79%) and Canada (74%) are the most concerned about millennials in the workplace posing a significant risk to security.

As the world’s first “connected” generation, millennials are hyperactive on their mobile devices, using apps and social media platforms for both personal and professional purposes. 

There are far too many stories of employees saving private information on their laptops and USBs only to have the devices stolen, leaking confidential information out into the world. Business leaders are urged to enforce strategies and policies that ensure all employees are keeping confidential company information safe.

A startup in South Korea is making headlines for only hiring staff that are aged 55 years and over.

The founder of content monitoring company EverYoung established the rule to prove the futility of age discrimination – a phenomenon that's reportedly prevalent in modern Korean corporate culture.

Employees at EverYoung monitor blog content on Korean web portal Naver and detect sensitive information on Naver Maps, as well as perform other IT tasks, including running coding classes for school students.

The Seoul startup, which has 420 seniors from a variety of career backgrounds working for it, mandates a 10-minute break for every 50 minutes of work, and staff are rostered on four-hour shifts.

Manager Kim Seong-Kyu told ChannelNews Asia that older employees have an attention to detail not as common in the younger workforce, with distracting mobile phones stored away during work time.