[Feature: Working in the Post-Office Era] Roundtable Discussion: What Has Telework Brought to Our Work Styles?

As is well known, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way office workers work. Commuting to the workplace at a fixed time every day, which was previously taken for granted, is no longer the norm. I believe this is likely an irreversible movement, even after the pandemic ends. Today, I would like to consider the meaning of this from multiple perspectives with all of you.

First, as a major pillar, I would like to think about how we should perceive the meaning of "working remotely" in the first place. It was something we had never even considered before, but once we tried it, it turned out to be surprisingly doable. I think it means that a "post-office" reality has truly been realized, but what exactly happened there, and what has it brought about? Furthermore, is efficiency actually improving and productivity rising? Conversely, what are the things that cannot be done remotely?

As the second pillar, work-style reform has been discussed for the past few years, even before the pandemic. How has work-style reform fared as this remote way of working has progressed? Is it advancing, or has it become a negative? I would like to evaluate the current situation from that perspective and also discuss mental health issues that have emerged through telework.

As the third pillar, I want to consider what the future office environment will look like. Even if telework becomes established to some extent and we enter the post-COVID era, it is hard to imagine the office environment returning to the same state as before. If so, what is the role of the office when a certain number of people are teleworking? Within that, what are the things that truly require coming into the office and can only be done face-to-face? I believe these are the questions that will be asked.

Currently, the government is also promoting "de-hanko" (eliminating physical seals), and including such things, changes in offices, corporate organizations, and society are expected. Employment and working styles will likely change in various ways. The promotion of side jobs is another example. In this context, I believe there is a possibility that our lifestyles and values will also change significantly.

First, how should we think about the original meaning and significance of telework? Mr. Shimazu, what are your thoughts?

I think the transition to telework initially started in a fairly forced manner. There may have been parts where everyone started with a bit of difficulty. Until then, it was routine to work in the same way with the same people in the same place at the same time every day, but we had to significantly rethink our way of working.

In a situation where the traditional contact-based way of working became a non-contact way of working, individuals had to collaborate in dispersed locations while remaining autonomous. I believe we are being asked to work in a situation where steering is very difficult.

In psychology, humans have three major needs. The first is autonomy—the desire to act autonomously without being forced by others. The second is relatedness—the desire to be involved with others. How can this aspect of involvement be satisfied in a telework situation? And the third is competence—the desire to demonstrate one's abilities properly, though the flip side of that might be the desire for recognition.

Recently, I feel there are many people who want to confirm whether they are doing their jobs well. They are probably worried because they lack a sense of whether they are properly demonstrating their abilities or whether their work is being recognized by others.

Since the COVID situation began, I have been conducting a follow-up survey on the impact on mental health since around June, after the state of emergency was lifted. We have found that there are quite a bit of individual differences in the extent to which stress symptoms appear depending on the number of days spent working from home.

As for what kind of people are prone to stress symptoms, one type is those who do not usually have many opportunities to talk casually with colleagues. For these people, stress levels seem to rise as the number of days at home increases. However, for people who have relationships with colleagues they can talk to casually on a regular basis, stress levels do not rise that much even if the number of days at home increases.

It is often said lately that small talk is important, but if we look at this in more detail, I think a very critical point is whether there is someone you can casually rely on if something happens, and whether you have built such relationships in the usual workplace.

Mr. Shimazu's talk is very interesting. My specialty is leadership, but leadership has the potential to make subordinates depressed if overdone. Leadership is often discussed in a positive context, but it can be harmful if it goes too far. Management studies is basically a discipline that started from the post-Industrial Revolution idea of "work a lot and efficiently," and it is fine as long as "working" is happy for the subordinates, but burnout can occur, and various harmful effects can arise.

It has been said for a long time that mental illness does not occur much in offices where moderate small talk is possible and the atmosphere is good, as Mr. Shimazu just mentioned, and it seems this remains the same even with remote work.

From another perspective, I think Japanese companies are often designed so that individuals do not have to make very large decisions. Making decisions within a limited scope is required, but creative decision-making or large decisions like "I'll take responsibility and do it" are not very necessary, especially in large companies. Therefore, Japanese business people were originally poor at making decisions.

The reason that was acceptable was, I believe, the normalized long working hours behind it. I call this "evaluation based on time spent together." If you are together from morning till night, you can do a sort of 360-degree evaluation, right? You can evaluate someone by saying, "He's working hard until late at night," or "He failed this time, but he was working very hard, so let's give him credit for that." I think Japanese companies have functioned well until now based on such things.

However, when it becomes remote, it becomes difficult to evaluate subordinates by seeing the whole picture over a long period of time together. Remote work, after all, becomes focused on output and results. There is anxiety about whether it is good to evaluate or be evaluated solely on that output, and I think that probably leads to anxiety regarding decision-making and the accompanying approval.

The remote format offers many opportunities for women, who have often been a minority in management settings. But for now, speaking as the only person among today's members who is expanding diversity, I perceive it as the collapse of the system where "middle-aged men" evaluated each other based on the long hours they spent together.

Regarding how offices used to be, before this COVID situation started, there was a major trend toward consolidating into a single large building as a center office. It was basically the traditional style where the department manager sat by the window, with section managers nearby.

However, in the center office—the head office—people could no longer gather during the COVID pandemic because the risk of infection increased. As a result, the home became the place where people were forced to work. It was decided that people should telework from home, and the home became the workplace. In the end, telework meant that people who originally worked at the center office were forced to work elsewhere.

Currently, it seems about 30% to 50% of all employees are working via telework, but gradually, voices are rising saying that they cannot work without seeing faces. another reason is that working from home itself is very difficult in a household setting.

In other words, because homes are not equipped as offices, it has become very stressful. Moreover, whereas previously everyone worked while looking at the section manager's face, now that faces cannot be seen at all, questions arise about who is doing what and where.

Japan does not have a job-based personnel system, and while time management is in place, it is not meritocratic. So, capable people work more and more, while those who aren't stop working. When that happens, the pressure falls on the capable people, and the more they telework at home, the more stress they accumulate. The reality is that they are already being driven into highly stressful situations.

In that sense, I think the challenge for telework is exactly about reforming what the head office should be, and another is whether we can achieve a way of working where people can choose their options when working elsewhere.

I have been saying since before the pandemic that two pillars are very important: realizing diverse and flexible working styles where employees can choose how they work, and how to utilize new technology. Unless these two are aligned, work-style reform cannot move to the next stage. I believe telework is the very first step—the "Address 1, Block 1"—of that.

In other words, in many Japanese companies, forced telework began this spring in a situation where diverse and flexible work-style reform and the utilization of new technology were not being sufficiently carried out. This applies to everything from mindsets to every other aspect.

Therefore, I think a huge gap has opened up during this pandemic between companies that had advanced initiatives and those that did not.

The issue of telework is, to a considerable extent, a technological issue, and it is now quite possible to reproduce the office on a desktop. I rarely used things like Zoom before, but when I tried it, it felt almost the same as face-to-face, and my impression is that it's more doable than I thought.

If that's the case, what is it that cannot be done? It's things like small talk or wanting to ask a quick question, as Mr. Shimazu mentioned. In other words, a situation has emerged where communication that is not scheduled in advance is difficult. However, hearing about various initiatives, I also think there might be ways to handle this.

Middle-aged men, like those Mr. Takada mentioned, have a strong image of the "workplace," so they are very particular about it and cannot change their mindset. Many of them want to return to the original state as soon as possible. I think many people close to the current management layer have that kind of thinking.

As Mr. Tsuru said, the evolution of technology has been quite significant, and even Zoom has become much easier to use. It is certainly important how well one can master this, but on the other hand, if such technology evolves too much, there is a possibility that humans might conversely be dominated by technology.

Recently, when I spoke with a professor of human ecology, I wondered for a moment whether such a convenient society truly leads to happiness for humans. I think we must consider the pros and cons of technological convenience, but I certainly think it is very important that the options for working styles have expanded.

The benefit of having completely changed the mindset—from thinking that meetings could only be held face-to-face to realizing that it can be done remotely if you just do it—is truly huge.

Certainly, innovation is happening in IT right now. Innovation is initially accepted by only 10-something percent of people, so many people feel resistance. However, I personally feel that this period of transformation might not be such a bad time.

I am on sabbatical this year, so I am not attending faculty meetings, but my colleagues say they are glad that the really long faculty meetings are gone because they went online (laughs). However, it seems the senior professors couldn't stand it anymore, and it was decided to hold faculty meetings face-to-face as well starting this month.

I think this is what Mr. Tsuru was talking about—that there are many people who feel it must be the old pattern. Even in the academic world, such people often hold decision-making power. Therefore, I think the speed of reform will be slow unless theoretical armor or convenient tools emerge that are strong enough to oppose them.

I understand that situation well. Speaking from the technology base Mr. Tsuru mentioned, with the evolution of ICT, the gap between those who can master it and those who cannot—the so-called issue of ICT literacy—becomes very important.

Young people can all use ICT, of course, but elderly decision-makers cannot master it very well. Thus, there are areas where the gap widens further.

On the other hand, what was the strength of the middle-aged men? It was communication literacy that did not involve ICT. This is the world of "haragei" (non-verbal communication), where they specialize in so-called tacit communication. As soon as it comes to the point where these people have to work remotely using technology, they become vulnerable, and decision-making within the company has become very unclear.

Because young people are working separately, information also becomes dispersed and localized. After all, information must be centralized somewhere to make decisions. For management, communication literacy—reading the air while deciding face-to-face—becomes important when making decisions, but I feel that weaknesses in this area are being highlighted. That's why I think companies are also struggling immensely.

The term "tacit knowledge" was also mentioned. In Japan's membership-based employment, everyone stayed in the same place for a long time, and there were parts that were understood through "aun no kokyu" (harmonious breathing/unspoken synchronization). As Mr. Takada said, because of that, large Japanese companies built up something extremely efficient as a coordination system, where everyone thinks the same thing without it being explicitly stated.

Everyone is in the same place, "eating from the same pot." Both bosses and subordinates feel secure by seeing each other's faces. That is a very efficient system in its own right, but I think there were various things that were being left out. This COVID crisis has exposed something very fundamental about the organization and working styles of Japanese companies, and various realizations are emerging even about things we were doing unconsciously.

Next, I would like to consider this from the perspective of work-style reform, which has been discussed in recent years. How should we think about the connection between the trend of work-style reform, such as the correction of long working hours, and the challenges of working via telework? I would also like to talk a bit more about mental health issues.

I am quite positive about remote work. Our country has a history of basically not changing unless there is some kind of massive external pressure, so I hope we can change using this crisis as a catalyst.

The previous system where everyone went to the office was a rational system in that decisions could be made by seeing faces. You mentioned "aun no kokyu" just now, and in business settings, "sensing" (reading between the lines) was very important. Being able to read half a step ahead of the boss was a condition for being a businessman.

"Aun no kokyu" is about sensing what the boss wants to do next, and that is only possible because you are always together. When it becomes remote, the information processing of predicting the future based on information gained from being together becomes impossible, and conversely, I think the ability to process information you have gathered yourself and do something with it will be highly required.

In connection with working styles, until now, important information often came out after five o'clock or during overtime. This is a disadvantageous system for women with families; for people who go home at five, there is no way to access that information. I call it the "Old Boys' Network," and until now, women could not enter the networks formed by the length of time middle-aged men spent together.

However, when it becomes remote, the form of the Old Boys' Network changes, so I think this is a plus for women. Of course, looking at reality, women in non-regular employment are the first to be cut, so I certainly cannot say it is a good sign for all women, but I think there are good aspects at least for women who are career-oriented or women who intend to work hard as regular employees for a long time.

Exactly. I think the purpose of work-style reform was to increase labor productivity while shortening working hours. However, when it comes to working at home remotely, while some people are slacking off, there are also people working excessively.

Young people who continue to work alone at home with intense focus may suffer from feelings of loneliness or alienation, and that is partly unavoidable; I don't think productivity is necessarily rising. In a survey by the Japan Productivity Center, results showed that about 70% of people felt their work efficiency decreased with remote work.

Another big issue is innovation, I think. To produce the wisdom for creating new things, ideas are often born from small talk while doing various things not directly related, or through prototyping and everyone shouting together. That part is not yet possible with remote work.

Considering that, I think it is probably very difficult at this point to improve productivity through remote work alone.

I believe that ultimately something like a best mix of remote and real will be necessary. Remote is fine for preparing to innovate, but I think the work of people who are prepared gathering face-to-face and squeezing out wisdom to create something while going back and forth is still needed.

The keyword productivity also came up, and in psychology, productivity can be broadly divided into two areas. One is called in-role performance, and the other is extra-role performance.

In-role performance is whether a person can accurately perform their assigned role within a certain timeframe. Extra-role performance, as Mr. Matsuoka mentioned, is demonstrating creativity, or another important one is altruistic behavior—actions like reaching out to help someone in trouble. I think the question is how working styles like telework are affecting in-role and extra-role performance during the COVID pandemic.

In terms of in-role performance, if an organization has solid management and clear division of duties and discipline, I think people can work properly regardless of the location. However, in places where management is only vague, like "just get this done," in-role performance might drop as soon as it becomes remote work.

Then what about extra-role performance? For example, if it's something like creating something new, an environment with a bit of stimulation—often called "wai-gaya" (noisy brainstorming)—might be necessary. As for whether altruistic behavior is possible in a remote environment, I think successful companies might have established relationships where they support each other even remotely.

Another thing, work-life balance is also easy to understand from the perspective of what is called spillover or the outflow effect. This means that when workers have two domains—the work domain and the home/private domain—things like time, stress, and roles go back and forth between them.

For example, if work is very busy, working hours are carried over into the home and eat up private time. This is a negative spillover effect from work to home. There is also the opposite direction. That is when housework and childcare are very busy, and even though you are doing remote work, a child is next to you and you have to change a diaper, which eats up working hours.

We must consider these outflow effects of going back and forth between the domains of work and home/private life, and there are both positive and negative ones. When considering the productivity of remote work, I think it is important to grasp this.

What becomes important there is individual differences. The desire to clearly separate work and private life is called "segmentation preference," and for people who want to demarcate that boundary clearly, working from home might be difficult. Someone who says, "Once I step out of the company, I don't talk about work," is someone with a high preference barrier. However, people who are freelancers or doing side jobs are involved with work in some form 24 hours a day. They are people with low preference barriers.

In the follow-up survey we are currently conducting, when we asked about 1,400 people regarding segmentation preference, about 20% said "It's okay to think about work at home." About 20% said "Neither," and about 60% said "I don't want to think about it." I think the design of remote work needs to take such individual differences into account.

Productivity, innovation, and work-life balance are all very important issues.

I have been proposing the promotion of telework for quite some time. What I said then was that there are people whose productivity and concentration increase more by doing telework than in the workplace. Everyone's best place to work differs depending on the job, and conditions change from time to time, but the important thing is being able to choose that.

People who say, "My productivity actually increases most at the workplace," should work at the workplace. So an environment where everyone can choose their place of work is important, but previously, the lack of that option was a major problem. Looking at overseas research, it seems results show that productivity generally does increase when such choices are possible.

Originally, in the case of Japan, workplaces are large open rooms where it's hard to concentrate. When I remember my time in a government office, the phone was constantly ringing and I couldn't think deeply. In the end, that led to overtime.

But the separation of public and private life mentioned earlier was said to be difficult even before COVID. For example, while people raising children might think telework is good, there may be many mothers who feel they can't work because their children are there and get in the way. This is exactly the individual difference Mr. Shimazu mentioned; because everyone's situation is different, I think the big point is how they can choose.

Regarding innovation, I think in the Japanese environment, being able to concentrate in a telework-like environment actually makes it easier to innovate. But in workplaces where private offices were the norm, like in the West, it is now being emphasized in places like Silicon Valley that it is very important for everyone to gather a bit and exchange ideas while chatting.

So I realized there are various directions for how to seek innovation.

I completely agree that there are individual differences in telework. According to a law school professor, the number of divorce consultations for both men and women this year is at an all-time high. If things go wrong at home, it's not a matter of telework anymore.

People who were previously mindsetted that working equals commuting to the company, working there, and coming back might have their way of working and living disrupted and become precarious when suddenly told to "do it at home." On the other hand, some might see this as an opportunity. I think it depends very much on the person's environment and their nature.

However, considering the future, even if COVID ends, such a situation could easily happen again, so I believe it is a time for both companies and workers to brace themselves.

I also think there is a risk of other infectious diseases spreading in the future, so I believe this is a change we cannot go back from.

Our way of working has followed a single role model where one joins a single company through so-called simultaneous recruiting after graduating from university. We have been "joining a company" rather than "getting a job." In other words, belonging to a company has been the main thing, and I think the problem is that we haven't done much to build our own special areas of expertise. I feel that the era has finally come to Japan where we are required to have autonomy and polish our own abilities with the idea of independence and self-respect.

In that sense, as with the innovation mentioned earlier, I think the time has come to seriously face and think about how each individual can increase their own performance. But doing that at home is difficult. Therefore, I feel that a "third place"—a place that is neither the office nor the home—might be the answer.

Shouldn't we carry out a mindset reform to utilize our abilities while creating a new working environment from now on?

The word productivity came up earlier, but in a broader sense, the concept of "well-being" (living better) for humans might be important. Increasing productivity might, in some cases, lead to damaging one's health. For example, by working frantically at home, one might neglect lifestyle habits and increase productivity at the cost of that sacrifice.

Also, the perspective of whose productivity it is is important. When working from home, there might be a struggle for Wi-Fi signals, and prioritizing oneself might lead to a drop in a partner's productivity. I think we need to consider productivity as a system, deciding in which unit to optimize it.

One more thing, in connection with Mr. Matsuoka's talk about the third place, I think there used to be a middle ground called commuting time in the round trip between the workplace and home. It was a time and place that served as a cushion, where you could suddenly forget unpleasant things even if you were a bit tired of work.

However, in the form of "preparing dinner as soon as today's Zoom is over," the "gap" in the transition from on to off has disappeared. When that happens, it becomes easier to bring work stress directly into the home, or conversely, to bring home stress into work. There is no buffer zone in between. I thought that how to construct this buffer zone is something that will be tested from now on.

When I first started staying at home and could no longer go to my university office, I also felt that commuting time had indeed been a reset. Since my office was the most efficient place for me, I had hardly ever worked at home before.

However, as I gradually got used to it, it became a pleasure to be able to get to work immediately like Doraemon's "Anywhere Door," and I started to think how wonderful a world without commuting time is (laughs). I feel there was a transformation within myself as well.

Next, I would like to think about what the office of the future will be like. How will the workplace where everyone gathers—the physical office—change? If we think of an office based on the premise that not all employees will come, will it be made smaller, or will free-addressing (where employees can freely choose their seats) become the premise? In the first place, what do people do when they come to the office that cannot be done remotely? What are the things that can truly only be done at the company? I think these are quite difficult questions when you get down to it.

Regarding offices, various studies are being conducted by the Japan Institute of Office Studies. As I mentioned earlier, it is a fact that head offices and central offices are trending toward downsizing because they are no longer as necessary as they once were.

In fact, office vacancy rates in Tokyo are gradually rising. There is a movement to rethink the central office, and the reason for this—beyond the simple fact that fewer people are coming in—is to create structures that avoid the 'Three Cs' (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings). Our workplaces were characterized by working in extremely close proximity, so the question is how to improve this.

To create an environment where people can work while maintaining a social distance of two meters, some companies are actually increasing their floor space. In other words, unless you increase the safety of the central office and make it more attractive, no one will come. People who can work effectively at home will start asking why they need to go to the head office at all.

For example, in a large building, it is possible to allow people to experience the 'life' part of work-life balance within the office. By providing various amenities and setting up an office that feels like a living room, you create a space where people can relax, use tools and technology not available at home, and where performance is guaranteed to improve. If companies don't do this, no one will go to the office. Companies are now working hard to implement these features.

Another key is the home. When we survey remote work, we find that people often work in the living room, bring a small table into the bedroom, or use a child's room as a makeshift office. Therefore, house manufacturers and condo developers are starting to implement various features as measures for comfortable remote work. However, there are limits because some places are not sufficiently equipped with IT infrastructure.

That is where the 'third place' comes in. Coworking spaces and rental spaces have existed for a long time, and their IT equipment is perfect. Many companies used to stop employees from using them because of the infection risk from unspecified numbers of people gathering, but finally, private-room-type spaces have become available. This allows people to work in such places when, for example, things aren't going well at home.

On the other hand, there is a style of working in locations rich in nature. This is the 'workation' concept, where you can work in a place where you can also vacation. For example, working happily in the fresh air and greenery of the mountains in Karuizawa while taking a break. There is less worry about COVID-19 there, you can relax, and the IT equipment is perfect. Wakayama Prefecture has also created a workation base in Shirahama. I believe a variety of working locations are emerging now.

The issue, as Mr. Tsuru mentioned, is whether workers can choose their location. We call this Activity Based Working (ABW), which means being able to choose your own place and time to work according to the task at hand.

Japanese people haven't really had many choices until now. When they went to the office in the morning, their seats were already decided, so they never thought about where they worked. How do we engage these people in a mindset shift? Companies must tackle this from now on, and I feel that society itself is going to change.

Even if we gather at the office, I think it is very important to consider how to maintain psychological distance while keeping physical distance from colleagues. If remote work becomes the norm, I think people will only come to the office after deciding exactly who they are going to work with and what they are going to do that day. I feel that simply showing up to the office for no particular reason will likely not happen in the future.

When organizing work and setting up spaces based on that thinking, I believe we need to be conscious once again of what kind of work a person is engaged in. In other words, when classifying work by whether it imposes a cognitive load, a physical load, or an emotional load, we need to consider what kind of office is important for providing support and what kind of office is comfortable for providing release.

The topics of hot-desking and ABW came up, but from a mental health perspective, some research shows that many people find hot-desking stressful because they feel like they don't have a place where they belong. Japanese people may have a strong desire for the sense of security that comes from having a fixed place, so I think we need to consider this as well.

A person at a company using hot-desking who suffered from poor mental health said that when they arrived at the office on time, the only seat available was right in front of a boss they didn't get along with, which was distressing. To secure a seat away from the boss, they had to come to the office early, which became a source of pressure. Since people with mental health issues often struggle in the morning, this created a vicious cycle that worsened their condition. This might go against the trend of moving away from the office, but I thought we need to consider the peace of mind that comes from having a place to belong.

Speaking of belonging, for new employees, the process of entering an organization, understanding where they fit in, learning the distance between themselves and the organization, and learning the organizational culture from seniors and colleagues while finding their own position and place is crucial. This is an especially important process in Japan, which is a 'membership-based' employment society, as Mr. Matsuoka mentioned. In that sense, I think it is toughest for current new hires and university freshmen who can only do that remotely.

Now, with technologies like Virtual Reality (VR), it is becoming possible for everyone to do things together while interacting as if in a virtual world, so perhaps that kind of socialization will become possible as well.

As a scholar of organizations, I also find it hard to give up the benefits of people meeting in person to work.

I teach MBA courses using the case method, and over the decades, there have been several memorable discussions. For example, when I asked, 'How do you sense when a subordinate or junior colleague's mental health is breaking down due to a boss's excessive leadership or overwork?', someone said, 'They start to smell.' In other words, when people become mentally ill and busy, they work constantly, stop bathing, and start to smell. But this is a conversation you can only have because you are meeting in person.

Certainly, the possibilities of using technology for virtual interaction are expanding greatly, but the importance of meeting in person is still hard to discard.

Exactly. After the state of emergency, when everyone went mobile and couldn't meet people, there was a huge surge of excitement when they could finally meet again. That sensation—the feeling of finally being able to see someone and the heightening of emotions—is something I think can never be achieved on the web.

Conversely, I think the less we can meet, the more our 'human power' is being tested. The value of meeting in person is rising relatively. To be meeting virtually and yet make the other person want to meet you in real life means that person has great human power. So, you could say an era has arrived where human power is highly demanded.

I advocate for a 'Human-Centric Office'—an office that is human-centered and allows for human-oriented performance. It doesn't have to be a central office; it could be a cafe, a workation, or at home. As remote work becomes the norm, I feel that the value of real-life interaction is actually increasing.

If we drill down into what can only be done by meeting in person, the opportunity cost is so high now that people might not meet unless there is a value that matches it. As you said, I think our human power is truly being tested.

I think this is the same for topics like AI. In short, it comes down to: what exactly can only humans do, and what does it mean to be human? As technology is utilized, we are being asked those very questions.

Consequently, we may have reached a point where we essentially dismantle everything—what it means to work, what a job is, what a task is—and think about what a workplace is from there. That's why I also think this is a good opportunity to think about various things positively.

I think the generational issue is also significant. In the U.S., the millennial 'digital kids' might be the generation supporting new ways of working, but in Japan, the so-called 'baby boomer junior' generation is currently the largest group, and they will be around 50 years old in 2030, ten years from now.

They are likely a generation much more tech-savvy than mine, so I have a desire for them to create a role model for new ways of working. It's a bit like relying on others, but I expect they have the aptitude for it.

That's true. While I wouldn't go so far as to call it a generational conflict, younger people say remote work is fine, while those in their late 50s and older sometimes can't keep up with this current flow. I feel the generational gap is widening.

I feel that the younger 'smartphone generation' has developed a kind of tacit knowledge even in digital environments. I get the impression they can communicate quite well digitally without much trouble. I strongly argue that the mindset of the older generation must change, but I have the impression that is quite difficult.

Today, we were able to have various discussions not about 'the good old days,' but about how we can use this as a chance to create an even better situation. I think there are parts where we can apply positive thinking.

We should use this as a catalyst and realize that we can do it if we try. Instead of looking for reasons why we can't, we should take this opportunity to think about how we can move in a better direction. Listening to everyone's stories, I felt it is important to survive this COVID-19 crisis by viewing it as a major question posed to us. Thank you very much for today.