Forgoing Salary? Pondering the Roles of Regular Employees in post-Quake Rakuten
With emergency meetings still under way in Rakuten, and some missing employees still unaccounted for, the short-term future of the company should surely be in the mind of every employee at the company. But just as it is important for Rakuten to help the employees (and the shop owners) in a top-down fashion, conversely, the employees, at their own individual levels, should be thinking of how best to support their own company through this massive physical and economic calamity.
As mentioned in the previous post, perhaps the biggest worry for the company at the moment is the monetary balance. Every measure of emergency handling requires funds, yet the amount of revenue flowing in would be slashed dramatically as shop owners suffer, Internet is cut, and most of the people in the country are still in too much mental stress to be conforming to the shopping is entertainment mentality that Rakuten somehow come to be a patron.
Being a services company largely dependent on interaction with clients and users, the ability of the individual employees, especially in the sales departments, have pretty much been reduced to zero and will likely to remain very so for the upcoming week. To monetarily help out the company, to be really honest, I can only think of is to forgo our monthly salary due on the 25th of this month. With more than 3,000 employees getting paid 300,000 JPY a month or more, if everyone buys into the idea, the company can free up nearly a billion JPY for emergency operations.
Interestingly (and quite ironically, if you ask me), such a proposal for self-sacrifice would come right after a company measure for preventing "self-sacrifice" announced on Thursday (right before the quakes started). It was announced in Ichiba that from now on, employees will be required to log ACTUAL working time, replacing a system of set 9am-6pm system used before. In effect, such a change switch all employees from monthly to hourly wage calculations.
...which means, at least in a workaholic company like Rakuten, people are highly disappointed that they now have to go home before expensive overtime hours start kicking in and that they can no longer show up on the weekends. In fact, voices of unhappiness flew through unit meetings at Sales Development, arguing that employees should be allowed to work and "learn new knowledge for personal growth" after official work hours.
So what does this mean for the post-Quake Rakuten? Well, in terms of work hours, not much. As sales are stopped, longer work hours will not lead to greater likeliness for new shops and new revenues. But at least this episode shows that a sense of self-sacrifice for the company already exists to a certain extent around the company. The only step left to be completed is to harness that emotional attachment to the company for the company's short-term financial well-being.
Of course, money may not be the only self-sacrifice the employees can make at the moment. We should not exclude the possibility of Rakuten actually sending able-bodied employees up north to disaster zones for first-hand help with local clean-up, searches for bodies, and rebuilding. In the process of physical support, Rakuten gains the goodwill of the local people while striving to reconnect with local clients, both physically and emotionally.
As a company with a well-known baseball team near the epicenter of the disaster in Sendai, Rakuten is already late in the efforts to be a positive force in the current disaster. With Gree reportedly collecting donations from more than 200,000 users and employees and other companies making their presence felt through SNS, we as the employees really do feel that Rakuten is losing touch with the world right now...an immediate change for the better is definitely desirable and we the employees are willing to help.
As mentioned in the previous post, perhaps the biggest worry for the company at the moment is the monetary balance. Every measure of emergency handling requires funds, yet the amount of revenue flowing in would be slashed dramatically as shop owners suffer, Internet is cut, and most of the people in the country are still in too much mental stress to be conforming to the shopping is entertainment mentality that Rakuten somehow come to be a patron.
Being a services company largely dependent on interaction with clients and users, the ability of the individual employees, especially in the sales departments, have pretty much been reduced to zero and will likely to remain very so for the upcoming week. To monetarily help out the company, to be really honest, I can only think of is to forgo our monthly salary due on the 25th of this month. With more than 3,000 employees getting paid 300,000 JPY a month or more, if everyone buys into the idea, the company can free up nearly a billion JPY for emergency operations.
Interestingly (and quite ironically, if you ask me), such a proposal for self-sacrifice would come right after a company measure for preventing "self-sacrifice" announced on Thursday (right before the quakes started). It was announced in Ichiba that from now on, employees will be required to log ACTUAL working time, replacing a system of set 9am-6pm system used before. In effect, such a change switch all employees from monthly to hourly wage calculations.
...which means, at least in a workaholic company like Rakuten, people are highly disappointed that they now have to go home before expensive overtime hours start kicking in and that they can no longer show up on the weekends. In fact, voices of unhappiness flew through unit meetings at Sales Development, arguing that employees should be allowed to work and "learn new knowledge for personal growth" after official work hours.
So what does this mean for the post-Quake Rakuten? Well, in terms of work hours, not much. As sales are stopped, longer work hours will not lead to greater likeliness for new shops and new revenues. But at least this episode shows that a sense of self-sacrifice for the company already exists to a certain extent around the company. The only step left to be completed is to harness that emotional attachment to the company for the company's short-term financial well-being.
Of course, money may not be the only self-sacrifice the employees can make at the moment. We should not exclude the possibility of Rakuten actually sending able-bodied employees up north to disaster zones for first-hand help with local clean-up, searches for bodies, and rebuilding. In the process of physical support, Rakuten gains the goodwill of the local people while striving to reconnect with local clients, both physically and emotionally.
As a company with a well-known baseball team near the epicenter of the disaster in Sendai, Rakuten is already late in the efforts to be a positive force in the current disaster. With Gree reportedly collecting donations from more than 200,000 users and employees and other companies making their presence felt through SNS, we as the employees really do feel that Rakuten is losing touch with the world right now...an immediate change for the better is definitely desirable and we the employees are willing to help.
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