Tokyo's 4-day workweek, resignation by proxy, and a low status desk

Kim Minnick joins this week as we dive into three fascinating workplace trends from around the globe. We examine Tokyo's move toward a four-day workweek aimed at addressing Japan's population crisis and work-life balance challenges, while questioning why it takes demographic emergencies to implement family-friendly policies. We also explore the "resignation by proxy" phenomenon emerging in Japan's hierarchical corporate culture. Finally, we unpack a thought-provoking UK tribunal case where an estate agent successfully sued after being assigned a lower-status desk, revealing how seemingly minor workplace arrangements can significantly impact employee roles and retention. Join us as we examine these developments and their implications for the evolving modern workplace.

Connect:

Kim Minnick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-minnick/

Stacey Nordwall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceynordwall/

Articles:

Tokyo is turning to a 4-day workweek in a desperate attempt to help Japan shed its unwanted title of ‘world’s oldest population’ 

Resignation By Proxy: A New Workplace Trend Leaders Should Watch

Senior staff can sue if given ‘low status’ desk, UK tribunal rules

Transcript

Stacey Nordwall (00:00):

Welcome to Toot or Boot, where we sift through the week's HR headlines, so you don't have to. I'm Stacey Norwell, your host with about 20 years in hr, mostly building people functions from the ground up at early stage tech companies. Each week we take a light-hearted, but honest look at work place news, ting what we like, and booting what needs improvement. Joining the conversation today is the fabulous Kim Minnick. Welcome, Kim.

Kim Minnick (00:26):

Hi, welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Stacey Nordwall (00:29):

I know. I'm excited to have you on For those, obviously, Kim and I know each other, but for those of us who don't know you, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Kim Minnick (00:38):

Yeah. I am a fractional people ops leader. I'm right behind you. I've been in the people ops game a little over 15 years, leading and developing teams at early stage companies, and really excited to talk about these news articles.

Stacey Nordwall (00:52):

Fabulous. So we decided we're going to, going to go international for this episode, which I'm excited about. We're going

Kim Minnick (00:59):

To traveling abroad.

Stacey Nordwall (01:01):

We're traveling abroad. We're Mr. Worldwide. I felt like I had to do that and I shouldn't have.

Kim Minnick (01:06):

No, you should have

Stacey Nordwall (01:07):

No. Yeah. Okay.

(01:10):

So we're going to start off with an article coming to us from Fortune. The title is Tokyo is turning to a four day work week and a desperate attempt to help Japan shed its unwanted title of world's oldest population. The recap is that the Tokyo's Metro Government is going to implement a four day work week starting in April to help address Japan's record low birth rates and population crisis. The initiative aims to help employees, particularly women, balance childcare and work responsibilities because as it turns out, Japanese women currently perform five times more unpaid housework than men. This policy comes along with numerous other attempts that they've made to increase birth rates, including parental leave requirements, childcare subsidies, cash payments, and even a government sponsored dating app. So what did you think of this, Kim?

Kim Minnick (02:00):

Okay. I don't want to be on a soapbox, but first, there are other ways to solve population crises besides constructing your whole society around the idea that women need to have children. What? This article is not about immigration. They're addressing a lot of symptoms here, and I have to say, I like some of these symptomatic treatments. I like the idea of daycare benefits, cash subsidy to parents, a generous parental leave. Cool. I love the idea of a four day work week. I would say they're overworked. Let's shoot for a three day work week. Come on. But the core of the issue here is women are being asked to stay home and rear the children, and here you go, men. You get an extra day to go help, and that's not the right thing to solve.

Stacey Nordwall (02:56):

Yeah. Yeah. I think I've had a very similar thing to you. I think, what did I say to myself? Okay, I rated it a 40% toot and a 60% boot.

Kim Minnick (03:09):

Maybe

Stacey Nordwall (03:10):

I need to even adjust those a little bit. But similar to you on the toot side, I was like, great experimentation, four day work week. Yes. Daycare, childcare, subsidies, all of these things. I think that's great, particularly experiment with that to counteract this heavily work focused culture. But to your point, the boot side for me is that are we in a place where we need, a country needs to essentially face an existential crisis before they want to think about leveling the playing field and making it so that women don't have to choose between these things?

Kim Minnick (03:54):

Exactly. We're glazing over this push against immigration as a source for population crisis, and we're glazing over this. We're doing this so women can stay at home and rear more children, and it just feels like A for effort, B for problem solving. Maybe I don't know what the Japanese decision council on all of this looks like, but something tells me that a more diverse set of genders would be helpful before hearing from before making those decisions. So yeah, I was sent 42 60, no, 62, 40 boot. I do like the practices, but a big swing and a miss on the systemic issues.

Stacey Nordwall (04:44):

Yes, that's exactly, I felt the same way. It's like at first I was feeling positive about it, and then I thought about it and I'm like, wait, they're still making this women's problem basically, and they're still not actually solving the thing that they want to solve, which is probably why they keep trying these different experiments is because they're not actually solving the problem they're trying to solve

Kim Minnick (05:07):

Solving a lot of symptoms.

Stacey Nordwall (05:08):

Yes. I love the experimentation. I love the spirit of experimentation and doing good things for workers. But yeah.

Kim Minnick (05:18):

All right.

Stacey Nordwall (05:19):

Well, they're

Kim Minnick (05:21):

Trying something.

Stacey Nordwall (05:25):

So relatedly, we have another article. This is called Resignation by Proxy, A New Workplace Trend. Leaders should watch the recap of this, another one from Japan. There is a growing trend called Resignation by proxy, where employees hire agencies to essentially resign for them. The services cost a hundred to $500 and are for workers who just don't want to deal with that confrontation, the guilt, tripping the pressure to stay in those environments. So for some additional context, Japanese corporate culture really has this strict hierarchy. This is what they're saying from the article where this creates an environment where employees, especially younger ones, find it really hard to resign because they get this pressure, the guilt trips, even verbal abuse when attempting to leave. So they have this fear that they just don't want to deal with that, and so they're hiring these agencies. So what did you think? This was a real, I thought this was really fascinating.

Kim Minnick (06:34):

Fascinating. Once again, a problem is being solved, just maybe not the right. Okay. When I first read this article, it reminded me of that friends episode when Ross tried to quit the gym and he brought in his friends to help him quit the gym, and he just couldn't. And then I was like, oh, it's like that movie up in the air with George Clooney, but the opposite side of it, right? First off, I get it. If it's an abusive situation and you have to hire someone like Japan, we need to talk. But the other side of this is, I don't know, people get terminated by HR folks that they don't know pretty regularly When a company does it, it can be a very cold process if this is done well, and we're not like deep faking and accidentally terminating an employee as long as we can validate the employee did resign, this is all being taken care of. I don't know. I don't hate it.

Stacey Nordwall (07:39):

Yeah. I definitely found this fascinating. And initially I thought, because part of the question too, is this something we should watch for in the us? And to me, no, because I think the work culture is very different. Again, we have this at Will work, where essentially it's just not the same. The kind of loyalty isn't the same in terms the hierarchy. A lot of these things,

Kim Minnick (08:08):

People post their terminations on TikTok and Linkedin. That's originally what I thought this article was going towards. More of a, people are making their terminations more public, but that's more what I'm concerned about in the us. But this seems like a very, to your point, there's not the same hierarchy or commitment, I think, in the us.

Stacey Nordwall (08:30):

Yeah. So I found, I did think it was really interesting though, that people feel this level of pressure and there's this level of pushback that this is a supposed growing trend, especially when you think off the back of the thing that we just heard about going to four day work weeks, and then on the

Kim Minnick (09:01):

What's that make? It doesn't match exactly that four day work week is not solving the toxicity. That Japan wasn't just known for overworking. I think hours wise, people in the US might compete. They were known for the harshness of the environment, and I think we're just seeing that played out in a different

Stacey Nordwall (09:19):

Way. Yeah, and to your point, once again, the true problem underneath this, these are all symptoms. These are all solutions for symptoms, but not the underlying problems.

Kim Minnick (09:32):

Wild.

Stacey Nordwall (09:33):

Oh, okay. Now we have one more. This one that's coming to us from the UK from The Guardian. The title of the article was Senior Staff Can Sue If Given Low Status Desk, UK Tribunal Rules. The recap was that an estate agent successfully sued for unfair dismissal after resigning when given a middle desk instead of the manager's back desk. He viewed it as a demotion because a more junior person was moved to the back desk where all the business records and all of those things were. And it essentially meant that he was an assistant branch manager instead of a sole branch manager, which he had been at the previous two locations he was at. So the judge said, yep, the seating choice reasonably indicates a demotion and that destroyed workplace trust. What did you think about that?

Kim Minnick (10:23):

Okay, so first, when I saw this article, when I saw the headline, I was like, this is ridiculous. Is this where we're at as a society? But when I read all of it, there's some nuance here in how the boss responded. First, the employee left to go open up another office and came back to return where this senior desk was, did actually have additional records and branch management information. So you could argue that there was a demotion. And then when this guy brought it to his boss, his boss kind of made fun of him. I can't believe a grown man's talking about seating assignments. So if I'm in a country where I have employee rights, again, fascinating. And when you read through all the nuance, I don't disagree with the court. I think they were correct. I don't think it's as simple as this desk isn't the best desk. There was a lot of, there's always nuance to these things.

Stacey Nordwall (11:23):

Yeah, I felt the same thing when I first read it. I'm like, oh, I thought it was really that hierarchical thing again. And so I was prepared to be like, oh, this is so dumb. Why are we worried about where we're sitting in the office? And aren't there benefits to mixing senior leaders in with other more junior staff and all of that kind of thing. That's where my head was going. And I do think that there's some of that in there that could be explored as well, obviously. Certainly. But it wasn't about the desk. It really was about the role itself and about them not communicating that essentially it would be a different kind of role. And so I like that the dude was like, you know what? You're not going to give me a defacto demotion and pretend that it didn't happen. I'm not going to be treated this way. So I actually kind of like that. And like you said, yeah, how refreshing to have employee rights like this.

Kim Minnick (12:24):

I know. Let's be real. We've all had a situation that was like, did I just get, wait a second. And you kind of feel backhanded, but you can't really describe it. This guy did. Yeah. It is just workplace drama. I'm here for it. I am a toot on this article, I think. Yeah,

Stacey Nordwall (12:43):

I'm a toot.

(12:44):

I'm a toot on it too. Also, it reminded me also very much of the quiet promotion kind of thing that people talk about where all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, we'll give you more responsibilities and maybe you get a better title, or maybe you get better compensation. But it is this very blurry thing where you feel like, are we really, we're not having the conversations that we need to have about what this role actually is, what the expectations actually are, what does it mean? All of these things. And I think that this article, even though it kind of initially seemed like it was about desks, was really kind of about that. It wasn't a quiet promotion. He felt it was more like a quiet demotion, which he also wasn't having. But it really, I think, speaks to that need for clarity when people are going through transitions or when you're asking them to take on different roles and things like that. So

Kim Minnick (13:35):

Yeah, that need for clarity and need for kindness when an employee brings something to you, don't be a jerk. Maybe ask a couple questions and show some kindness that this person has uprooted their life, moved across the country, and now just wants a different desk.

Stacey Nordwall (13:55):

Wild. Absolutely. All right. Well, we did that quick. We did our trip around the globe. And Kim, now that we have had a conversation, why don't you tell folks a little bit more about who you are, how people can follow you, how to connect with you, what are you're working on, all of those things.

Kim Minnick (14:16):

Yeah. Let's see. I am a people ops leader out here for chaotic Good. I run my own fractional business, so if you need a helping hand for hr, I'm happy to provide one. I love ugly babies, like the dentist performance reviews and those hairless cats, they're my favorite. You can find me on LinkedIn. I am wildly loud on LinkedIn. I'm very chatty. I post every day a little snippet of a fever Dream. Yeah. Oh, and I've got a performance management learning series, so if you too would like to love ugly babies, like reviews, maybe check it out. Pop over to my LinkedIn.

Stacey Nordwall (14:58):

Alright, thank you so much for joining, Kim.

Kim Minnick (15:01):

Thanks.