June 5th, 2020

Mobile work policy at Mitsubishi Fuso to make greater workstyle flexibility and autonomy the new normal for employees

 

• Mitsubishi Fuso is shifting its work from home system into a more flexible mobile work arrangement
• New policy aims to improve employee productivity and safety while encouraging better work-life balance

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corporation (Headquarters: Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, President and CEO: Hartmut Schick, hereinafter MFTBC) has introduced a new mobile work system starting June 1st, 2020. The new policy is an expansion of the previous work from home system which was introduced in 2014 as an industry-first within Japan. With this change, MFTBC aims to further improve employees’ work-life balance and productivity while supporting their safety during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Since 2013, MFTBC has adopted flextime without core working hours for all employees except those directly involved in production. In 2014, in an industry-first shift within Japan, the organization further introduced a system that permitted employees to work from home for up to 50% of working hours in a month.

While considering the lifestyle adjustments recommended by the Japanese government in light of the coronavirus pandemic, MFTBC is moving to reduce restrictions on how and where employees contribute to organizational goals. The new mobile work policy replaces a regulation that limited hours at home to a maximum of 50% of a work month. It also removes limitations on work location, including where employees may choose to apply their flextime hours. This means that upon alignment with their supervisors and following all employment laws, eligible employees can now work up to 100% of their hours at any location outside of the office. These new measures are intended to promote a healthy work-life balance among employees by fostering workstyles of greater agility and efficiency that are better adapted to today’s needs.

“At MFTBC, we have a diverse workforce that comes from all walks of life, and we want to ensure that each and every one of our employees can contribute in the best possible way while staying safe and balancing his private and work life. Based on the very good experience we made with flexible work in the past 6 years and taking into consideration the current situation, we felt that providing even more autonomy to employees is the right way to go.” (President and CEO of MFTBC and Head of Daimler Trucks Asia, Hartmut Schick)

*1:This policy has been applicable for all employees except production workers and those in customer-facing positions within domestic sales.
*2:Employees are instructed to select locations where they can concentrate on their work, where they have a reliable internet connection, and where they can ensure information security.