JAPAN'S WORKPLACES
Concept
Dialogue, and concentration
The office is a place to meet face to face and decide faster; it is also a place to think alone. Kioicho is laid out so that people move between the two — an open plan where conversation starts by itself, and enclosed spots where thought can go deep.
Note: the photographs are of the Kioicho office as photographed for WALL in 2017, before the merger; the text follows LINE Yahoo’s current description.
01 · Reception
The characters greet you
Visitors are met by the company’s own characters on screens and signs, so the brand world of its services is the first thing you see.
02 · Workspace
Loosely connected
The work area mixes individual booths and sofa seats in an open layout. Rather than dividing the floor cleanly, it lets areas run into each other, and that is where the everyday conversations — and the ideas — start.
03 · Meeting rooms
Focus booths
Inside the open floor are single-person booths walled with sound-absorbing panels, so a person can switch from dialogue to concentration without leaving the floor.
04 · Cafeteria & events
Dining by the window
The Kioicho Dining runs long tables along the windows; eating together is treated as one more place for connections to form.
05 · Welfare
Banked leave, sabbaticals and income protection
Happy Friday turns a Saturday public holiday into a day off on the preceding workday. Expired paid leave can be banked up to 30 days for illness or care. A sabbatical of two to three months is open to staff with ten years’ service. Health checks go beyond the legal minimum, with re-examination costs covered up to ¥20,000 a year; long-term income protection pays 60% of standard monthly pay until 60; group life insurance pays ¥10 million to a family.
On diversity, equity and inclusion: reduced or staggered hours for childcare and nursing care; maternity, partner-birth and childcare leave from the first year, extendable to age two; babysitter subsidies; a monthly paid F-day for women’s health or fertility treatment; fertility support open to any gender with treatment costs up to ¥100,000 a year; same-sex and common-law partners treated as spouses; and up to six days a year of “normalisation leave” for staff with disabilities.
06 · How they work
Three days in, flextime, and a working-style allowance
The baseline is three or more office days a week combined with remote work; full flextime with no core hours; commuting costs paid per office day up to ¥150,000 a month; and a Working Style allowance of ¥11,000 a month for setting up a good environment. Team dinners and circles are subsidised.
