JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES01 · The short answer
Rakuten runs a nursery inside the headquarters
Rakuten Crimson House keeps the work on one side and life on the other. Rakuten Golden Kids, the in-house nursery, runs English, science experiments and outdoor play, alongside a clinic and a fitness club in the same building.
02 · The room most offices build instead
Amazon Japan’s mothers’ room, on a long list
Far more common than a nursery is a single private room. Amazon Japan’s Meguro office keeps a mothers’ room with sofa, fridge and microwave among a list that also holds a prayer room open to any faith, a quiet room for short naps, a massage room, a health station and showers.
“The list is long on purpose: it is what ‘everyone can work here’ looks like in floor plan.”
03 · A room here, a nursery nearby
Indeed Japan splits the difference
Indeed Japan keeps a nursing room in the office, with showers for staff back from sales calls and a game room down the corridor, and gives staff access to the Recruit Group’s workplace nursery at Tokyo Station — the childcare itself sitting outside the office, near the trains.
04 · The opposite decision
ZOZO uses the town’s nurseries on purpose
ZOZO built no nursery, no gym and no café inside its Chiba headquarters. Meals, exercise and childcare are outsourced to the cafés, parks, nurseries and gyms of the neighbourhood, so that staff go out and meet people.
Offices in this answer
Walk through them
NEW
NEWNEWNEWMore questions
