Masayuki Yoshitomi
What I have recognised and what I thought during the COVID-19 pandemic
It was much more difficult than I thought to post comments on the company's website as a president because I could not see to whom I should write. My comment may be read by the supplier or the seller, or by our employee or a student who is looking for a job. I use such a constraint on neutrality as one of excuses of not updating our website for a long time. However, our employees urged me to write, so I had to write this at last.
■ What I have been trying to do since I became president
1. The remuneration of the person in the number two position must be more than 75% of the president.
An American bank sought to establish a judgment criteria whether a client company's business is running well or not. After qualitative and quantitative survey of many companies, this was the only standard that the companies with continuous success had in common. In the company where the remuneration of the president is more than twice than one of the number two, management of the company is supposed to become autocratic and the company does not last long until the next generation.
2. Information other than personnel affairs must be disclosed within the company.
When company’s performance is weak, executives, including the president, have to take the initiative to cut down their own remuneration and reduce expenses, but it is also necessary to cut employees’ bonuses. If you do not disclose the performance of the company at that time, you cannot gain understanding from your employees. The ranking of entertainment expenses also must be disclosed by the president. This is easy to be forgotten ——. When our overseas subsidiary was about to be taken over by an economic mafia, we disclosed the fact also to the outside of our company and asked for cooperation of various people.
3. When the president uses the company's money, judgment criteria should be whether it is acceptable for other employees to do the same thing or not.
You should think that there is no employee who remonstrates against their owner-manager. If the president cannot control themselves, their employees will start using the company's money without consideration, thinking that if the president is allowed to do so they can do so as well.
4. Management is a mass of contradictions. How to balance contradictions is important.
As I wrote earlier about disclosure of information, I am trying to manage the company democratically, but management is no majority decision. If the company is managed by majority voting, no president is needed. There are things that should be pushed through even if everyone are against. Sales are extremely important for small and medium-sized businesses, but not always the top priority. Sales and management often contradict.
I have many more things to say, but I would like to finish it with the following message.
■ What I learned during the COVID-19 pandemic
At the time of the spread of COVID-19, we were able to work from home relatively quickly. This was achieved by the employees who are well versed in IT. Two years have passed since then, and work from home is still ongoing. I am somewhat worried that young employees may have problems due to lack of communication, but I cannot recognise its negative impact on business performance. I could feel that all our employees are knowledge workers with high level of intelligence and able to act on their own judgment.