My career with no HR/IT experience becoming very HR centred in the global team at Zeals
Introduction
こんにちは、I’m Shoko but I go by the name of Scarlett at Zeals Co., Ltd. Zeals is a SaaS company based in Tokyo, Japan and has been my work place for the last 10 months.
Before becoming a Zealer (this is how we call ourselves here), never have I ever worked in the HR nor IT industry.
I joined the People & Culture department after spending a couple of months in another department. I now belong to the HR planning team and am in charge of improving internal communications. Meaning, this blog post is not written by a tech specialist nor will be about tech. This will be about a Japanese IT start-up who is challenging themselves to become a true global company and how I am advocating it with the global team of the Tech department.
Our goals in terms of internal communication
Even though Zeals is a Japan based company founded by a group of Japanese people, it consists of employees who come from various backgrounds and speak various languages. There arises a series of communication issues caused by language and culture differences which I believe many companies, IT or not, find challenging to deal with. My duties include designing and implementing programs and events that encourage the employees to communicate and understand each other better in order to create a work environment where more effective and active communications are practiced. Our ultimate goal is to prepare ourselves to enter the global market, meaning we are required to obtain global mindsets as well as communication skills in English.
Our achievements so far
As working on such projects, I talk to the members everyday to learn what communication issues they face. In our case, Japanese speakers are the majority and English speakers, non-Japanese, are the minority whilst 80% of the Tech department is occupied with the English speakers. Talking to the Tech members and learning their perspectives on globalization have further fueled my passion for bilingual communication and Diversity & Inclusion. We launched a comprehensive program named Omoiyari-ai Communication (translated as empathetic communication) and also have been working on around D&I.
What are the takeaways?
Still a long way for us to go but here are some of the takeaways from my (a couple of months of) experiences in HR planning:
- Communication issues in a global company are not necessarily always caused just by language barriers
Assuming that communication issues between Japanese speakers and English speakers occur due to language differences is so easy- but what I have discovered is that it is often mentality and mindsets that develop many of them. Japanese speakers have a tendency not to communicate actively to be polite (e.g., asking a question and bringing a discussion to the table). On the other hand English speakers relatively believe (of course depending on which cultural background they are from though) that showing intention to communicate with others is showing respect to them. I think it is just unfortunate that this gap can lead to the situation where the more they try to communicate in their own polite manner the more they become hesitant to communicate with the other group.
2. The minority is usually always the ones who see a problem as a problem
Not only communication but if you look at any social issues in general, it is the minority who directly are affected by the issue and therefore required to take an action first. This is something I might have not been aware of if I didn’t leave Japan and become a minority myself in Europe. In the current case at Zeals, understanding the culture of the minority group, the English speakers, is what we have set as a goal to achieve, so learning their perspectives is crucial for me when planning communication programs. They are also the ones who proactively give me suggestions and opinions how I could do it better.
3. How to involve and motivate the majority (?, still half questioning)
Having said the points above, generalization can be (very often) toxic and stops you from achieving goals. But because we are Zeals, we are blessed with a group of passionate Japanese speakers who are willing to learn and adopt the way the English speakers communicate and work. My approach to encourage the majority group is starting small with those who would happily become advocates. You can read about our English learning program where our Japanese advocates did presentations in English and it was very successful as a very first step of globalizing the communication at Zeals. This wouldn’t have been possible without huge support from the Tech team so another key is to collaborate closely with the group who grasp the whole picture of the issue.
At last
Having the supportive global team besides me is the reason why I decided to take a step into HR and I can keep going in this very broad and challenging mission- globalizing how people communicate in an IT company. Having a group of individuals with different perspectives is what brings us to a true successful global company. I personally believe, have been believing since my Day 1 at Zeals, that we already have all the boxes ticked to start the journey to become truly global. It was just the matter of doing it or not doing it- and now I am doing it with the strong global Tech team and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of this journey.
