Managing Japanese and Western employees as an HR Manager

Interview with Hans Pijpers

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Hello Hans, nice to talk to you about your job at SEKISUI EUROPE. How did you join the company?

I joined SEKISUI EUROPE in September 2021. I have spent almost my entire career at large American pharmaceutical organisations and felt it was time to switch to a different industry and type of organisation. I started to delve into the Japanese culture, which caught my attention and suits me well. As a global organisation, SEKISUI has an ambitious long-term strategy that was rolled out years ago by our headquarters in Japan. This is under the name ‘Vision 2030’, in which Human capital is an essential part. It gives me great satisfaction to guide the organisation in achieving this strategy.

How would you describe your job at SEKISUI EUROPE?

I see myself as an interface between the Corporate Human Resources department at our headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, and the Human Resources departments of the local SEKISUI companies in Europe regarding various Corporate Human Resources projects and initiatives. We want to be an employer that gives positive energy to all employees, where employees feel engaged with the organisation and perform their work with satisfaction. Therefore, we conduct an annual employee engagement survey to monitor where we stand in this process and guide the local SEKISUI companies in this.

Additionally, I am involved in expat management. We have many Japanese expats working in the Netherlands and have recently centralised the entire expat management function within the regional headquarters. This means that the local SEKISUI companies are no longer burdened with applying for residence and work permits, arranging housing, and other complex and extensive related tasks.

I am also involved in ‘Employer Branding’. The SEKISUI group is a large employer worldwide, with over 700 employees in Roermond and the surrounding area. We constantly have many vacancies. The current tight labor market situation requires an innovative approach, which I am exploring together with HR colleagues from other SEKISUI companies, on how we can better attract new talent as a potential employer.

What do you see as the benefits of working at SEKISUI EUROPE?

As I mentioned earlier, we have a clear long-term strategy, i.e. ‘Vision 2030’. We work conscientiously on this together, and that gives a lot of satisfaction. It is nice to work as an HR professional in a company with a clear long-term strategy that provides guidance and structure in the work as opposed to annually changing short-term strategies I was used to in the past. The team at the regional headquarters is given a wide range of opportunities for implementing this strategy with the central mindset of how we can best support and guide the European SEKISUI companies. 

I work in a wonderful team that is motivated and driven to achieve the same goal, we work closely together, are team-oriented, communicate quickly, and we have fun together.

Additionally, every individual SEKISUI employee, regardless of where they work in the world, is expected to contribute to the realisation of Vision 2030 through an ‘employee challenge action’. By doing something differently or better at work, no matter how small, we ultimately become a stronger organisation. Finally, working with other cultures, particularly the Japanese culture in our organisation, provides new insights into life.

What does an average workday look like for you?

Every day is different. In the morning, there are meeting with colleagues in Japan. Most meetings start early due to the time difference with Japan. I work on various long-term projects and have many contacts with colleagues from other corporate departments and other SEKISUI companies.

SEKISUI has a clear vision for the future. To what extent do you see yourself in this vision?

In all the products we develop, the central thought is: ‘how can we contribute to improvements that benefit our lives and make us feel safer in this world?’. I like this vision, and we try to create a work environment from that vision where employees feel safe and treat each other with respect.

Do you have a special fact about working at SEKISUI EUROPE that many people don’t know?

The Japanese corporate culture differs greatly from the Western culture. For example, Dutch meetings are generally characterised by interactive participation, a flexible agenda, and the exchange of thoughts and information to ultimately make a proposal or decision through the so-called ‘Polder model’ or by the manager. However, the Japanese meeting has a strict agenda and is mainly about sharing information and decisions that have already been made before the meeting, with no room for spontaneous questions and the exchange of thoughts. Decisions based on consensus are made through 1:1 conversations or in small groups before the meeting, known in Japan as ‘Nemawashi’.