Suwa: It is considered a right for workers and people who are willing to work to select a desired job according to their motivation and ability, pursuing happiness through their working career.

Question: The freedom to choose one’s occupation and the pursuit of happiness are rights stated in the Constitution, correct?

Suwa: That’s right. There are relevant rights stipulated in the Constitution that link to working and the formulation of careers such as the respect as individuals and pursuit of happiness (both in Article 13), prohibition of involuntary servitude (Article 18), freedom to choose an occupation (Article 22), the right to receive an equal education (Article 26) and the right to work (Article 27).

The philosophy of one’s right to a career stands out clearly if such rights, originally spread across the Constitution, are coordinated and systematized in the context of an individual’s working life.

Namely, this right sets out to respect and explicitly position life within the field of law, enabling personal growth through acknowledging the importance of voluntarily deciding the progression of one’s life, from preparation for capacity-building through continuous education and learning, followed by a career and retirement subsequently; making life meaningful with one’s occupation as its core. I proposed this idea more than 20 years ago.

Same ideal goal

Question: The right to a career seems to have garnered attention these days. Do you think it’s because people are pursuing a society methodically shaped by this philosophy in the era of the 100-year life?

Suwa: I suppose so. I initially came up with this notion because I was working on the issue of part-time workers whose experience and skills didn’t lead to improved treatment.

Fundamentally, I am aware of such issues, as a variety of work styles should be acknowledged, and at the same time, education and training needs to be given to people regardless of whether they are full-time workers or not. I also think that appropriate policy measures should be applied to those who have devoted themselves to self-improvement.

In light of the right to a career, I’m sure that we must be able to further promote the theme of how individuals can continue working in a way that suits them amid the extension of an individual, professional life.

Question: While an individual is supposed to have the right to a career, companies possess authority over personnel issues. Do you think it will create tension between the two sides?

Suwa: Japan has achieved economic growth through the strength of teams and the middle class as the source of competitiveness.

Currently, the average age of full-time, year-round salaried workers in the private sector is 46. Company-wide selection that leads to future promotion is conducted among those who are around the age of 40 at many firms. Should a considerable number of those who become disappointed in their late 40s lose motivation to work as a result of this selection, companies cannot expect an increase in productivity and in additional value, even if those people are secured members of the labor force.

I think we could see growth on both the company and individual sides if they, through dialogue, position the right to a career as a standard to be respected and cooperate in improving the environment and crafting supportive measures.

Question: You say workers need to not only insist on their rights, but also make relevant efforts to have a satisfactory career. It’s indeed a philosophy of career ownership, isn’t it?

Suwa: From what I’ve observed, Japanese middle-aged adults are reluctant to learn. It’s also true that it’s hard for them to do so because an adequate environment is not in place. It’s not something that can be observed in other countries.

The reasons behind this phenomenon can be attributed to several factors, including a personnel system of not being able to foresee one’s future career, a difficult social environment for job transfers, chronic, long hours and the difficulty of taking extended paid holidays. From the standpoint of the right to a career, society should further promote opportunities of relearning for adults.

Question: The right to a career is not yet part of law; it is still a speculative idea. How do you want it to be established and developed?

Suwa: I know there are issues to be solved regarding enshrining it as law.

So, for the time being, I hope that relevant ministries will make policy engagements on various fronts, including education, occupational skills development and nurturing industrial personnel, through a consensus on the idea of respecting individual careers.

I then expect relevant laws to be enacted, which would prompt related policies to be implemented.

Proactive attitudes essential

Question: We have a situation where individuals are encouraged to relearn, while companies are required to improve their added value by shoring up human resources. The right to a career would seem to provide a criteria for both of them when the two sides reflect their ideas respectively, correct?

Suwa: Based on a consistent philosophy, we all should now address the changes proactively, not be transfixed in the face of the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution and chronic shortage of human resources. To that end, the right to a career would serve as a compass.

I sincerely hope that corporate management with such a philosophy, and the idea of respecting individuals, will spread widely across society.

It is an urgent task to secure human resources both in quality and quantity for Japan to be capable of addressing the fourth industrial revolution, which includes integration of artificial intelligence, and demographic changes due to dwindling birthrates and an aging population.

The key solution is to increase productivity, but it’s difficult to accomplish this task only through cutting labor hours and labor-saving investment. Advancing productivity becomes possible when accompanied by motivations of individual workers, such as a sense of engagement and joy in working. Streamlining and motivation are sort of two sides of the same coin. We think that education and investment in human resources are the keys to piece together the two different elements.

Acquiring lasting skills

What’s essential now is to learn how to learn, not what needs to be learned.

Knowledge and skills in a particular field become obsolete at once in the current age of rapidly changing technology and society. In the era of the 100-year life, it’s vital for people to re-examine and develop substantial abilities and skills at any organization or corporation, in addition to skills only effective for a brief period.

What can be defined as the essential skills of a working adult is comparable to defining operating software as a human resource. Individuals have to regularly upgrade it, as they do for their smartphones.

Single track to multiple paths

Lynda Gratton, a professor at the London Business School, stressed the significance of changing the single-track of a three-stage life of “receiving education, followed by working and retirement subsequently” to that of a multitrack one in the international bestseller “The 100-Year Life” that she co-authored.

Apparently, learning won’t end with graduating from school, and learning and working will be increasingly incorporated, especially in the AI-integrated society to come. Rather than just dealing with assigned tasks, broadening one’s horizons by actively going out to various sites oneself and interacting with people who have different sets of values will enhance social sensitivity and expand one’s career path.

A report compiled by young METI officials in 2017 described a conventional career view in the past as “Showa sugoroku,” likening the path to the Showa Era (1926–1989) when Japan experienced high economic growth, and a Japanese board game (similar to The Game of Life) where the goal is to move one’s game piece from the start to the finish line by rolling dice.

In contrast, the career view in the coming years won’t be described by sugoroku, where retirement means reaching the finish line after steadily advancing on a designated route. I suppose the future landscape will be similar to that of smartphone game “Pokemon Go,” that prompts players to go out to various areas and capture powerful creatures, namely “rare cards,” wherever they choose to go.

People are then required to boost their core strengths and strategically learn abilities that help broaden their paths, not to simply be skill collectors.

We are aware that there is bewilderment in the private sector amid calls of various political slogans — including “engagement of all 100 million citizens,” work-style reform and the era of the 100-year life. It’s true that there are concerns in traditional Japanese companies that even if companies support employees in acquiring versatile skills or accumulating various experience, employees might eventually quit or such efforts won’t bear fruit in their main businesses.

However, please consider it carefully. For Japan, shortage of labor is not a temporary phenomenon; rather, it is something that has been created because of a long-standing structural change. Companies reluctant to invest on the human resources front will lose their competitive edge and certainly be forced to withdraw from the market. Crafting a good human resources strategy is a matter of making a management plan that creates innovation and survives global competition. Company leaders need to reaffirm the importance of this urgent agenda and work on resolving it.

Changing role of firms

In the era of the 100-year life, an individual’s occupational life is obviously longer than that of a company based on the statistics that corporate life lasts 30 years or so. The social role a company plays will be different in an era where people experience career changes.

As discussed at the METI’s Study Group for Enhancing Human Resource Capability, companies will be increasingly required to place more importance on the capacity building of their employees than simply securing their employment until retirement. If the mobility of human resources progresses further, it might be the case that the social role of companies will grow to become, at their best, able to provide employees with opportunities for growth.

Individual workers, on the other hand, would strictly sort companies from the perspective of assessing how much they can develop themselves and achieve growth through working at a particular firm. Consequentially, Japanese companies now face the test of how to build a new relationship with their employees, differing from the conventional relations between companies and employees.