Work Culture in Japan and abroad

30 September - Week 2

_______

We discussed this session mainly about the differences in work culture and everyone's perspective on what they prefer and expect from their work (culture). I answered some questions during the session about: the amount of hours I want to work, work-life balance, company cultures values etc. For me the most important parts are the pay & benefits, as that is my motivation to go to work, but also nice colleagues/atmosphere at the company to have at least fun time at work. 

The remarkable point is that there is a big difference between the Dutch and Japanese work culture, for example the Dutch work culture is more socialized and mostly informal, while the Japanese work culture is more formal and working a lot independently. 

The video showed a daily life of a salaryman in Japan, working in an international company. He works in a small office, with 7 employees. Remarkable is for example the coffee rule/habit, either a woman does it before she started working or in this video's case the youngest. In the Netherlands we don't have a specific rule about this. As he is working in an international company, I see that there are things in common with his company and Dutch companies. For example, working together in same rooms (for small offices), the way of communicating, and going together to meetings (not always). 




Reacties

  1. William6 oktober 2025 om 23:15

    Interesting read. I think the work culture in Netherlands seems very nice and also has a lot of similarities to Sweden.

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  2. Robert6 oktober 2025 om 23:18

    I didn't know that Dutch work culture is mostly informal! Also, considering this, it makes sense that The Netherlands don't have habits such as the coffee rule.

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