The spread and effectiveness of work style reforms (Japanese)

This paper examines the spread of work style reforms and their effects on overtime hours, turnover rates, and corporate performance, by combining data from Tokyo Shoko Research and the BSJBS data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, with an original questionnaire survey of client companies of a major city bank. Work style reforms have rapidly penetrated not only large companies but also small and medium-sized companies since 2016. To evaluate the effect of each measure, it is necessary to correct for the bias caused by the endogeneity of the introduction of the measure. In this study, we attempted to mitigate the bias by employing the fixed effects model and the dynamic panel data model. We find that the impact of various work style reforms on overtime and turnover rate is limited, except that paid leave/overtime management policies and flexible attendance policies such as flextime and staggered work have reduced overtime. As for the effect on corporate performance, the results suggest that business selection policies may have had a positive effect on ROA and sales per employee, while policies improving the working environment may have increased value added for some firms. Although the effect of certification systems such as Kurumin could not be detected as affecting company performance at all, the finding that flexible attendance policies led to a reductions in overtime hours and an increase in sales per employee in the service industry, where the ratio of female employees is high, may suggest the effectiveness of some WLB measures.