Interview with PricewaterhouseCoopers Co., Ltd., General Affairs Department Manager Ms. Yuko Sugiyama
This time we interviewed Ms. Yuko Sugiyama who is the general affairs department manager of PricewaterhouseCoopers Co., Ltd., which is a company that has plenty of experience with reformations of offices accompanied by mergers and acquisitions and is making leading attempts with the use of communication devices in office work. We asked her about the things she has considered to be important when creating offices and specifically what kind of effects the pioneering implementation of the iPhone has brought about.
(Ozawa) Thank you for your time today. We had you appear in DOUMA’s first seminar as a lecturer the other day. In the seminar you introduced specific case studies of the transfer of the Tokyo office of PricewaterhouseCoopers Co., Ltd. Today we would first like to you to tell us about the things you usually think as well as feel when creating an office.
(Sugiyama) I have experienced huge changes of office environments that accompany mergers and acquisitions for numerous times. I believe this has helped a great deal in realizing what is important when creating offices. In my case I always bear in mind to consider the relationship between people and the office. When merger and acquisitions occur people tend to look at large aspects such as the system or organization of the company. However there is the possibility that the employees working get left behind when looking at the office through only that kind of perspective. Thus I believe it is important to look at the office from the employees’ perspective at first.
(Ozawa) The thing that left an impression on me when working with you for the transfer of the office was your willingness to spend time to speak with the workers. You value the point of having the staff feel a sense of participation. The idea of carrying out the program by introducing workplace consulting was also realized because you proposed this to the head of management.
(Sugiyama) I believe it is necessary to create an office by getting all employees involved with some kind of method in order to make something good. To directly discuss, face-to-face what the office should be with employees is also an essential step to have everyone understand the meaning of changing the office. I feel an ideal office is something that can be said that everyone thought of and made it by themselves. Of course there are differences with opinions and conflicts in the process. However if this step is ignored and an office is made involuntarily, it would become something that is not used.
That is why I suggested the implementation of workplace consulting at the planning stage.
This way of thinking might be a characteristic of a foreign owned enterprise, but an office is something that involves all employees so I believe it is the same as Japanese companies in the sense that everyone has something they want to say.
(Ozawa) I will also interview the workers as a part of workplace consulting, but there seems to be many who are usually reticent, but become talkative when speaking about offices. This aspect is the same with both foreign and Japanese companies. It could be said that everyone has keen interest in the place they work.
(Sugiyama) Offices can harmonize different cultures of companies, and I believe it is an extremely important management tool for spreading the change of work methods on site. This is in the case of my section, but communication immediately became active once the desk panels were removed. The panels were not high enough to block conversations, but even so there were changes in the action of communications between the staff. This is a small example, yet I believe it shows that if the entire office can be perceived as a management tool it is possible to have an even greater influence on the employees.
(Ozawa) You have achieved some significant results by actively introducing the iPhone, but would you explain how you came to introduce it and about its results?
(Sugiyama) A consulting firm is basically a group of mobile workers, so the introduction of the iPhone was something natural to me. I instinctively understood the merits and possibilities of smart phones once they came out, and so I immediately took action in order to introduce it within the company as soon as possible. As a result it innovated the communication method of emails with so much more efficiency and speed. At the same time it had a publicity effect by appealing an advanced working style to clients.
(Ozawa) You seem to be constantly focusing on the future of office work. Which area do you think there might be a particularly large change in the future?
(Sugiyama) I am paying attention to the possibility of cloud services. I cannot go into details as of now, but I believe it will definitely bring about great changes in working styles.
(Ozawa) It seems like some new movements have begun, and I feel that we must keep an eye on what you will continue to do. We look forward to working with you again. Thank you for your time today.