, Columnist
For the Sake of Productivity, Put a Woman in Charge
One Japanese company sees female managers as the key to fixing the country's deadening corporate culture.
Don't be afraid to try it.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
If you’ve never tried a Japanese snack called Jagariko, I highly recommend it. When I visited the Tokyo offices of Japanese snackmaker Calbee Inc., I made sure to ask if I could have a free pack of my favorite snack. “Maybe,” the managers hedged.
I wasn’t at Calbee to talk about their potato sticks, but their corporate culture. Calbee is famous in Japan for a progressive, female-friendly workplace. Japan’s government has scaled back its ambitions to put more women in corporate management roles, but Calbee is pushing ahead full steam. The company has increased the share of female managers from 5.6 percent in 2010 to 22.1 percent in 2016, and is aiming for 30 percent by the end of the decade.