Interview with Managers "Grand Koyo"

Founded in 1974. Grand Koyo started as a local stationery shop and expanded its range of products and development with the changing times. Today, we handle everything required in educational settings, such as school teaching materials, office supplies, personal computers, and multifunction devices, for educational institutions (elementary and junior high schools, kindergartens, and nursery schools) in Kawasaki City, Yokohama. In addition, we provide total support for learning sites, including “Koto” such as renovation work for facilities and planning and operation of events. It is a company that has been operating closely with the local community since its inception. Of the 20 employees, 10 are female employees. This time, Mr. Kimiyoshi Oba, Representative Director, talked about women's work styles and initiatives.

Originally, as a company, customers were educational institutions such as elementary and junior high schools, kindergartens, nursery schools, etc., so August, when the school is summer vacation, is off. Unconsciously, such as having employees with child-rearing take a long vacation, something like the base of today's work-life balance has been created. That's why my neighbors with small children often worked as part-timers. After all, it is attractive to be able to take a rest with your child during the summer vacation. In addition, as a company, we worked to create an environment where mothers with high awareness of raising children could work easily, so for example, we often saw the sight of employees dropping by the company and doing homework next to their mothers . When I visit the class, I was asked to leave "Please go" (laughs). In addition, there are many neighbors, so I finished shopping for dinner during lunch break, or returned to take in laundry because it began to rain. For a long time, it was a comfortable workplace for women who had a need to work within the scope of their husband's support, and about half of their employees were always women. We had a great deal of part-time employees who took a break during school holidays, and in a sense, we had completed a business model of WIN-WIN relationships to some extent.

In 2008, I took over this company from my father, and from that time, I began to think about the work styles of employees, not just female employees. In other words, "What is a good company?" I came to think, "What kind of company will last for a long time?" When I wanted an objective index, I learned about the existence of the "Yokohama Good Balance Award" and was inspired by the fact that many small and medium-sized enterprises are actively working to create an environment in which they work. "I definitely want to be such a company," and from that point on, I reviewed my work-life balance. Then, in the end, I came to the conclusion that it was necessary to make a company easy to take a break, and decided to drastically change the company structure. In the past, we changed the system to name one staff member (mainly female employees) to support one sales, but to a team structure that supports 10 sales with 10 staff members. In addition, we made two people in charge of sales, so that the other person could follow up even if there were employees who took a break suddenly. Of course, it was necessary to make efforts to adapt to new ways of working, such as how to share information, but immediately after the change, one of the female staff members said, `` In fact, I have no substitute for myself so far, I was heavily responsible and hard. " In addition, these efforts have been highly evaluated by Yokohama City, and have been awarded the "Yokohama Good Balance Award" for the fifth consecutive year. I and my employees have been very encouraging.

Currently, we mainly focus on supporting sales employees, but in the future we hope that some female employees will be able to work more in a way that appears more. Specifically, it would be nice if more people could leave the role of delivering products to customers with delivery support, even though it is difficult for women's sales positions or sales positions suddenly. Also, from my point of view, women's strength is that they have high network building capabilities. Men don't have the ability to share information such as word of mouth and transmit. I hope there will be people who can take advantage of these strengths to ask for the development of new products. However, it is still difficult at present, and I think it would be nice to have a variety of work styles and careers that employees want. Nevertheless, the most important thing for a company is "people", so we will continue to strengthen our support for those "people". Yes, we have a "reading impression sentence treatment", and if you read a book and write a reading impression sentence, we have created a system that can be treated as small as possible. Our customers may be schools, but we expect our employees to improve their internal careers, not just their careers. And as a result, if as many employees as possible get customers to think, "I want to buy from this person." In the end, I think it's important for small and medium-sized enterprises like us to focus on human education and differentiate themselves by people.

First of all, the word "women's empowerment" is not very good. There are no employees who are not active. If you have more than one thing you can do, it's already growing. In addition, women who could not work due to childbirth or child care will go out to society and gradually increase their knowledge and skills. Isn't it enough to do that? It's not just about joining a large company and working as a manager of the project team. There are also relationships with family members, and some people don't choose their way of working. In other words, support is to match a job that matches each person's position, ability, and values. To that end, the company must do is create the necessary environment and create a place to stay. Also, what I think about the government is not only a major success case in employment, but also a small case. I think this will lead to the revitalization of society as a result. Every man has some kind of talent. By taking advantage of it, we can improve society, and I believe that men and women can only move society through cooperation.

I moved to Yokohama City because I bought a house. The reason I joined the company was a recruitment advertisement I found near a child's piano classroom. I applied because I was attracted to the location and working hours that the company was close to the house. Currently, I am in charge of inspecting luggage and putting out items. Specifically, after receiving the luggage delivered to the company, we inspect the contents for any damage, pack it in bags so that the sales in charge can easily take it to the delivery destination, and also manage inventory for that purpose. The work is handled by three female employees. Cooperation is very good because of the same generation, and it's fun to work together because you can talk about private things such as consultation and worries about child care as well as work. Also, I feel that it is a good thing to be able to cover the holidays with three people. As well as the company's institutional system, helping each other with sudden child illness and school events may lead to work-life balance.

Grand Koyo
2-24-25, Shinsakuragaoka, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama-shi
http://grankoyo.co.jp/ (external site)
Industry: Sales of school teaching materials, office automation equipment, office supplies, etc.
Number of employees: 20 people
Female Support System: Maternity leave system / childcare leave system / nursing leave system / reduced working hours system / restrictions on overtime work, etc.