Thursday 25 June 2020
11:00am – 12:00pm

Working remotely with caring responsibilities

This event will start at 11am BST (British Summer Time)

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

Fully booked

Remote work has become increasingly popular worldwide as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, and it looks likely to continue to play a role in the ‘new normal’ once the virus has been successfully tackled. Working from home can give employees greater flexibility, increased productivity, and help save time. However, it can also bring new challenges, especially for those with caring responsibilities for children, elderly relatives, or people with disabilities. Managing distractions has proved one of the greatest challenges for people working remotely during the COVID-19 crisis. Against this background, ideas to help employees manage their work-life balance more effectively are of particular value.

In this webinar, Ms Jun Mukoyama spoke about the current situation for people in Japan combining remote work with childcare based on her recent survey conducted in Tokyo. Ms Sayuri Daimon gave a journalist’s perspective on how the government and companies can support remote work for employees, helping them to transform some of their biggest challenges into opportunities. Professor Lynda Gratton then explained how business leaders can create resilient companies that enable employees to work effectively from home, and how the virus will affect the future employment landscape.

A video of the event can be found here:

About the contributors

Sayuri Daimon

Sayuri Daimon is executive operating officer and senior editorial writer of The Japan Times, the largest English-language newspaper in Japan. Prior to this position, she became the first female managing editor in the paper’s 117 years of history and served in the top editorial post for six years. She won the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2000 and also became a fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2005. Daimon received the Japan Women Award (Leadership & Innovation) from Forbes Japan in 2016. She is the author of the book The Japan Times newsdesk: information gathering-power for global women and Harvard-de-katarareru Sekai Senryaku (Diplomatic Strategies Discussed at Harvard).

Professor Lynda Gratton

Professor Lynda Gratton is Professor of Management Practice at London Business School, where she directs ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies’, which is considered the world’s leading programme on human resources. Lynda is the founder of Hot Spots Movement and, since 2008, she has led the Future of Work Research Consortium which has brought together executives from more than 100 companies. Her award-winning work has been recognised internationally: she is a fellow of the World Economic Forum and an Advisor for @GoogleOrg’s initiative to help people prepare for the changing nature of work. Lynda has written extensively about the interface between people and organisations. Her books cover the link between business and HR strategy (Living Strategy), the new ways of working (The Democratic Enterprise), the rise of complex collaboration (Hot Spots and Glow) and the impact of a changing world on employment and work The Shift: the Future of Work is Already Here (2014) and The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity (2017).

Jun Mukoyama

Jun Mukoyama is a fellow at Asia Pacific Initiative (AP Initiative), an independent think tank based in Tokyo, and has been in this role since September 2019. She undertakes research projects to analyse policy-making processes and public-private partnership in Japan. Prior to AP Initiative, she served for over ten years as a business development and investment professional in Mitsubishi Corporation, one of the largest trading houses in Japan. She contributed to various projects including financing and ‘M&A’ transactions in the infrastructure sector, and spent two years at the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), a Canadian pension fund based in Toronto. She holds a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.