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Deflation, balance sheet recession, natural disasters, rise of China. Corporate Japan has withstood some forceful attacks over the years, but is it prepared for the disruptive antics of a duck in a bow tie and hat?
The troublesome bird is the mascot of Momuri, a company whose name roughly translates to “I’m up to here!” and ranks high among more than a dozen agencies and law firms that specialize in proxy waivers. We quit, says their business model, which sounds simple but lucrative, so you don’t have to do it in person.
What these agencies are also doing – with a combination of idea planting, bottlenecking and empowerment – is unleashing a wave of de facto activism from an angle that companies did not expect. By selling workers a no-fault mobility license, agencies are crystallizing a discontent that many companies hoped would remain nascent, but now cannot ignore. Investors probably believe that when it comes to forcing Japanese companies to change, they are pulling the longest levers available. Meanwhile, those who give up are being dealt a hard blow.
Resignation agencies, which were pioneers in pre-Covid days and target a clientele willing to pay 11,000 to 27,000 yen ($70 to $175) to avoid confrontation, emotional tension, social awkwardness or farce administrative to resign in person, are proliferating and doing a brisk trade. The largest processed more than 1,500 cases each in April alone, the smallest hundreds, and several told the Financial Times that business is running at three times the pace of last year. Crucially, many of the clients are not intimidated veterans, but recent graduates.
The agency sales pitch has evolved to grow in an increasingly tight and demographically shrinking labor market – one where everyone is now concerned about recruitment and retention. Agencies no longer only facilitate resignation, but precipitate it. They can be bolder about it because clients now hire their services with greater confidence that they will quickly find another job. Agencies tend to be named using slang or colorful expressions designed explicitly to normalize dissatisfaction and abandonment in a work culture that has historically ennobled tolerance and loyalty. The original, Exit Inc, was followed Yametara Iinen (It’s okay to quit smoking), Yamerun desu (Let’s leave it), Saraba (Adieu) and several others.
Momuri, with his characteristic duck, has gone even further. Over the next year, commuters who ride with straps on three different Tokyo Metro lines and a fourth in Osaka will see the company’s name on the straps themselves. And why just leave a job? Momuri is currently offering a deal where if you resign twice in 12 months, you’ll get the second resignation at half price.
The agencies are now numerous and busy enough to produce interesting data. As the first day of the Japanese financial year, April 1 is when graduates across the country begin their new jobs – positions they will have traditionally fought for, cherished and maintained for years, even if the reality fell far short of the promise. of recruiters.
This year, graduates began calling agencies from their first day in the office. By the end of April, Momuri alone had resigned by proxy more than 200 graduates who wanted to leave their new positions within the first weeks after orientation. Some, one Momuri executive said, couldn’t stand their new bosses, others didn’t like the department to which they had been assigned, many quickly identified other problems: challenges that, in the past, might have been seen as grim rites of passage. instead of warning signs that induce smoking cessation.
There may be a strong temptation to denounce this as a symptom of a broader weakness among younger Japanese. But that downplays the power of their actions. For almost a decade, Japan itself has made clear that, as a whole, its companies have a governance problem. The more easily the criticisms of top management are articulated, the easier it has been to overlook the enormous lower-level changes that companies must undertake to become permanently attractive and acceptable workplaces for a generation unconvinced by the old ways. rules. Agencies that resign are making that imbalance less possible and creating a form of activism that cannot be offset by a share buyback or dividend increase.
In an ideal world, says Shinji Tanimoto, president of the company that controls Momuri, companies would change their behavior and resignation agencies would not need to exist. Instead, he forecasts long-term growth. The best hope, he adds, “is that we act as a deterrent to bad corporate behavior.”