Kono Kaisha ni Suki na Hito ga Imasu - Vol. 8 Ch. 74 - A Personnel Change — Part 1

[JagdPanther]

This does happen in Japan. In Japan your level of competence is measured by your ability to learn and mold into any type of position, which is why the college you get into is probably the most important part of of your qualifications because that alone is proof that you are “capable”. This is why companies don’t care about your major, or grades, only that you went to X college.

After you enter a company with your “class” aka “Douki”(Japanese companies traditionally only recuit a new wave of people once a year), people will be distributed to any department they see fit. Even if you graduated with an engineering degree you can end up in HR. I know several people who studied mechanical enginnering as their major who became hedgefund managers and bankers (and one who almost became a Shinkansen driver). There are certain specialty positions where they do require specific backgrounds like design where you need a degrees from a design school. But yes this practice of just putting people in new positions that have nothing to do with prior work experience is extremely common in Traditional Japanese companies.

As a people manager at a very large western company, I can't fathom doing this. I get the rationale and see what they'd be getting at, but that feels like it would create tremendous churn. It has to have some cultural appeal, though.

I lead a team that is tremendously stable because, amongst other things, people like what they do and are good at it. I turned down a promotion last year to lead another, smaller team (but higher prestige, in a way) because while it probably would've been good for me long-term I didn't feel ready for it both in terms of skillset or desire now; I like what I do and am good at it, just like my people. I think and hope that's worked out.

If one of my people wants to go to another department, I'll support them because I never want to hold anyone back, though it can lead to pain in the team because it's really hard to replace people in a niche group like ours. I'm backfilling someone right now who just retired after 38 years at the company, and it is really, really hard to find people who fit the bill.