Contact with a Diversity of Cultures

Nice to make your acquaintance. When I joined Mitsubishi Electric in 2018, I was assigned to the Kansai branch office. My work was in human resources, involving things like hiring, schedule management, union relations, and payroll. Since the summer of 2023, I have been on a year-long On-the-Job Training (OJT) Global Trainee Program.

My OJT Global Trainee Program placement is at Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V., a sales company with branches in twenty countries across Europe and the Middle East. I work in the Corporate Department at the company’s London headquarters, handling HR systems planning for the entire European and Middle Eastern region.

In Japan, my work was specific to the south-western Japan region, so I was startled anew by our business’s influence and breadth of coverage, which crosses national and regional borders. Also, each national branch in Europe and the Middle East has its own unique culture, background, and way of thinking, which was an important reminder that "Europe" is far from uniform. There are many occasions when consideration must be shown for the cultural and background differences between individual countries and branches.

Steady development in Japan, flexible modification in the United Kingdom

Group photo with colleagues outside the office.

My workplace is located in an area called Uxbridge, near Heathrow Airport in London. The office is on the ninth floor of a building by the station, so it has excellent views. The interior was recently refurbished, and the office is now a relaxing space with greenery and sofas.

Many of my colleagues are from the UK, of course, but the office has a distinctly international feel, with colleagues from other countries like Germany and Turkey as well. Seeing how much everyone in the UK values their free time after work also made an impression on me. Our office has introduced a flextime system, and many people prefer to start work early in the morning so they can leave earlier in the afternoon.

The work we do involves direct discussion and meetings with colleagues at the office, but because working from home is popular, I don’t see all my colleagues in the office every day. My work in particular often involves Japan, the UK, and a third country, so it involves a lot of email and online meetings.

In my opinion, the Japanese working style favors forming a consensus among everyone involved at every step, even if it takes some time. Here, however, we’re encouraged to start wherever we can and fix whatever needs fixing later, which often means working on multiple steps in parallel. Both approaches have their own strengths and weaknesses, but my impression is that Japan values steady consensus formation while the UK prizes speed and flexibility.

One of London’s Charms: Easy Access to Entertainment

Big Ben, the famous symbol of London.

It takes me about half an hour to drive to work in the morning. Due to time zone differences, online meetings with Japan are often held in the morning (which is the evening in Japan time), so I sometimes attend online meetings from home before driving to work. Meetings that cross multiple regions, such as the US or Asia, might be held late at night or early in the morning. This can become gruelling if it goes on too long. At lunchtime, I usually go with other Global Trainee Program members or local colleagues to eat somewhere outside the office. There’s a Japanese-run bento shop outside the station, which is a lifesaver. My afternoons are mostly spent preparing materials and meeting with my OJT trainer. I once exchanged opinions about the meaning of leadership over coffee with him.

Five o’clock is the end of the standard workday, but people on flextime start to leave around four. After work, I often head to central London. Easy access to entertainment like football games and musicals is one of London’s charms.

Living in the UK, small talk feels more important than it did in Japan. Deepening bonds through small talk seems to make people more likely to reach out a helping hand to you. The receptionist at our office building is very friendly, for example, and sometimes shares grapes or driving tips with me as I’m on my way out. And then there was the time an electrician working on my home also assembled a dining table set for me at no extra charge—they noticed I hadn’t put it together yet while we were chatting.

I Want to Make the People Around Me Happy Through My Work

In my personal life, I once had a problem when my car once needed repairs, but the insurance company didn’t come to get it for two months even though I contacted them. In the UK, it’s common for it to take this long for issues to be addressed. When you need home repairs, too, often the repair service won’t come at the promised date and time unless you contact them over and over. While my car was being repaired, I commuted by train, but this involves its own difficulties: train delays and cancellations are frequent here, and sometimes a train’s final destination changes suddenly while you’re still riding it. The local colleagues helped me deal with the insurance company to resolve things, but given that I’m outside my home country, the limited range of things I could do for myself meant I had to clearly convey that I needed help and get assistance from those around me to address the problem.

Before coming overseas, I thought that overseas associated companies took their lead on policy and direction from the approach promulgated in a top-down way by Mitsubishi Electric. Having actually worked here, though, I realize that each site runs its own human resources system autonomously according to the social background of the country in questioned. In that context, I realized that, when thinking about how to improve understanding of the direction Mitsubishi Electric hopes to share, it’s important to show respect for the issues that each site considers important. On the other hand, I also felt strongly that, around the world as in Japan, HR work is done for the sake of the employees you work with and the people that matter to employees. Overthinking it with an overly broad perspective makes things difficult, but this posting has been an opportunity to recognize how deeply I want to do work that makes the people around me happy.

I think that dealing with difficulties in my private life has made me less easily fazed than I was in Japan. There’s no point in getting frazzled! Also, seeing how much local colleagues value their private life after work made me think about well-being more than I used to be in Japan. I now make a habit of asking myself, both in work and private life, where I should direct my focus in order to improve my personal satisfaction, and what I actually want to do. That’s one major change I feel I’ve gone through.

Because I’m from Japan, the local colleagues often ask me what Japan or Mitsubishi Electric thinks about a certain topic, or what my opinion is. I view my current position as one that lets me foster cooperation between Japan and Europe. Communication with local colleagues has given me more insight into how they think, and I hope that my work can serve as a bridge between cultures that recognizes the different values and ways of thinking on both sides.

An overseas posting might sound glamorous to some, but it’s often quite the opposite, with trouble regularly arising from differences in culture and value systems. I studied abroad during my student days, but the differences in values and how people view and prioritize things that I learned from communication at work feel a little different from what you can learn as a student. That makes things challenging sometimes, but the ability to see our company’s technological achievements proving their worth all over the world, and to work among colleagues from so many different national and racial backgrounds, all sparing no effort to support the company’s business, has broadened my perspective and my career. I would urge anyone who has the same opportunity to seize it with both hands.

PROFILE

Mitsubishi Electric
Europe B.V.
Corporate Head Office Arisa Adachi

I am in charge of HR management and HR systems planning at our sites in Europe and the Middle East.

• 2018

  Joined Mitsubishi Electric’s Kansai Branch Office. Assigned to HR and Training Section, Administrative Department

• 2023

  Assigned to OJT Overseas Trainee Program placement at Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. Corporate Head Office

*The information on this page is current as of April, 2024.