The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

Every month, I check the leave balance for my staff and am always unhappy with the numbers.  The team can accrue up to 20 days a year for a maximum of two years, so technically they can have 40 days available, if they don’t take any leave at all.  Anything beyond that 40 days they lose.  In my company we provide an additional 4 days of company paid holidays, plus a CSR day, which they can use anyway they like.  There are 16 national holidays in Japan, so you would think the team would be able to use their leave without feeling they were losing too much of it, but that has not proven to be the case.  I found they still weren’t taking enough leave and thought maybe they were worried about sick leave and so were hoarding their annual leave to cover that possibility off.  I subsequently gave them an extra 5 days of sick leave, but it made absolutely no difference – they keep stowing away their leave and don’t use it enough. As an Aussie, this whole Japanese non-leave taking thing is mystifying.  I try to set a go