Reducing the office by 50% to accommodate

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Both in-office and remote work: What iRidge did to achieve optimal working styles after COVID-19
iRidge has decided to transition to a hybrid working style that combines working in the office and working from home after the COVID-19 pandemic, and recently announced that it will reduce and reorganize its office by about 50% by February 2021.


　▶ Building a post-COVID hybrid work style and new office "iRidge Hybrid Working Style"

Due to the company's policy of placing overseas chinese in canada data importance on communication, iRidge did not have a remote work system before the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, when the infection began to spread in late February, they quickly responded to remote work, and moved to remote work as a general rule before the state of emergency was declared. A little over half a year has passed since then, but remote work is expected to continue as a general rule until the COVID-19 pandemic calms down. We spoke with the General Affairs
and Labor Department Manager, who was the main person in charge of promoting this, about the preparations that have been made during this time and the steps taken to decide not to return to working five days a week even after COVID-19.


Sayaka Sugiura, General Affairs and Labor Department Manager, Business Management Division, iRidge

Introducing remote work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and deciding how to work after COVID-19
──First of all, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, even though you are still busy dealing with various issues. I think you were one of the first to decide to introduce remote work in response to the spread of COVID-19, and even though you had no track record up until that point, the rules were immediately made known to the entire company. As an employee, I remember thinking, "Our company is on the ball." When did you start preparing?
In fact, regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had begun considering a limited introduction of this system around the end of last year.
We had also introduced a flextime system last summer , and as a company we were gradually searching for better ways of working. We had envisioned introducing this system on a permission-based basis, with advance application required, as an irregular response for some people, such as those who were raising children or caring for the elderly, or those who were waiting at home after recovering from the flu.

At the time, the member who is now on childcare leave was leading the initiative, but the spread of COVID-19 began right as we were in the midst of final consideration, so we decided to apply the operational rules we had in mind for irregular situations to the entire company and made everyone aware of them.
Since then, in line with the trends of the world, we have made the switch from recommending remote work to prohibiting employees from coming to the office in principle, and have made other small operational improvements.

--Furthermore, what was the process that led to the decision to adopt a hybrid working style that incorporates remote work even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided?
As remote work became prolonged, the management team comprehensively assessed the benefits and challenges that became apparent, and decided on a hybrid approach that combines working in the office and working from home. Our
office contract was due to expire in February of next year, and we had to decide by August of this year whether to renew it, so we began to concretely consider the future of our office around June.

(CEO) Oda-san interviewed the department heads about what problems each department was having and how they were resolving them, how often they would need to come into the office if they were to use remote work as well, etc. Based
on that, the management team discussed the current situation, what they want to do going forward, and the measures they need to consider, and they came to the decision to cut the office size in half by expecting employees to come into the office about two days a week.