The company was as comfortable as going home. Chikako Okubo, head office employee, who left Monosus after 12 years of service

Chikako Okubo, who works at the headquarters, has been relied on and loved by members as the "Monosus mother" for 12 years. When she joined the company in 2012, her child, who was attending nursery school, is now in high school.

"My parents are getting older and my children are leaving home. I've started to think that I need to be present during these important family moments over the next few years."

But Monosus is free and fun, and I love all the members more than anything. After repeatedly struggling between the self that was absorbed in work and the self that was the one and only for my family, I graduated from Monosus at the end of last year. Now, he watches over Monosus as an external partner.

Okubo's retirement is a big milestone not only for her but also for Monosus. What were she thinking as she worked at Monosus? Maki Yamada and Nozomi Nakajima from the Monosus Site Office were also in attendance and listened to Okubo's story.

Now I make satisfying meals in the morning!

Sugimoto : What kind of life have you been living since you left your company?

My second son, Okubo , plays soccer. To get bigger, he needs to eat a lot at each meal, so breakfast is important. But when I was working at a company, I was too tired to make him breakfast. So now, although I can't do it every day, I try to make a balanced breakfast. He had high expectations of me, saying, "Mom, if you quit your job, will you be able to have a satisfying meal in the morning?" (laughs).

Sugimoto: Has the time you spend with your family changed as well?

I've been spending more time at the Okubo household, so I've been talking quite a bit. My mother-in-law, who used to make dinner for me, said, "Since I quit my job, I'll make dinner about twice a week!", which is weird (laughs). Then she said, "If you take my work away from me, you'll go senile, so you don't have to push yourself," so I was spoiled and said, "Is it okay?" We haven't made our debut at dinner yet. Maybe once or twice!

Sugimoto : Before that, I didn't have much time for myself.

Okubo : That's right! Really. Because my children had club activities, I would get up at 5 or 6 in the morning on weekends to make lunches and send them off, so I've never slept without setting an alarm. In that sense, I felt like I wanted to take it easy and rest.

However, there are routine tasks at headquarters that last for a month, several months, or even a year. The person with the second longest history at headquarters after me is Mochio (Chisato Mochizuki), who has been with the company for a full year, and I've been asked to do something like watching over her. Also, I've been asked to continue my personal project "Musubi-kai" that I've been doing for a year last year.

"Just a little" was not an option

Sugimoto: I'll tell you more about the Musubi-kai later. Can I ask you again why you decided to leave Monosas?

A woman talking cheerfully

Okubo : I guess it's because I no longer have time for my family. My mother passed away in November of last year, and now my father, who is almost 90 years old, lives alone in Mito. I accompany him to the hospital once every two months and visit him once a month, but I'm busy and I'm always working at home. I've spent a few years thinking that I really want to do a lot for my father but I can't, and Monosas is fun after all.

My mother-in-law cooks for me every day, but I feel that she is getting older and more tired, and if something were to happen to her, I would only regret it. I'm not the type of person who pushes myself too hard, so I've been relying on my mother-in-law, thinking that it's okay if she does it. I wonder if it's okay that I don't have time for my children.

My oldest child is already a university student, and my youngest child will be in high school soon, and will leave the nest in a few years. I had been thinking for a few years that I should keep a close eye on this. The work can be done without me, but I thought I should be a little more careful about important moments in our family. So, at the beginning of the year after my mother passed away, I consulted with Mr. Sakuyama and said, "I want to resign within a year."

It's been quite a year since I decided to resign.

Okubo : Yes. I felt lonely and thought several times, "I wonder if there's something I can do." But when I'm there, I just end up working endlessly. When I think, "Maybe I should do this," or "Maybe I should do that," I end up wasting time. Mr. Sakuyama made various suggestions, such as part-time work or reduced hours, but I think he thought that maybe I would end up doing the same thing because I would be worried about things and do a lot of things when I'm at the office.

I want to make it a "good company" for my members.

When you joined the company, Okubo Sugimoto was a part-timer and was initially on the Check Team (Quality Control Department) and also worked at the call center.

Okubo : That's right. When the call center was abolished in 2016, I thought, "I'll quit if I can't answer the phone," but I was asked, "Why don't you come to the headquarters?" By that time, I had already grown to like the people at this company, and I felt that I wanted to turn Monosus into a good company for them. My youngest child had already started elementary school, so I said, "I can work overtime," and they asked me if I would like to become a contract employee. So I thought I could settle down and help out, and I became a full-time employee soon after.

Sugimoto: When did you start to become deeply involved in the company?

Okubo : In 2019, when we had a training camp in Zushi to think about the future of Monosus, Mr. Hayashi (former president) invited me. Since the people who were invited were all long-time executives, I thought, "Oh, maybe they have high expectations of me? I have children and I'm an old lady," but I was very happy that he invited me. I think that's what made me think that I should try harder. I also thought about becoming a UL (unit leader) in the headquarters unit. Maybe I wanted to be involved in making the company better.

Sugimoto :After that, the company introduced the UL/BO (Business Owner) system, which I think increased the level of participation in the management and operation of the company.

Okubo : At that time, each department was hiring, and the general managers were searching for media, interviewing, and hiring by themselves. But if the UL system was going to start, it would be good to consolidate hiring at the headquarters unit. I said that I wanted to be involved in that because hiring is very important to improve the company. Then, I was invited to join the HR project to help current members feel comfortable and at ease in their work.

More members who feel like my own children

Sugimoto: Can I ask you about a system that you think was beneficial to have established during your tenure?

Okubo: I guess it was a follow-up interview. There was a sense of crisis that if new employees were to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, the turnover rate would increase and they would not develop an attachment to the company. We created Monosus' system while also referring to systems from other companies. Mr. Miyagawa and I split up the work and conducted the interviews, and because we were in a diagonal relationship, not a hierarchical one, we were able to ask for advice on things that would be difficult to talk about with our superiors.

Sugimoto: Will you report what you learned in the interview to your superiors later?

Okubo: Of course, if there is something they don't want to talk about, I respect their wishes, but otherwise I basically tell my superiors. When I heard what they wanted to tell their superiors, I acted as a bridge to ensure smooth communication. It was good that they gradually started to say, "I'll ask them at the follow-up interview," and it was also good that they started to talk to me outside of interviews when they were confused or worried. (Yamada) Maki was the same.

I was really encouraged by the fact that I had many interviews with Yamada . It makes all the difference whether Okubo-san is there or not (tears).

Okubo : Oh, good, good!

Sugimoto: Because I was interviewing employees, Okubo was the first person I met when I came to Monosus. After that, she continued to listen to me, so I think she felt more like a mother to me.

Okubo : When a chick hatches, it immediately assumes that the first thing it sees is its parent. Is that imprinting? I feel the same thing. The child who was nervous during the first online interview has already grown up so much! (laughs). As I started to do recruitment and follow-up interviews, I felt like I had a parental instinct.

Sugimoto: And along with that, the amount of work increased.

Okubo : That's right. Follow-up interviews and training are meaningless if they are done only once, so they have to be done regularly. The company's food research club was launched and the number of company members increased, so I think the actual amount of work increased.

"Musubukai" (Connecting Meetings) to Re-Weave Relationships Within the Company

Sugimoto: Speaking of Okubo -san, he was also a sports day leader. Did you have the feeling that you wanted to make the company more fun?

Okubo : I've never thought of doing something so presumptuous (laughs). I like sports, so I wanted to do a sports day myself. Originally, we regularly rented a sports center near the company and invited the whole company to play futsal, ultimate, and badminton. Every time we had a party, we talked about how we wanted to do a sports day. So, we were thinking about doing it ourselves, not as a company, when Mr. Hayashi said, "Why not do it as the company's anniversary event?" I was happy to do it with the company's money!

"Monosasu Beer" was also born from a research project with Sugimoto Izumi.

Okubo : I'm currently consulting with KAMIYAMA BEER in Kamiyama, Tokushima, and they are making a prototype beer using discarded bread from the Food Hub Project's bakery, "Kamapan." Kamapan's production manager, Sasagawa (Daisuke), said, "There's a theory that beer was originally made by fermenting bread into alcohol. We can work together on beer made from bread, and I've always wanted to work with Monosas." I'll continue to help with beer brewing and drink it (laughs).

The four of them watch beer being brewed

Sugimoto : Last year, you started the "Musubi-kai" project, which you are very passionate about.

Okubo: As remote work has increased since the COVID -19 pandemic, other companies have been gathering employees together for drinking parties, so I wanted to do something like that. I proposed to Manabe that we do something like an internal matching for the HR project. We surveyed what members were interested in, and only I had the results. It was like creating an opportunity for people who don't usually talk much but have something in common to talk to each other. But at the time, it was postponed.

However, last year, when I had a meeting with Manabe-san, he asked me, "Okubo-san, tell us what you like and what you want to do," so I said, "You said you wanted to do internal matching!" (laughs) So, we secured a budget for six sessions a year and started.

Sugimoto: What kind of matching is happening?

Okubo : The first time, Tomiko (Tomita Riko) from Shashokuken read an article on designer Takita (Reiko)'s Monosasu site and said she wanted to talk about it, so the three of us put the two together. The second time was K-POP. After asking everyone, we finally found three people who liked K-POP and went drinking and shopping in Shin-Okubo, and then we had a second meeting with more members. We watched videos of each of our favorite artists and ate takeout Korean food, and it was a great time.

Next was a meeting for moms and dads raising children. This also gathered about 10 people and was very lively. It took about two hours just to introduce ourselves and say "What I want to ask everyone about raising children". In the chat group we created at that time, we started talking about handing down picture books, which I think is nice. I think we try to invite everyone as evenly as possible.

Nakajima: I think that depending on the company, connecting employees may have the goal of improving business performance. I was listening to Okubo wondering why he would go to such lengths.

Okubo: I thought it would be nice to be able to talk easily when working. If you don't talk a lot when working in a team, it's hard to make progress, right? If we have a common theme, we'll have something to talk about afterwards, and I think that's the best thing I can do. I hope it will be easier to work with people I've never spoken to before.

In one word, it was fun!

Sugimoto :Looking back on your work history, what kind of company do you think Monosus was?

Okubo: In a word, it was fun. I joined Recruit as a new graduate and worked there for about seven and a half years, and it was really fun. The people were fun, I was free, and I often had to do things with authority and responsibility, so it was the best, and I thought, "There's no company that can surpass this." But before I knew it, I was working almost twice as much at Monosus as I did at Recruit. I think that says it all.

Monosus lets me do what I want to do. Sports days, beer tying parties, recruitment and follow-up interviews, I enjoyed it even though I was busy because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, if everyone can feel comfortable, I felt even happier.

Yamada: How do you determine what you want to do?

Okubo : It's not my head, it's here, here (I put my hand on my chest). I don't think with my head. I mean, I don't think with my head that I want to eat something, do I? Like, "I want to eat cake." "Oh, it's ramen."

Yamada : Ah, so it's the same feeling.

Okubo: I feel the same way. I think the question of whether you want to do something or not just comes to you. Once it's decided that you can do it, you think about what to do with it. I think it can all turn out that way.

Nakajima: I think the company has changed a lot in the five or six years since the UL/BO system began. What do you think about that, Mr. Okubo?

A woman speaking at the center of the group

Okubo: Until then, we often moved at Hayashi's command, but now Hayashi has started to leave things up to everyone. As a result, I feel like everyone has become independent and is doing what they want to do responsibly. During job interviews, I'm often asked, "Monosus has many different businesses, but what do you place emphasis on and what kind of company are you aiming to be?" But Monosus doesn't have that kind of thing. At first, I thought, "Maybe it's okay not to decide," but over the past two or three years, I've come to understand that "that's fine."

The future of the company will emerge as we go along. There's not just one, it's different for everyone, and there's no one company-wide vision, as Mr. Sakuyama always tells his interviewers, and I think he's right.

What does Monosus mean to you now, Sugimoto Okubo?

The Okubo family? Yes, it's that comfortable, it feels like going home. That's why I was able to continue, even when I was busy.

Do you think Okubo Sugimoto's relationship with Monosus will continue in the future?

Okubo : If there aren't enough people, I'll help out, because I like it. If they ask me, I'll be grateful to help out. But I'll be careful not to overdo it... (laughs) The sports day allowed me to do what I wanted to do. I'll definitely participate in it again in the future!

Good relationships in the workplace become connection capital (social capital), and these relationships have a chain reaction that has a positive impact on relationships with the outside world (according to Professor Uchida Yukiko of Kyoto University's Kokoro Research Center ).

I think what Okubo was doing was creating capital for the connections at Monosus. It's not something visible, and it doesn't directly generate money, but I think it left something very important in the lives of the people involved.

Thank you very much for your hard work over the past 12 years.
You may have graduated from work, but you haven't graduated from drinking parties.
Let's drink some delicious beer again!