Hello, this is Uemura from the Production Department.
It has been 11 years since I joined Monosus, but for the past three years I have been away from Yoyogi and have been based at a client's office.
I go to Yoyogi a few times a month, and otherwise I'm basically stationed at my client's offices.
The Yoyogi members treat him as a completely rare character.
To be honest, when I heard about the permanent position, I was filled with anxiety, wondering if I, who is such an introvert and hates change in environment, could handle a permanent position.
However, when I took the plunge and took the plunge, I found that there were many things I could not learn and experience at Monosus, and I feel that I am growing as a person and am enjoying a fulfilling life as a resident.
Recently, an increasing number of Monosus members have been working full-time or semi-full-time at client sites. So, this time, I'd like to share with you the "ethics of being a full-time employee," which I always keep in mind, even though it may seem like I'm a bit of a senior.
First, think of it as 1 to 81, not 1 to 1.
"I don't have any friends, I have to do it all by myself..."
It's easy to fall into this mindset when you're working alone at a client's site rather than as part of a team, but in reality this is not the case.
Clients do not request work from an individual named "Mr./Ms. XX," but from "Mr./Ms. XX of Monosus ." In other words, they trust the "power of Monosus" of the 80 people behind Mr./Ms. XX, and get the job.
There is a limit to what one person can accomplish, both physically and in terms of skill. No matter how talented a person is, the results may only be 1.5 times as good, but not twice or three times as good.
However, if you think that you have 80 Monosus employees with various skills and knowledge behind you, you can borrow the power of others when you encounter a problem, when you want to move things forward quickly, or when you want to broaden your horizons. This is a special technique that only those who are affiliated with a company and have a resident contract can use, and not freelancers or temporary workers.
The fact that we can enlist the help of 1 person plus 80 people is the very value of "Mr./Ms. XX of Monosus" and its greatest strength.
Before you get disheartened, thinking that you don't have enough power, take pride and say, "I can't do it alone, but if we ask for help from Monosus, we can do it!"
Second, always keep your antenna pointed toward Yoyogi.
This is one of the things that happens when you are stationed abroad, but you tend to work so hard at your place of residence that you end up neglecting your personal hygiene.
When you are based at a client's site, you have fewer opportunities to go to Yoyogi, which means you also have less time to physically talk with other members, and you end up feeling like Urashima Taro, with no idea what anyone is doing at the moment.
However, as mentioned in the first rule, in order to be able to say, "We can borrow the power of 80 people!", you need to keep your antennae pointed within Monosas and keep up with information and trends.
I know it sounds strange to say this all of a sudden, but people grow and develop. You can really see this when you leave Yoyogi. That person who couldn't even handle a case by themselves a few months ago is now able to do that! Or that person is starting to do something completely different from their previous job! Just by leaving for a little while, you find out a lot of things you didn't know before.
The more information you have, the more drawers you will have of the 80 people inside you. To avoid becoming like Urashima Taro and having only 5 or 3 drawers instead of 80, you should always be aware of the movements of people within your company.
By the way, the way to catch it is different for each person.
- Utilize in-house SNS
- Actively participate in company events and make new faces
- When I'm in Yoyogi, I invite a bunch of people out for drinks.
- Rely on people who are information brokers and keep up with everyone's trends
By the way, I am fourth, and I am always getting the latest information from my close-knit sources within the company, such as "This is what Mr. XX is doing right now" or "XX-kun has been able to do this recently" (thank you).
Third, work should not be reduced to an artisanal process.
Next, let me change perspective a bit and talk about how we work with clients.
On-site placements are for a limited period of time. No matter how useful your work is to the client, it is unlikely that you will stay on-site forever. There are various reasons for this, such as the end of the contract, the end of the project itself, or other members taking your place, but you need to always be aware that "someone else will be doing the work I'm doing now" when working.
When working in-house, saying "Only he can do that job" may be a compliment, but if the person is only stationed there for a limited period of time, it will only hinder your future work.
So what I am conscious of is,
- Clarify work processes
- Always share what you do
There are just two points to note.
When you say "written documentation," you might think of something grand like a manual or a handover document, but it's actually very simple; it's just a detailed, practical task list that covers the entire work from start to finish.
By creating a task list for every step of your work, you can properly inventory what you can do without thinking and what you can't do without thinking.
The troublesome thing about becoming a craftsman (something only Mr./Ms. XX can do) is that even the things that "can be done without thinking" become part of the black box. However, if you make a task list, the next person to do the same process should be able to at least do the things that "can be done without thinking" successfully.
Next, to share with others, you can hold frequent team meetings and keep minutes of those meetings so that later you can remember, "Oh, that person said that at that time." You can also include them in the cc: field of an email. This way, you can share the whole "way of thinking" of "things that you can't do without thinking."
Both are simple and anyone can do them starting tomorrow, but "creating an environment where work can continue even when you are not there" is actually the most important and responsible mission of a full-time employee.
By the way, I highly recommend doing this, as it makes it easier for other people on your team to step in to help you when you have to take time off due to illness or when you are unavoidably busy with other work.
Fourth, we should take the best parts of each other's cultures.
Finally, one of the best parts of being a permanent resident is being able to encounter new cultures outside of your own company.
No matter how many books you read or how many people you talk to, unless you change jobs, you will never have the opportunity to directly come into contact with a culture other than your own. However, if you are stationed at a company, one day you will suddenly enter another company and come into direct contact with the culture of that company.
By learning about values you've never encountered before and meeting people you think are amazing, you can not only improve your skills as an individual, but also take the good things about the place you're stationed at back to your own company.
For example, one of the biggest benefits of working at Monosus is the dramatic shift to cloud computing for documents and proposals. Cloud computing has made it possible to work remotely without being restricted by time or place, and to share documents simultaneously to get work done, dramatically changing the way we work.
Monosus's policy of "work and live freely" combines the best parts of other companies' cultures to create a new culture at Monosus. The reverse is also possible, so if you have a culture that you think might work better, you can propose it to your resident company.
I feel that it would be a great reward to be a resident if I can be a bridge builder while I am stationed there and bring a positive culture to both the client and my company.
So far, I have shared four things to keep in mind when working on-site, but after reading them, some of you may be thinking, "This isn't much different from the things you need to keep in mind when working in an office."
That's right.
I believe the work ethic is fundamentally the same whether you're in the company or outside.
However, things that you could get away with doing casually while you were in-house may be more important when you are stationed at another company. I think that's why you can grow in a way that you couldn't do while you were in-house.
I hope that when I return to Monosus from my current workplace, I will have grown a bit...and with that thought in mind, I continue to work hard every day, a few kilometers from Yoyogi.
Kami