NIRA RESEARCH REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The Lessons Learned from Telework and

Recognizing both the critical nature of meeting this moment for Japan, as well as the difficulties it will entail, the Nippon Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA) and Keio University’s Toshihiro Okubo, after having analyzed the trends across six rounds of the “Questionnaire Surveys on the Effects of the Spread of COVID-19 on Telework- based Work Style s , Lifestyle, and Awareness on Telework”. [...] Equalizing the situation so that the benefits of telework can be distributed more widely will require a combination of the following: improving the ICT competency of workers, accelerating the digitalization of regional areas and corporate structures, and the reworking the employment system to better suite telework. [...] NIRA RESEARCH REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY April 2022 Telework as a Pandemic Countermeasure: An analysis of the relationship between the use of telework, and the flow of people in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area shows that the First Declaration of a State of Emergency was followed by a large decrease in the number of people staying in the Tokyo city center during the daytime on weekdays, with a co. [...] An analysis of the pluses and minuses of telework as indicated by the data collected for this report shows that decreases in productivity typically stem from inefficiencies that arise in the chain of command due to the lack of physical proximity as well as difficulties experienced by employees in accessing the work environment remotely. [...] Figure: Difference in Telework Use by Gender Five Challenges for the Japanese Economy in the era of Telework: In order to make effective use of telework, the government must address the issues facing the Japanese economy.