Making “Smart Work” a Reality

The Pandemic Accelerating a Diversity of Workstyles

The at-home workspace that Sekisui House recommends

With the spread of the novel coronavirus, wearing masks and avoiding close contact have become a daily routine, so lifestyles have really changed. Not just that, but a variety of different workstyles have also set in. People working from home, remote work, coming into the office at different times... the diversification of workstyles that weren’t really known in Japan has been ongoing. Now, the talk of the town is the flexible workstyle known as “smart work,” which uses ICT to allow people to work without being tied to a particular time or place.

What Will Be Required of Offices Going Forward

One of our online meetings

With the proliferation of smart work under the pandemic, the number of places to work has expanded noticeably. We’ve also seen changes in the very concept of an office, which had a strong sense of being a uniform space where workers come together to do their job at a specific time in a specific place. With people forming connections, ideas and innovations have been born out of the chit-chat and brainstorming. This role has become more and more important.

Here at the Sekisui House Group, we have been flexibly applying the work-from-home rules, which are usually limited to certain employees, to anyone and for any reason. We had already been encouraging working remotely, and while there is a gap between different job types and work contents, the majority of our employees have been either working from home or working different shifts as the situation requires.

Additionally, online meetings becoming standard has not only prevented the spread of infection but also contributed to the improvement of efficient and productivity. Furthermore, our offices have been effectively utilizing the experiences and creative endeavors that we have built up under the restrictive circumstances of the pandemic for new office possibilities and workstyles. In this way, it has also led to the birth of innovation.

The Key to Realizing Smart Work Is Good Communication

A café corner and counter space that can be used for purposes like communication between coworkers and concentrating on work

The goals of the smart work that we envision are to improve productivity, to create new ideas, and to achieve diverse workstyles. In order to achieve these goals, it is imperative that we not only encourage workstyles that aren’t limited to one place but also invigorate communication. Right now, most of our offices have already begun introducing free addresses and open communication spaces, with the goal of invigorating communication that crosses the boundaries between different work types and occupations more than before. As one aspect of our personnel evaluation system reforms, supervisors and subordinates have a one-on-one interview every three months, and since August 2021 we have been gradually implementing the “career interviews” that promote autonomous career development.

Going forward, under the key phrase “Innovation & Communication,” we will continue to move ahead with further reforms, building a workplace environment where our employees can keep working with a sense of peace of mind while also fully realizing their potential, as we strive to be the world’s happiest company where everyone can feel a sense of satisfaction and happiness through doing rewarding work.

Workstyle Reform Initiatives

Regular Inspections of Custom Detached Houses by Robots: Super-speedy Defect Detection

Sekisui House wants all customers who have built their home with us to enjoy living there for many years. So, after handing over a new home to a customer, we carry out periodic inspections after the first three months, and then after the first, second, fifth, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty fifth and thirtieth years. There are 30 Sekisui House Customer Service Centers nationwide that handle our after-sales services, which include conducting periodic inspections and carrying out repairs and maintenance as required. Around 1,500 staff are placed in Sekisui House organizations, and they provide highly-reliable after-sales services that our customers trust and feel reassured by. Since August 2019, we have been using drones, underfloor inspection robots, and robotic cameras designed for attic inspections during the periodic inspections of custom detached houses conducted every ten years. We also started the Smart Inspection system to speedily detect defects, by uploading the images taken by the robots to the cloud and sharing them with office support desk staff who can quickly determine if any defects exist.

Improving the Working Environment for Inspection Staff: Advancing Workstyle Innovation Across the Construction Industry

The drones and underfloor inspection robots used in the Smart Inspection system can easily be controlled remotely by devices such as a smartphone or tablet, and from any location. This means the inspectors do not have to crawl under floors, climb into attics or directly enter other tricky places, or carry any tools like tripods into the customer’s home, allowing them to avoid possibly dirtying or damaging the home during an inspection. Also, as inspectors do not have to work in high places or under floors, an inspection that normally takes two people around two hours to complete (total of four hours) can be done in less than half the time of just one hour and forty-five minutes and by only one inspector. These initiatives are also improving the work environment for inspection staff. Using robots during periodic inspections is expanding the work opportunities for women, seniors and other employees, and helping to mitigate issues in the construction industry such as labor shortages and an aging workforce.

Smart Inspection System