Japanese Worklife

Japanese companies once offered their employees jobs for life, and in return expected a lifetime of loyalty. The bonds between firms and their workers were reinforced by rituals like singing the company song, which was supposed to express "shafu", or company spirit. But lifetime employment in big companies have been in decline for a decade in Japan - with them, it looked as though the company song and other corporate traditions would also die out.

However, a small demolition firm is unexpectedly leading a company song revival. Nihon Break Kogyo has made an amateur promotional video that has become an unexpected hit in the Japanese pop charts. It features the firm's own staff, in overalls and helmets, smashing buildings, singing and playing guitar. Thanks to the publicity, Nihon Break Kogyo now has more demolition work than it can handle. The video was the brainwave of Shogo Kurita, one of the company directors. "The economy is very bad for us now. Every time we submit a cost estimate to potential clients, all our competitors give the same estimate," he told the BBC. "So we wanted to have something which would differentiate us from other demolition firms - we chose to write our own song."

Japan's largest retailer, Ito-Yokado, also has a company song. "Flap your wings, carry hope on your shoulders... hand-in-hand, Ito Yokada people will make a rainbow across the world," sing some 770 new recruits at a special ceremony. So what if you would like your own company song, but you lack home-grown talent among your staff? Brand-new, Tokyo-based enterprise Mysong will write one for you. It would be different from a traditional company song, Mysong's boss Masatoshi Aoki told us. The conventional company song is written for the employees, to inspire them to work better. But our idea is to use the song for public relations, to appeal to the outside world and put across the company's image and message to potential customers.

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