Japanese Young Grads: “I Want To Start At The Top Thank You”   One great thing about those fresh out of University in Japan joining the workforce is they are fully primed to start at the top and work their way up.  Grinding it out to gain experience and insight is boring.  “Hey Boss, whisper the magic formula in my ear, so I can skip all that tedium” is their most attractive career plan.  How do we manage young people who do not want to be like their sempai or seniors?   In the past, such unrealistic expectations would have been knocked out of them pretty quickly. Their bosses would have straightened them out about what they are supposed to do – work like a dog for forty years, so you can retire on a company pension.  They would have been given them the worst, most boring jobs to teach them the ropes from the very start.  Progress would have been glacial and the mindlessness of the some of the tasks, asphyxiating.  “That is how we roll around here in Japan work world”, was the culture.  Well that used to be it but not anymore.   This youth cohort are the luckiest bunch of Japanese young in history.  The country is at peace, health care is phenomenal and cheap, the economy is doing well, there is rule of law, no guns and political stability.  The youth population is in decline and will keep declining.  There are 1.64 jobs out there for every candidate looking for a job.  The traditional 3 K jobs (kitanai-dirty, kikken-dangerous, kitsui-difficult) will done by Asian foreigners, freeing Japanese up to do more sophisticated, better paying work.    By the way, anyone reading the press reports about how these foreigners will only be here for five years and then will have to go home, just watch this space.  Does anyone seriously believe that after having spent five years here, learning the language and culture and mastering their jobs with Japanese firms, that their employers will want to see them shipped out to be replaced by a bunch of newbies, who don’t know anything?  Once these foreign workers arrive, we can expect they will be staying forever, despite what the Abe Cabinet may be saying at the moment.   My soap box moment is over and so back to the young grads and their career planning.  The beauty of this current situation for the young graduates is that they are in deep demand.  Companies will quickly learn to adjust to their requirements, if they want to keep them. Recruiting is one dimension of difficulty, but so is retaining.  The retain part is key, because so much will have been invested in them and they are needed to fill the succession funnel within the firm.  Bosses balling them out will find they will just leave and go to the competitor. There is already an army of recruiters sweating on this churn to make their businesses flourish.   So how do bosses align this youth fantasy of how their careers will work, with the reality?  One thing companies can do is to give them training to show they are supporting their development.  The usual formula is you get formal training when you join and then again when you step up into management positions.  The time lag can be five years plus before this happens. In the interim you are supposed to be get trained on the job.  This would be fine if your bosses were actually doing it and even better if they knew how to do it.   We have to look at retraining the bosses.  They need to understand their job is to retain these young people, not toughen them up. Bosses have to be better communicators, encouragers and mentors.  As the boss, this is definitely not how you were treated on the way up, so the obvious thing to do is mete out what you got and pass that parcel down the line.  This is a really bad idea because the world has changed and bosses have to get with the programme.   One very simple, but tough to implement change on the bosses part, would be to ask more questions, instead of firing out orders.  Instead of telling them the task and then letting them do it, present the outcome d