Uchida: Before the introduction of ABW, the office was a windowless, claustrophobic space with a row of executive offices in front of it, and the island-style layout made it easy for people around to call out to them when they wanted to concentrate on their work. In addition, only a limited number of people had access to the office where the Corporate Planning Department worked, and there was little interaction with employees from other departments.

After the ABW implementation, the office is a bright and open-plan office with a mega-plate floor of 2690m2, so I am very attracted to being able to work in such an environment. On the other hand, at first, I was confused by the amount of self-discretion that allowed me to "work whenever and wherever I want," and even deciding on a seat to work was a struggle. However, my awareness and inclination towards self-discretion gradually increased, and as a result, I became more conscious of the appropriateness of the relationship between my work content and my work location, and I began to seek a better work environment to suit my activities, such as "If I want to talk about this, let's do it in a casual conversation space," or "When I want to shut out the world around me, I'll go to a high-concentration space." Above all, I have gradually been interacting more with employees from other departments compared to before the implementation of ABW, and now my thoughts and ideas, which were previously inward-looking, are more outward-looking.

Daily communication with Uchida-san is mainly done through chat. We use group chat for each department, and we use chat not only for work instructions and contact but also for morning greetings and checking on the health of members, and we try to keep communication as light and gentle as possible.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most interactions were online, but now that the pandemic has calmed down, we have been consciously increasing face-to-face interactions. In particular, when two or three people are together and say, "Let's concentrate for two hours to create something" or "Let's brainstorm ideas," face-to-face interaction (including facial expressions and gestures) increases sensitivity to the other person's understanding and interest in the conversation, and the conversation can be exchanged more quickly. On the other hand, meetings with a relatively large number of participants, such as regular meetings, are held online as a standard, and there are more online participants than in-person. Therefore, if the camera is turned off, participants are required to actively send and receive messages because it is difficult to see facial expressions and convey their intentions.

Uchida: Before implementing ABW, all documents were printed and stored on paper. We had particular difficulty with meeting materials for management. For each attendee, we would prepare a huge amount of documents, up to 1cm thick, until late the day before the meeting. Even after implementing ABW, we were not able to switch to a paperless system immediately, but the COVID-19 pandemic completely changed the situation. We shared documents on Google Drive and made them viewable on each executive's devices, such as iPads and laptops.

Uchida: My weekly activity ratio is 20% "high concentration", 5% each "working with someone else" and "dialogue", 60% "information organization", and 10% "idea generation". There's a bit too much "information organization" (laughs). As for how to use office work and telecommuting, I currently work in the office 4 days a week, often meeting with relevant parties to exchange ideas or concentrating on a small group of people to summarize. Considering the one-hour commute each way and making effective use of my time, including my private life, I would like to consolidate my office schedule into 3 days a week and work from home for one more day, but there are few plans that I can decide on at my own convenience, so it's difficult. By the way, at home, I work at a desk that I made myself in my bedroom and a Levino chair (currently out of stock), which is a product of our company. If possible, I would like to reduce the number of meetings for "information organization" in the office and increase the time I can spread ideas and think about things at home or in various places.

Uchida: I think what is required to carry out ABW is 1) that each individual has a certain level of ability to handle work, and 2) that a minimum level of team building has been achieved. The reason for this is that when working in a distributed manner, you cannot always be by someone's side and give instructions one by one, so you need to plan and proceed with a certain volume of work yourself. Also, since communication is mainly through text such as email and chat, there is a possibility that differences in how people receive information, information disparities, and barriers between departments may easily arise, so it is important that team building has been achieved (i.e. relationships of trust have been fostered).

With the current teleworking work style, no matter how much IT tools are used, it is difficult to build fundamental trust in the non-real world. If an organization only does self-contained work, it is a different story, but if the organization needs to achieve results through teamwork, I feel the need to regularly incorporate events and mechanisms to foster team trust into the ABW work style. The Corporate Planning Department to which I belong has three sections, two XORK and one in Osaka. Over the past one or two years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to foster team trust have been limited, and I feel a sense of crisis that the sense of unity and solidarity may be frayed, and I would like to strengthen cooperation within the department once again. For this reason, the entire department meets once a quarter to share the work of each section and hold a general meeting to share knowledge such as in-depth knowledge. Until now, the meetings have been mainly online, but in the future, I feel the need to take some effective measures for team building, such as training camps with workcations, even if it means spending a little money. I think it would be good for the company to support such package plans that can be used for each organization and project.

Uchida: At the time it was so natural that I didn't think about it much, but having a fixed place to work had a huge impact, making the organization's thinking inward-looking and I think it was a factor that hindered growth. On the other hand, with ABW, each individual acts independently as a professional, and by meeting various people, they can develop an outward-looking mindset and generate new ideas, which I think can make the organization a more advanced group. ABW requires infrastructure development and takes time for both individuals and organizations to become adept at using it, so I think there is a tendency for costs to take precedence, but I think it is a valid challenge for growing as an organization.

In addition, it has traditionally been said that it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of investments in the working environment. The reason for this is that, while there should be a scenario in which "changes in work style have improved workers productivity and improved the company's performance," work style is only one factor related to performance, and is also affected by various other external factors. However, the Corporate Planning Department will continue to monitor from various angles so that we can confirm the medium- to long-term cost-effectiveness of the investment in introducing ABW.