SDF boot camps a way to toughen up rookie hires in corporate Japan
CHIKUJO, Fukuoka Prefecture--The Self-Defense Forces are back in business with a boot camp program for companies wanting to toughen up new hires.
'Enlistment experience' at SDF camps and bases dropped sharply during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
One company that is putting new employees through the mill hopes the regimented way of life in the SDF will pay dividends in terms of improved teamwork and leadership capabilities.
Many new hires these days grew up in an age with fewer opportunities for face-to-face communication, company officials explained.
Since fiscal 2015 until COVID-19 hit, the Ground SDF hosted between 1,200 and 1,700 enlistment experience programs across Japan each year, according to the Ground Staff Office.
The annual count plunged to around 100 during the pandemic but has rebounded to 400 or so.
Some Air and Maritime SDF bases also began holding programs again after the pandemic ended.
However, the Air Staff Office and the Maritime Staff Office had no figures on the number of corporate employees signed up to courses around the country.
ASDF Tsuiki Air Base, which straddles Chikujo and other municipalities in Fukuoka Prefecture, resumed hosting enlistment experience programs for trainees last year.
Nissan Motor Kyushu Co., an auto subsidiary based in Kanda, Fukuoka Prefecture, enrolled its new hires in an SDF experience program at the air base as part of training for two years in succession.
Ninety-six new hires, male and female, stayed at the base for two days during the latest training session this past spring.
They were grouped into 10 squads of nine or 10 members each and started their daily routine with reveille resounding in their barracks at 6:15 a.m. sharp.
They took meals squad by squad, with all members having to wait until the last one had finished eating.
The trainees went on marches, lined up for roll call and saluted superiors. During a moderate run of 5 kilometers or so, all the members of a squad were required to adjust their pace together to cross the finish line simultaneously.
'I want the trainees to acquire habits expected of working adults, such as teamwork, discipline and the practice of greeting one another,' said Masahiro Todaka of Nissan Motor Kyushu's personnel division.
Company officials said they decided to enroll their new employees in the SDF program after noticing their lack of cohesion and scanty sense of organization. Until recently, they had all been attending high school or university when online classes and conferences were deemed to be the norm.
The SDF lists the enlistment experience programs under 'public relations activities.'
Participants in the programs at Tsuiki Air Base also attend a lecture on the prevailing security situation around Japan and the role of the base. They get to inspect the defense equipment, including a fighter jet.
'The programs are helping us win the public's understanding of, and confidence in, this base, which is playing a part in national defense,' said a base official.
AN EXPERT'S VIEW
An academic who studies corporate culture was cautious in his assessment of the merits of the training programs.
'There are limits, in this age when individual creativity is in high demand, to what you can do by just acting as instructed,' said Hajime Ota, a professor emeritus of organization theory with Doshisha University in Kyoto.
'Organizations in Japan are very much a community type and prone to generate vertical relationships,' he said. 'That tendency could be exacerbated by the enlistment experience programs. Businesses should be aware of that risk in deciding whether to enroll their employees in the programs.'
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