Understanding Mass Organization Change

Japanese companies change organizational structure periodically. Consequently, employees are transferred to new roles and departments within the revised structure. This change is referred to as mass period transfers (teiki ido). With rapid changes in the business environment, organizational changes and mass transfers play an integral part for businesses in Japan and take place in short cycles.

Job rotation is viewed as an integral part of employee development in Japan. Human resources (HR) departments intentionally transfer some employees to multiple departments over a period of time. This practice is aimed at developing generalists who are knowledgeable about several jobs within the company. It also provides employees more experience and a broader vision of the company. The period of service in a department is often the selection criterion for job rotation. Employees who are identified as transferable are called transfer candidate employees.

Many companies in Japan employ a split HR organizational structure made up of division HR and corporate HR. Corporate HR is an HR department located in the main company headquarters of a large company or group of companies. Division HR departments are HR departments within a business unit or division. The division HR departments report to the corporate HR department (and the general manager of the business unit, subsidiary companies, and so on).

The division HR department formulates and implements activities related to changes in organizational strategy and employee placement at the departmental level. When division HR finishes its work, it reports to corporate HR. Corporate HR then coordinates and adjusts activities and placements among departments based on company strategy.

Tamatsuki Placement

The Japanese word tamatsuki combines the words ball (tama) and hit (tsuku) and means billiards in Japanese. Tamatsuki placement begins when an employee is assigned to a newly created post. The existing post is vacated and is available to be filled.

Note: A post is equivalent to a supervisory level role (yakushoku) in a department. It is different from a position, which is maintained in the Position Management feature.

When restructuring an organization, Tamatsuki placement is usually conducted along the same job level. Tamatsuki placement can also occur when an employee has requested a transfer. Job rotation for higher level management positions are also done across the same job level, which starts a job transfer chain of events.

For example, Bunji is assigned a new post, Corporate HR Division Director, and his previous post becomes available. Other employees are then assigned to similar posts at the same level by the cascading effect of a person moving from one post to another and leaving the existing post vacant. Daisuke is assigned to Bunji's previous post, Fusako is assigned to Daisuke's previous post, and Fusako's previous post is closed.

This example of tamatsuki placement is pictured in the following diagram:

Note: This feature does not support transfer between business units as table sets may differ from one business unit to the next.