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Komiyama That’s just wonderful.
Sakane I’ve met with women managers. They told me they want to have a lot of
children and still carry on with their careers. One of them said, maybe half joking,
that she has a three-generation household and her father-in-law tells her, “I’ll watch
the grandkids, you go to work,’ so she’s able to work very happily.
Komiyama The other side is that in Tokyo, when a woman becomes a full-time
housewife, she tends to stay home all the time with her child. It has been found that
full-time housewives are much more likely to report that they have felt an urge to
abuse their child. It’s important to have a setting where the mother can raise children
while working.
Sakane There are people who prefer not to have children, and people who want to
but can’t, so it’s impossible to generalize. I myself have three grandchildren. I am
75 now, and I’m sure I would be sad if I didn’t have grandchildren at my age. That
makes me feel that a three-generation household is the happiest option for seniors.
In Komatsu, more than 20% of the people have three generations of their family
living within the city, if not in the same home. I think that’s part of the goodness of
life in local communities.
Komiyama Weren’t there some employees who were against the idea of relocating
head office functions?
Sakane Indeed, there were. Including my wife. She saw a story in a local newspaper that said Komatsu was relocating its entire head office, and she came to me and
said, “What’s this? I’m not moving, so you’ll be going there alone!” So, when we
relocated the purchasing department, we asked about 30 people to give it a try for
3 years, promising that within that time, if they preferred, we could find local people
to take their jobs and we would welcome them back in Tokyo. In the end, some
decided to buy homes and move their families to Komatsu, and surprisingly few
returned to Tokyo.
Retirees Teaching Science to Young Children
Sakane In order to maintain and expand our base in Ishikawa, we need to steadily
take on young employees. It turns out that in the Ishikawa area, about one in ten
persons works part-time in agriculture. We realized we had to give them some support, and in 2013 we began offering technical assistance for crop and tree farmers.
The obvious thing was the intelligent Machine Control Bulldozer from our
SMARTCONSTRUCTION line. When our people talked to farmers and asked why
Interview
Komiyama That’s just wonderful.
Sakane I’ve met with women managers. They told me they want to have a lot of
children and still carry on with their careers. One of them said, maybe half joking,
that she has a three-generation household and her father-in-law tells her, “I’ll watch
the grandkids, you go to work,’ so she’s able to work very happily.
Komiyama The other side is that in Tokyo, when a woman becomes a full-time
housewife, she tends to stay home all the time with her child. It has been found that
full-time housewives are much more likely to report that they have felt an urge to
abuse their child. It’s important to have a setting where the mother can raise children
while working.
Sakane There are people who prefer not to have children, and people who want to
but can’t, so it’s impossible to generalize. I myself have three grandchildren. I am
75 now, and I’m sure I would be sad if I didn’t have grandchildren at my age. That
makes me feel that a three-generation household is the happiest option for seniors.
In Komatsu, more than 20% of the people have three generations of their family
living within the city, if not in the same home. I think that’s part of the goodness of
life in local communities.
Komiyama Weren’t there some employees who were against the idea of relocating
head office functions?
Sakane Indeed, there were. Including my wife. She saw a story in a local newspaper that said Komatsu was relocating its entire head office, and she came to me and
said, “What’s this? I’m not moving, so you’ll be going there alone!” So, when we
relocated the purchasing department, we asked about 30 people to give it a try for
3 years, promising that within that time, if they preferred, we could find local people
to take their jobs and we would welcome them back in Tokyo. In the end, some
decided to buy homes and move their families to Komatsu, and surprisingly few
returned to Tokyo.
Retirees Teaching Science to Young Children
Sakane In order to maintain and expand our base in Ishikawa, we need to steadily
take on young employees. It turns out that in the Ishikawa area, about one in ten
persons works part-time in agriculture. We realized we had to give them some support, and in 2013 we began offering technical assistance for crop and tree farmers.
The obvious thing was the intelligent Machine Control Bulldozer from our
SMARTCONSTRUCTION line. When our people talked to farmers and asked why
Interview