Work From Home Employees Will Pay Those Who Come To Office In This Electronics Company! A New Work Model?

A totally new approach to remote work is considered by the Disco Corp., a Japanese maker of semiconductor equipment.

A New Approach Towards Work From Home

As per this novel approach, those who choose to stay home pay the colleagues who brave the commute to show up in the office.

No need to surprise there as the Tokyo-based company is unusual in that for the past decade as it has used an internal currency called “Will”.

With this currency, the firm is trying to create a micro-economy where sales teams pay factory workers to produce goods, who in turn pay engineers to design products. 

On top of that, even their office desks, PCs and meeting rooms have a price. 

So, when a sale is made, the coin trickles back through the supply chain. 

While the leftover balances are paid in yen at the end of each quarter as bonuses.

Impact Of Pandemic

At the start of the pandemic, Disco didn’t have the option of letting all its employees log in from home. 

Since someone had to show up to keep the factories running. 

To resolve this, the firm has set up a system where those working remotely paid a certain amount of Will to be divided among the employees who came in.

As, “the ordering some people to go in while others stay home is unfair,” according to the Disco’s Chief Executive Officer Kazuma Sekiya.

So, “the company currency offers behavioral incentives and the choice is up to you. That’s the power of Will.”

The system was introduced by Sekiya’s grandfather in 2011 who founded Disco in 1937, as an inspiration from video games. 

Apart from this, the company credits Will with reducing overtime and cutting down on unnecessary meetings. 

The firm reported record revenue and profit last fiscal year and boasts some of the highest margins in the industry and also had an impact on the bottom line. 

In addition to that the share price also more than tripled in the past five years.

Why Would This Happen?

In the current situation, the gradual rollout of vaccines globally has fueled a debate over how to entice workers back to the office. 

Other major firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Morgan Stanley and Uber Technologies Inc. have introduced policies to draw back employees with mixed results. 

Nonetheless, some workers are choosing to leave their jobs instead of braving the return to the office.

Talking on the subject,  Sekiya said, “we had to prove to employees that going to work isn’t scary,“. “although some felt that it was harsh and several people have quit.”