Japan's NTT Group to allow remote work for all 320,000 staff
Ditching central offices in favour of over 250 regional facilities for a workforce twice the size of Microsoft's
Japanese tech giant NTT Group will allow its 320,000 staff to work remotely.
The company yesterday announced it will promote "a new management style suitable for a decentralized network society" to respond to post-COVID realities.
The plan applies around the world and calls for NTT staff to work from home if they desire. Another option will be to work in one of over 260-plus new offices the company plans to create in regional areas across Japan, or in other decentralized offices around the world. Those new offices will replace facilities in large metropolitan areas, as NTT seeks to play its part in revitalizing regional economies. Those new offices will offer 1.5 times the space per person compared to NTT's current premises.
The plan also calls for an end to staff relocations, plus hiring staff who will work remotely from day one.
The mega-corp knows it can't flip a switch and make this happen: its presentation to staff and shareholders revealed it's commenced cloud migration and zero-trust security implementations to create a suitable working environment that will be complete in FY 2023. Accompanying projects aim to make the business paperless, and to reduce its carbon footprint.
The transformation program appears to apply to the entire NTT Group – so even NTT Ltd (the artists formerly known as Dimension Data, NTT America and NTT Security) will be impacted by the change, along with the Group's telecoms and other operations.
- NTT slashes top execs’ pay as punishment for paying more than their share of $500-a-head meals with government officials
- NTT boffins reckon they’ve out-randomed current quantum random number generators
- Japan testing sandwiches that discount themselves as they age
NTT's annual report for 2020 states it employs 320,000 people – nearly double the ~163,000 that Microsoft counted in its corresponding document.
We mention that data because it demonstrates NTT's decisions are significant on a global scale. They're also very novel in Japan, where remote work was unusual before the pandemic.
In related news, NTT has also announced it has signed up to provide PSTN voice calls in Microsoft Teams – an offering called "Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams". ®