Yoshinori Yamashita, Chairman and Representative Director, Ricoh Company, Ltd.

2025.04.01

Pursuing efficiency in "work" and doing creative "work"

Chairman and Representative Director, Ricoh Company, Ltd.　Yoshinori Yamashita(Yoshinori Yamashita)

■ Profile

He joined Ricoh in 1980. He led Ricoh's globalization by setting up factories in France and China, serving as general manager of the UK manufacturing company and president of the US manufacturing company. In 2017, he was appointed Representative Director, President and CEO, and promoted internal reforms to encourage the active participation of diverse employees. In 2023, he was appointed Representative Director and Chairman.

Ricoh is known for manufacturing and selling office equipment, but in recent years it has been focusing on providing digital services that support its customers' business digital transformation. The underlying philosophy is how to enable people to "work" more creatively by improving the efficiency of "tasks." We spoke with Chairman Yoshinori Yamashita about Ricoh's strengths and its attitude toward work.

During my student days, I devoted myself to table tennis and part-time work. Of course, I attended classes, but I realized the importance of "learning outside of school," so I also focused on non-academic activities such as part-time work. I majored in industrial engineering at university, but at the time, Japan was in a period of rapid economic growth, and the majority of science students were employed by electrical manufacturers. In this environment, I collected data and analyzed companies based on three criteria: profitability, future prospects, and stability. As a result, Ricoh was overwhelmingly high in both profitability and future prospects, so I decided to join the company.

■ People should do "jobs" rather than "tasks"

Since joining the company, I've worked in a variety of locations, but my most memorable experience was my seven years in the UK. Back then, there was no 7-hour work agreement, and working as much as possible was a given. I myself worked myself to the bone every day as the general manager of the administrative department. However, I began to question whether all the work I was doing was really translating into results. While the word "work" is often used to refer to work content or tasks, I distinguish between tasks that can be replaced by machines and tasks that bring creativity. Continuous work is extremely boring, and more importantly, it makes you lose the sense of value in your work. Even if you work hard, there's no guarantee you'll be able to beat your competitors or compete globally. I realized that if I could somehow streamline my work, I should use the time I gained to do the work that humans are meant to do. I believe that this approach will allow me to gain more experience and lead to greater happiness.

■ Supporting creative work for workers

Our company began advocating the concept of office automation (OA) in 1977. OA refers to the mechanization of office work, and we have been working to streamline "work" for over 47 years. To embody this, we developed hardware such as copiers, word processors, and fax machines to streamline office work, supporting and advancing the way people work around the world. In 2020, Ricoh declared its transformation from an OA manufacturer to a digital services company. In addition to hardware, we are actively utilizing software such as RPA for office robotics, developing AI technologies, partnering with other companies, and engaging in open innovation. While text and images have been digitized, there is one thing that has yet to be fully digitized: human senses. We capture and digitize emotions such as happiness and pain. We believe that by using recognition and AI technologies to systematize behavior and thinking and link them to workflows, we can maximize creativity.

■ Creating an environment where autonomous personnel can thrive

Finally, I'd like to talk about our personnel system. Starting in fiscal year 2022, Ricoh implemented a unique job-based personnel system known as the Ricoh Style for approximately 3 employees in Japan (Ricoh Japan will implement it in fiscal year 2023). This system aims to create an environment where autonomous personnel can thrive, actively honing their skills and taking on new challenges with a sense of ownership, as we transform into a digital services company. In the job-based personnel system seen in Europe and the United States, salaries are determined by position, but salaries often change when employees change positions due to transfers or other reasons. In contrast, the Ricoh Job-Based Personnel System uses a group grade design, ensuring that salaries remain constant even when employees change positions within the same grade, thereby enabling flexible promotions based on the right person for the right position. Rather than simply adopting the Western job-based system, we customized it to best suit our company, allowing employees to independently plan their own careers for their own growth. We also now have the ability to conduct fair and convincing evaluations based on job descriptions. We believe that employee growth and company growth are coexistent. However, it is extremely difficult for individuals to evaluate others. If the evaluator does not grow, the person being evaluated will not be motivated to work hard. For this reason, training for the evaluator is also essential.

■Message

People grow greatly when faced with adversity. Our company's printing business was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we ended up in the red. It was during this time that we received a request from the UK to help build the network needed to open medical shelters to combat the coronavirus. While we struggled with the deficit, orders for this network product poured in from around the world as the pandemic began to subside, allowing us to generate profits. Even in times of adversity, if we continue to act with an altruistic spirit, we will achieve some kind of success and grow. I hope you all aim for this kind of growth.

Student Newspaper April 2025 Issue by Ryusei Nishiyama, 4th year student at Musashino University