Manufacturing giant Fujitsu is going to make 80,000 of its workers permanently remote and reduce its office footprint by 50% as it plans for the post-pandemic future. 

The company hopes to half its office footprint by 2022, with employees enjoying “unprecedented” flexibility to improve their work-life balance.

The ‘Work Life Shift’ campaign is an acceleration of the firm’s digital transformation, but it only concerns its Japanse workforce at the moment. The initiative will work on three core principles: “Smart Working”, “Borderless Office” and “Culture Change”.  

“Fujitsu today announced that it will further accelerate its shift to becoming a digital transformation company with an ambitious campaign to redefine working styles for its employees in Japan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the company said. 

“As part of this ‘Work Life Shift” campaign, Fujitsu will introduce a new way of working that promises a more empowering, productive, and creative experience for employees that will boost innovation and deliver new value to its customers and society through the power of digital transformation.”

The “Smart Working” approach offers Fujitsu employees to the option of planing their time around the contents of their work, their role within the company and their lifestyle. This will also include the company changing its policies for commuting expenses to offer more support for remote working and establishing a system that allows employees to work from locations far away from the Fujitsu offices.

As well as reducing its office footprint, Fujitsu is also shifting away from conventional spaces, allowing its employees to freely choose the place they want to work, be it from home, hub, or satellite offices. Hub offices will be set up in different places around Japan, with each having a designated function in the businesses.

The company will also make changes to its style of management, to aid the changes and boost productivity. 

“Fujitsu will continue to seek ways to optimise working styles by continuously listening to the voices of its employees regarding the dramatic shift toward physically separated working spaces, and by leveraging a digital platform that visualises and analyses working conditions,” Fujistu said.