Seeking to gain experience working with foreign staff with a view to establishing an overseas office

Q.Why did your company decide to take on interns? What did you aim to achieve?

We are an architectural design firm based in Nago, Okinawa. I built our office in this town, my hometown, partly out of a desire to give something back. But we are far from the big city, and have had difficulty finding workers. I therefore decided to create an English website and post job offers, including for foreign staff, and I received more than 100 applications from the Philippines. Their resumes suggested they were highly competent. I began thinking that, if there were so many people interested in our company, I would set up an office in Manila and get help through outsourcing. However, I did know how to proceed as I had never worked with foreign nationals. That is when I learned about this internship program. I applied for the sake of the company's future, wanting to make our corporate environment one where our employees could work with foreign nationals, and seeking to eliminate any discomfort they felt towards foreign countries.

Working alongside interns shed light on issues we had not noticed.
The everyday workplace cultivated the company and its employees.

Q.What kind of internship did you run? What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve them?

Along with having the interns help with requests from clients, I had them give me their thoughts on creating a manual for specialized software. I also gave employees opportunities to conduct management using English. For the manual, because the diagram design software our company uses is in Japanese, I solicited feedback from them on how to make it easier for non-Japanese to use. At first I planned on making a printed manual. However, after numerous conversations with the interns, I realized that the complexity of the software would require a manual that users would understand intuitively. So I changed course and decided to create a private website that would allow users to look at an English version of the manual as they used the software. And since there were differences between Japanese and English with respect to jargon, I had them work out what those differences were.
Because we are a company with relatively few employees, we had every employee play an active role in management. I learned that problems could arise from unexpected points, it was therefore good to frequently confirm that things were well-understood. We also needed to explain things carefully, keeping in mind that the interns might not understand something that Japanese might intuitively grasp with just a single word.

The foreign nationals became a natural part of the office environment.
Gradually advancing internal preparations to establish an office overseas.

Q.Comparing before and after the internship, what effects did it have on you, your employees, or your organization?

We achieved something great by making changes to the company and thereby effecting an environment where Japanese and foreign staff work alongside one another. They were with us for three months, long enough to have their presence taken for granted in the office. Just after they got here, we were surprised to find them suddenly begin humming a song when they started work. But this company asks its employees for creative solutions, and we decided that there should be nothing wrong with employees relaxing as they concentrate on their work — this, too, was a valid way of doing one's job. I am also pleased with the changes I saw in those employees who lacked confidence in their English: they began trying to say what they wanted to say without fear of making mistakes. Building on the things we worked together on with our interns, we will be laying the foundations for establishing an overseas office. Working together with these two has made me want to go beyond the original plan of just the Philippines and also check out Indonesia and Myanmar as I think about where to set up our office.