Remote work from anywhere in Japan and we'll pay for your flights, Yahoo tells staff

January 13, 2022

Yahoo Japan will soon allow staff to live and work anywhere in the country, and will pay to fly them to the office if needed, the company announced this week - Copyright David GANNON / AFP

By Tom Bateman • Updated: 13/01/2022 - 13:55

Yahoo Japan is doubling down on remote work, telling its 8,000 employees they can do their jobs from anywhere in the East Asian country, and that it'll pay for their flights to the office if they ever need to come in.

Workers at the company have been able to remote work since 2014, but as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020, the programme rapidly expanded.

Now around 90 per cent of Yahoo's employees in Japan regularly work from home.

Yahoo Japan - owned by tech conglomerate Softbank - is a major player in the country's IT industry.

Its web portal is one of Japan's most-visited websites, and it operates a range of services including an online auctioneer and mobile payment system, while Softbank operates a Yahoo-branded mobile network.

"After dialogues and a number of surveys in which 90 per cent of employees said it either did not affect or even improved their performance at work, Yahoo has decided to let them live anywhere in the country," company president Kentaro Kawabe said on Twitter.

The change, announced on Wednesday, will come into force on April 1.

Planes, trains, and long-distance buses

Until now, Yahoo Japan required remote working staff to live within commuting distance of the company's offices.

Employees who choose to live further from the company's Tokyo headquarters will now also be able to claim travel expenses for domestic flights, long-distance buses and express trains up to a maximum monthly allowance of ¥150,000 (€1,141), Yahoo Japan said.

Jezael Melgoza / Unsplash