Mr. Sato:

As the Director of Work Style Reform Division in the Civil Engineering Headquarters, I support boosting work efficiency and reforming the way we work in construction sites across Japan.

Mr. Miyaji:

I am the Operation Manager of the Yokohama Branch, and I’m in charge of project management on site for the road shield tunnel construction.

Mr. Miyaji:

In constructing a shield tunnel that easily covers several kilometers in length, about 20 employees are stationed on site, and about 50 other contractors work on a site-by-site basis. As the operation manager, I am in charge of overall management—I check up with the people in charge to grasp the progress in field. However, I felt it quite cumbersome to check up on each individual through a phone call or an email, and again deliver the information to other employees. I thought we needed a safe and more convenient tool for communication.

Mr. Sato:

With the number of employees decreasing due to a shortage of workers, and with the recent situation of reducing overtime work and providing holiday leaves, the construction industry is striving to reform the way we work. In order to drive for the same results as before, we need to increase work efficiency to improve the overall productivity.

We thought that reducing the waste of time through seamless communication on site was absolutely necessary. Especially at construction sites, people working in remote locations have to collaborate very closely. So, after examining various communication tools, we concluded that LINE WORKS is the most suitable because of its easy-to-use interface and its renowned security equipped with a system that prevents information leakage. Up until now, 84 out of around 200 workshops in the Civil Engineering department of Taisei Co.,Ltd. have introduced LINE WORKS, and are utilizing it.

Do you have any tips for using LINE WORKS in construction sites?

Mr. Miyaji:

Since various associate companies take part in construction sites, we used a design that can remind us of the work content for the message room icon. For sites where personnel change frequently depending on the progress of the project, we made a special rule that all workers use their face for the Contacts profile icon. This enabled our workforce to easily recognize which group message room they are in, and who is in it.

 

Mr. Sato:

Since radio waves cannot reach some spots inside the tunnel, we installed Wi-Fi to enable communication. Moreover, since it is quite inconvenient to type a long message with a phone in construction sites, we installed a shared PC that enables employees to log-in to their accounts in major locations in the field.

How exactly is LINE WORKS being used?

As we can now deliver information through group message rooms at once, I can deliver the project’s progress to the employees or relevant personnel much faster than before. Thankfully, I no longer need to explain the project’s progress in detail during morning and evening assemblies when everyone gets together. Now day time workers transfer their duties to night time workers through LINE WORKS, instead of paper transition documents. LINE WORKS is easier to read than the paper document, and we can also check for the ‘read‘ notification. This has enabled employees to be clearer in the transition process. Furthermore, another big strength of LINE WORKS is that you can gather members and create message rooms to share information with only members who need them. Sparing the cost of delivering information to irrelevant workforce has contributed to improving work efficiency.

At sites where various companies work together, each company has to share where and what they are doing everyday with blueprints and progress schedules. Before, these documents were delivered in paper during morning assemblies; yet now, even employees who missed an assembly can access the information because we deliver them to everyone through attached files. It has even become possible to distinguish who has checked the information and who has not, so there is much less anxiety about whether the information is being delivered.

Mr. Sato:

Before, evening assemblies usually took around an hour, but now it only takes five to ten minutes. We estimated that this would enable each employee shorten about one working hour each day. Since one out of eight working hours can now be redistributed to the project, this led to an improvement in construction speed and quality, and a decrease in overtime costs. I believe that this is contributing greatly to the overall improvement in productivity.

Mr. Miyaji:

Sometimes scheduled projects suddenly undergo changes due to various circumstances. In these kinds of situations, an unexpected accident might occur if relevant information is not shared to every relevant employee fast and accurately. As we can now make immediate announcements about project schedule changes through LINE WORKS, it also helps strengthening safety measures in the field.

Mr. Miyaji:

Up until now, we have announced the field schedule like safety inspections and meeting dates by writing them on a whiteboard, but now anyone can share their schedule anytime on their phone with the Calendar feature.

In addition, we are utilizing Form when nominating a candidate for safety awards or when checking attendance for social gatherings. We just send the information at once to everyone in the field (around 70 people), and in the blink of an eye we get replies back—it’s so convenient.

Mr. Miyaji:

I would like to try its various features and further streamline the entire field communication, improving work efficiency and productivity.

Mr. Sato:

In order to utilize LINE WORKS more effectively, I believe that it is important for the headquarters to regularly exchange feedback with each work station, and listen to actual use cases and feedback. After hearing feedback, we will encourage employees to utilize LINE WORKS according to the size and characteristics of each field.

Mr. Ono：

Located in Kanagawa, our company operates the visiting rehabilitation massage business by a masseur who owns national certificate. We also operate stress-relieving salon that lessens daily tiredness or muscle stiffness using five senses and other related business. We are operating 8 visiting rehabilitation massage stores and 5 stress-relieving salon stores.

Mr. Takeuchi：

I am part of the General Affairs Department, and responsible for managing the company’s vehicle, PCs, and company borrowed cellular phones.

Mr. Hasegawa：

I am in charge of visiting rehabilitation massage business. In addition, I visit customer’s house as a masseur and I manage the schedule of staff members as head of the office, simultaneously.

Mr. Ono：

The number of employees who were only a few at the company’s foundation year in 2000 has now grown up to 130 employees. As the company’s size grew year after year, we believed that the speed of communication would become more important than before. Also, we value people as we put a company’s fundamental policy. Especially, in hopes of improving capacity and becoming outstanding individuals, we actively have been conducting the training workshop for executive staffs.

We all felt that, in order to work faster, it is important to make quick responses to the contacts. We think that there are limitations to enhance response rates using communication tools like email or telephone. Until now, the employees have used bulletin boards on the company’s website installed by each Department manager. Field employees, those who have hard time to meet each other due to different work time, used company’s SNS to contact each other. We thought that introducing a convenient communication tool may enhance communication speed than before.

Mr. Hasegawa：

It was only morning hours that I can physically meet the employees. For this reason, I basically contacted them through company mobile phone or personal mobile phone. However, I often felt uncomfortable with this due to time limitation.

Mr. Takeuchi：

We have used SMS since we rented out 2G phones to our employees up until now. However, I felt that SMS as well as 2G phones were inconvenient to use because contacts need to be re-registered every time when device changes.

Mr. Takeuchi：

In the fall of 2017, the company introduced LINE WORKS as we changed the company rental mobile phone from 2G phone to smartphone. LINE WORKS, an application available both on the PC and smartphone, was very attractive because we wanted to create an environment where office employees can easily communicate with field employees. I looked over several different tools. However, I gave up on introducing them because employees were unable to get used to them in the trial and there was a need for the training session in order to make every employee member be proficient.

Mr. Hasegawa：

LINE WORKS provides video call feature, and it has been a crucial factor to introduce it since Mr. Ono wanted to hold a video conference. LINE WORKS, unlike other traditional communication tools, was also very attractive because it provides Read notification feature to find out whether a message has been read or not.

Mr. Ono：

When we introduce LINE WORKS, the internal IT Department set up rules such as ‘Messages that arrive after 8 p.m. can be answered the next morning’ or ‘No need to use closing remarks at the end of the message’ to make LINE WORKS usage pleasant. In addition, each business unit came up with different ideas to make a variety of uses of LINE WORKS.

Mr. Ono：

Currently, a total of 32 employees in administrative positions like senior executives, director of each sales office, and store manager are using LINE WORKS. we can send opinions to the executives easily as well as accommodate with executives’ opinion better than before. Also, there are executives who exchange personal information like ‘My baby has born’ or upload company PR videos via LINE WORKS to share information actively. Our company values ‘A well-communicated environment’ as the most important measure and we think that LINE WORKS is making a huge contribution to create such environment. Up until now, we have been hearing from employees through face to face interviews or written survey. However, I think we will be able to take advantage of LINE WORKS Form functions near in the future.

Mr. Hasegawa：

If the customer is in bad condition and cancel the visiting schedule on that day, we need to make contact immediately to field employees, who are assigned to visit the customer’s house. We can make contacts faster through LINE WORKS than by phone or email. Also, if the sent messages are notified as read, we can assure that ‘the recipients have read the message’, even if there is no reply.

There are times when we care for customers with a team of external physical therapists or occupational therapists whom are contracted by care managers. And we are mostly using LINE WORKS to make connection to their LINE account and exchange information in real time. Up to this point, the telephone calls have been central to our communication. But, there was a limited amount of time to receive the call and communicate through the phone. Therefore, we often had to call several times to find the most suitable time for communication. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, communication became smoother.Also, we can share customer’s health status and family situations on team’s group chatting room, which enables to achieve care system with better customer satisfaction measurement.

Mr. Takeuchi：

Because LINE WORKS enables us to find out whether the message has been read or not, we can make decisions faster than before. If an emergency situation occurs at the field we visit, we have to contact our boss about the issue and ask for the solution. When doing so, if we find out the message is not read by the boss, we can immediately make judgement to contact another boss and ask for the resolution. And this is very convenient.

Mr. Takeuchi：

LINE WORKS made company’s overall communication more active than before because it is easier to express an opinion than email or telephone. In order to confirm each other’s opinion, we use LINE WORKS, which has fast response speed and we can use the appropriate tool for purpose with the contact that needs searching or accumulation can be done by email.

Mr. Hasegawa：

We have discussed various company-level agendas such as new plans and responses through face-to-face meetings. But, now we are actively using LINE WORKS Message function to do so. As a result, face-to-face meetings have turned from a discussion to decision making and final confirmation, allowing more time to spend efficiently. The introduction of LINE WORKS created an atmosphere for the new director to express their opinion freely.

Mr. Ono：

We believe that the adoption of LINE WORKS enabled us to achieve a ‘well-communicated environment = better working environment’ and strengthened the connection between our executives. As more and more employees are now expressing their opinions, I think I can hear about them more when compared with past years. Communication and decision-making procedures are certainly faster than before, and we expect that these changes can lead us to better performance in the future.

Mr. Sawato：

Based on our company philosophy “Walk with the Sun”, we import clothing and goods from nationwide and sell them online. With the aim of making the company atmosphere more actively, we are striving to make changes to our company.

Mr. Satoshi：

As a Product Distribution Dept. head of Traditional Goods Headquarters, I am in charge of general management on warehouse, goods, and employees as well as general affairs. The warehouse that I am managing deals with every stock from our company, and it is more than 25,000 SKU(Stock Keeping Unit). Currently, we have about 100 employees. They are divided into Loading and Shipping department. They load and ship a large number of commodities everyday.

Mr. Shinya：

As a local manager, I am in charge of branches located in Kanto, Shizouka, and Karuizawa. I spend half a month in stores and the other half at the headquarters.

Mr. Masami：

As a member of Information Systems Department, I am in charge of company and branch systems as well as LINE WORKS operation management.

Mr. Sawato：

Before introducing LINE WORKS, we have been utilizing phone calls, emails, and computer messenger software as a means of interoffice communication. Official communication was mainly held with emails. However, because the emails could only be checked with a computer installed at each branch, a lot of employees felt uncomfortable with email communication. For this reason, shadow IT, using personal accounts such as using LINE for business purpose, has become serious problem to us. While searching for a resolution to solve this problem, we found LINE WORKS.

Mr. Masami：

It is impossible for System Management Department to manage the communication held through LINE. Also, if retired employee is still remained in the chatting room, there is a high risk of sensitive information leakage. Moreover, it was troublesome to share LINE IDs every single time. LINE was convenient to use for personal use, but inconvenient for business purpose.

Mr. Satoshi：

Previously, we used computers installed on-site and PHS to either deliver instruction or contact the employees outside the office. At that time, if we were to deliver detailed instructions on site, we had to go to the computer or print out the instructions. Thinking back to those times, it was a situation with full of unnecessary steps. For example, if our customer wants to make choices among the goods available in various color or pattern options, we had to actually print the attached photos and deliver it to the site. For this reason, we were finding a solution to reduce such work burden.

Mr. Shinya：

Scheduling with colleagues was very hard. Because we could only check the schedule through computers at the headquarters, I had to communicate with them through LINE.

Mr. Sawato：

Our company culture is to share information regardless of positions and this corresponds with strengths of LINE WORKS. Up to this point, we have been using all different tools such as email, messenger, and schedule. For this reason, we have been also thinking of adopting an all-in-one service tool that can manage everything at once. In this sense, we felt that LINE WORKS is a perfect fit for us. Since employees are already familiar with LINE, we thought that LINE WORKS can also be used without struggling. And eventually, this can lead to an overall communication and business efficiency of our company. We started to utilize LINE WORKS at the moment of the introduction by renting out the smartphones to the employees. We are currently using about 230 IDs for full-time employees.

Mr. Masami：

LINE WORKS is used mostly to contact the leader in the warehouse. I am basically working in the office, so it is crucial to keep in touch with the leader and get an idea of what is going on at the field. Currently, we use a group chatting room to manage what instructions the leader is ordering to each field employee. From loading to shipping, depending on its process, there are about 10 groups have been created with LINE WORKS. Each group includes leader, headquarters sales representative, Store Innovation Department, and product development members as necessary.

Mr. Shinya：

Managing schedule became much comfortable. I often have to closely contact and affiliate with the 9 local managers, managers of each branch, and colleagues from Store Innovation Department as well as from other Departments. While doing so, I also have to implement the business. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, it is now possible to check others’ schedules, making it easier for me to figure out their conditions of the working schedule.

Mr. Masami：

The biggest change is that we get more opportunities to make judgements at the field than before. Walking inside the big warehouse means that there is increase in walking time. Therefore, it is important point not to walk as much as possible. When we have to find the goods from the warehouse, we no longer have to go back to our office, in which the computer is located, to find out the location of the goods. Instead, we can now check the location through LINE WORKS installed smartphones. And we think this is the biggest advantage of the tool as well. Furthermore, if problem occurs, we can not only check the result but also the situation as well as the background of the problem through LINE WORKS chatting. This enables us to make decisions for problem resolution faster than before.

Mr. Shinya：

I believe that it became comfortable in every aspect. Previously, it was hard to continue communication since I could not find out whether the recipient read the email or not. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, it evoked a feeling of speed along with the notion that I can deliver information to the recipient in a prompt manner. Therefore, I feel like as if all the employees are connected through LINE WORKS. Efficiency has also increased throughout the working process. When using emails in the past, if there was an issue which needed to be discussed within all the employees, it took about half a day to come up with the final decision. After the introduction, however, it took only about an hour. We can also handle the work while heading to the branch offices.

Mr. Sawato：

I always thought that the communication which everyone can talk freely about the issues is very important. As office communication has become active than before, both quality and quantity of the communication has also increased. It is because LINE WORKS was well matched with our company culture, which is everyone participates in the communication regardless of the positions.

I think it is very important to share their own ideas or meeting logs with others, instead of keeping them on their own. It is also a great advantage that LINE WORKS makes it possible for us to make such information sharing possible. Unlike phone calls, LINE WORKS enables sharing information at preferred time frame. With this, I believe that LINE WORKS will be the main tool, which replaces the phone calls near in the future.

Mr. Kurosawa :

After opening the first store called ‘Temomin’, which provides service with an affordable rate system of 1,000 yen per 10 minutes, the company is currently managing about 180 branches nationwide, with 6 different types. I am Director of this company and also General manager at the System Solution Department.

Mr. Ishi :

I work for both Financial Accounting Department and System Solution Department. I took part in LINE WORKS introduction this time.

Mr. Ishi :

When asking for support, we first checked the systemically shared reservation list of each branch. After that, we either sent emails or made phone calls to the branches we think available to support our branch. This way, however, was very much inefficient and took a lot of unnecessary time. For this reason, we were all thinking about other option to contact other branches other than this.

Mr. Kurosawa :

We have considered using the cloud-like systematic groupware, which headquarters staffs were using at the moment. We soon found out that it is impossible to expand its utilization up to company-wide due to its high cost. Other than groupware, we also considered chatting tools as well as SNS. However, those tools were imperfect in certain ways. Specifically, security as well as admin feature of those tools were unstable to implement it as the group communication tool. Even if we have decided to implement a new tool, we still worried about if it would be too difficult for us to introduce the tool to the employees. That is because we already have went through several experience in failing the introduction of communication tool since we have employees with low IT literacy.

Mr. Kurosawa :

After the introduction of LINE WORKS, we have been able to both receive the responses and coordinate the schedule within 5 minutes. What is noticeable is that the same process required 10 to 20 minutes to process in the past. Requesting for support is the most important for store management, and smoothness of its process is the biggest change made after the introduction of LINE WORKS. Along with the speed, LINE WORKS also broadened our communication range. In the past, the schedule coordination could only be held in between limited number of branches since we had to call each branch asking for the support.

Mr. Ishi :

As we are utilizing LINE WORKS, we could receive more reservations from our customers. As the chances of not getting the reservation have decreased, we believe that LINE WORKS has contributed to our company with regards to increase in customer satisfaction rate as well as increase in company revenue.

Mr. Kurosawa :

LINE WORKS is receiving positive opinion from the field staffs such as ‘it is easy to use’ and ‘it does not take as much time as email, and therefore, feeling comfortable using it’.

With LINE WORKS, sending ‘Okay’ to the communication partner is enough as a response. Because we can find out whether communication partner read the message or not through ‘Read’ notification, overall LINE WORKS communication can be held in much comfortable manner. We also think that communication within employees became much serious and valuable. After the introduction, we think that the chances of branch managers to communicate one another have also increased. As they can casually discuss about issues such as operational rules of the branches, the revenue goals of each region, or even about their personal condition and staff schedules, active information sharing is possible.

Mr. Kurosawa :

Such flawless introduction of LINE WORKS implies that field staffs were longing for the tool such as LINE WORKS. Although LINE WORKS is activated to only those branch managers for now, but we are planning to provide accounts to those staffs. With this, we are expecting active company communication near in the future.

Unlike email, which general communication atmosphere is formal and firm, LINE WORKS enables us to have friendly communication. Up until today, field employees could not raise up their voice for the idea and opinion.

Mr. Shou :

Our company is a creative company, centering client works. We are in charge of consulting services such as analysis, strategy design and planning in marketing and communication that companies and administrative organizations, brands and products require. And, we are also in charge of production works, actually produce and deploy works according to the plan. In the marketing or creative field, It is common to divide into two types of companies. There are companies only taking responsible for strategy and planning, while some other companies are dealing with production solely. Unlike this, our company deals with both, and therefore one-stop operation is one of our company’s characteristics.

Mr. Shou :

In the past, there was a lot of communication held via email, SNS messenger, and phone calls. Basically, checking the document and its data has been carried out by attaching to mail or SNS. Except for some projects, schedules were managed in a very analog way, such as checking at the meeting or filling out the whiteboard.

First of all, the first problems was that it took significant amount of time when confirming various types of information. To take our company as an example, either the designs or products can be opened to the public only after the president confirmed to be okay.

Mr. Kazuo :

Modifying schedules and information sharing has become convenient. Since we now can see the schedules of all the employees, it is very helpful when scheduling. We can simply modify the schedule just by sending ‘Are you available at this time?’. Also, when holding a meeting, we can share the agenda through Home function and make sure all the meeting participants check, bring idea and opinion about the agenda and even think of the result in advance. By doing so, we found that the time we spent on the meeting have decreased than the past.

Mr. Shou :

What has changed the most is that we now rarely use email or SNS for company communication. We did not force to quit using such tool. Instead, it vanished naturally, and started to use LINE WORKS as an alternatives. We encouraged employees to make chatting room per each project. This way, we can follow up the overall process of project simply by checking the messages inside the chatting room. This is very efficient way of working. When sharing information or document, we are also attaching the files to the chatting room. It also possible to instantly check the attached files at the chatting room using LINE WORKS viewer.

After that, we can either send comments on the documents or just simply send okay sticker to the chatting room when there is no extra issues to be discussed. Like this, remote communication gets faster than before. We no longer have to wait for our president to come back to the office for the confirmation. And, this led all the employees to process and finish their work faster. Similar to this, it was general to make comments like ‘Let’s talk about this after returning to the office’ or ‘Let’s share this agenda at the office’. Just by using chatting room, however, we can immediately have conversation. With this, we rarely hold quick face-to-face meeting, standing in the corner of the office. In fact, in the field of creative works, efficiency and short working time cannot go along with quality. I used to work at the office until late night during peak season. But after the introduction of LINE WORKS, the finishing time has shortened overwhelmingly. I felt that as more spare time the employees have, the better productivity the entire company have.

Mr. Sogou :

Our company constructs telecommunication facilities, sells electronic equipment and devices, and provide services related. This year is our sixty-ninth anniversary.

Ms. Matsuda :

I am member of department in which takes care of IT systems. We work as a company help desk, meaning that we build PC or servers and suggest IT tools, while managing the introduction and answering questions about LINE WORKS.

Ms. Matsuda :

In order to verify LINE WORKS before the introduction, we collected targeted users from each department and division and promoted them to use the tool. During the trial period, we also encouraged the users to use as many features as possible to collect the actual usage experience. Ultimately, we could hear opinion from the users that Read notification at the chatting room and File sharing on the Drive have reinforced the overall working process more efficient than before. After the verification, we decided to introduce the tool earnestly.

Mr. Sogou :

In fact, we have also received negative opinion from our employees, such as communication can still be well handled through smartphone SMS. In spite of this, our company could not accept smartphone SMS because SMS cannot be managed by company and becomes shadow IT. To solve this, the company rather to chose promote positives about LINE WORKS features such as Read notification and File sharing through Drive, than telling negatives about shadow IT. We encouraged the employees to voluntarily use LINE WORKS.

Mr. Shimazu :

I am mainly responsible for construction management and maintenance of social infra projects. Also, I am in charge of integration of the company security systems. Thanks to LINE WORKS, constructing the training center project, which is one of the company projects that I am leading, is easily progressed. We used to struggle with getting the responses from the persons concerned since the project participants are chosen from different departments who manage different works. Since we have all different working situations, it was awkward sometimes to even make phone calls to them.

After the introduction of LINE WORKS, we are now communicating through messenger, instead of using phone call or email. We are utilizing when sharing product information with other employees, making decisions, notifying the opening of the conference. We now rarely have problem when sharing information, and this increased the response rate. This ultimately, led us to process the project with speed.

Ms. Honke :

I am responsible for sales, suggesting IT solutions. Back in the old days, whenever I work at the field and urgently need either schedule or an estimate, I had to come back to office to check it. But today, I can immediately ask my assistant at the office to send such document through LINE WORKS. Response that ‘I had to bring it to the office to solve’ can be processed on the spot. This has quickened the responsiveness of our clients and ultimately enabled to play the sales business which clients satisfy.

We are also utilizing LINE WORKS on company communication. For example, our employee ID card was renewed few days ago and had to turn paper to check roman characters of each employee. It took a while to check all of the employees’ since there were employees who were working at the field or the employees on consulting at the moment. For this reason, we took a photo of this paper and send it to the team members. With this tactic, what other team took for about a day to finish checking was only taken us about 20 minutes to complete. It is natural for people who use LINE, but there are still a few people who are not accustomed to this. In recent days, we are thinking about introducing IT tools to our customers with the purpose of reforming the work style. In order to process the reformation of the company work style, we would like to provide ideas of utilizing LINE WORKS in the perspective of the young colleagues.

Mr. Sogou :

Our company has a lot of architects on telecommunication facility construction and also employees with craftsmanship. For this reason, our company takes some time to introduce something new. However, if we do not change ourselves by introducing new and comfortable tool like LINE WORKS, we would not be able to survive in the future. We have decided that it is important to first introduce the tool and we actually did it. As a result to this, we already found the positive changes from our working style. We are expecting LINE WORKS to be a turning point for improvement of employee consciousness.

Mr. Kazuhiro :

Because our company mainly focuses on sales, most of our employees are salesperson and work outside the office often. As contacting tools, the salesperson took cellphone, PC, as well as mobile Wi-Fi which needed when connecting to internet at the field. We mainly used phone calls or email to share information. In order for us to check emails outside the office, we had to turn on the PC and use mobile Wi-Fi to access to company LAN. For this reason, it was uncomfortable when making contacts  and we were not well connected to one another.

Most importantly, as salesperson, we had trouble contacting our customers when we communicate through emails. Large portion of our clients are Large-scaled appliance stores and most the managers there are actually dealing with customers at the stores, not working at the desk. For this reason, it took a great amount of time for them to actually check the email. And, this was our great problem to be solved. We had several clients asking us to communicate via LINE. But, we could solely use LINE since there was a security problem of becoming shadow IT.

Mr. Kazuhiro :

The sales department activated connection with LINE and communicate with the customers including large-scaled stores via LINE WORKS. As an example of LINE WORKS utilization, when the area manager from headquarters send product distribution graph through LINE WORKS, the salesperson send the graph to the customer’s LINE account. Previously, we either printed the document or we turn on the PC and send via email. After the introduction of LINE WORKS, however, we can deliver the information to our clients without going back to our office. We started to lessen the use of papers since we no longer have to print out things.

We had to send emails for each purpose individually including simple greetings and contacts in the past. But with LINE WORKS, we could simply done it with stickers. The tool has also enabled us to finish our work at the field by allowing us to report the work log even without going back to the office. Also, we could shortened the wasted traveling time and use the time efficiently instead. That is, we could change the way of working.

In the communication perspective, as we can deliver the idea and thoughts to the entire company through push notification, delivery of idea and thoughts have become more actively held than before. We are feeling that every voice from our employee is well delivered to the whole.

Mr. Yukinori :

Contacts can be made simply and fast via LINE WORKS. We are utilizing the tool to communicate with the department in which support managing the order and delivery of the products. For example, we used to have phone calls and emails to make contacts like ‘Please check the order since we cannot dispatch the product due to its problem’. However, prompt reply to such message was often impossible, especially when the employees are giving out counsels. With LINE WORKS, however, we could immediately send the reply to simple matters, and eventually improved the contact speed.

Mr. Kei :

As we are responsible for supporting sales, we often share and communicate information about the order and delivery. It was unavoidable to experience delay in phone call communication if the communication partner did not answer the phone calls. It has become easier to prioritize tasks as we no longer have unnecessary waiting time. We are feeling that it is much easier for us to be connected to the sales after LINE WORKS introduction.

Mr. Kakinouchi :

Our company is a subsidiary company of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Group. We provide IT supports to each company inside the group and we provide know-hows which we gained to the other companies.

Business Solution headquarters mainly responsible for provision of systems and services for each company in the group, and the development of infrastructure systems related to railway services, accounting, and personnel and so on. Headquarters Administration, in which I work for, is responsible for new solution planning and one of the projects was the introduction of LINE WORKS.

Ms. Nishisaka :

I am mainly responsible for system maintenance for estate-related clients. I gave a birth to my child and used parental leave at the end of 2015, when the project was progressing actively. Currently, I am using short-time work after I came back to office.

Ms. Nishisaka :

As the fall of 2016, we started telecommuting as a part of work style reformation and use the chatting as well. Unlike phone, we can continue our conversation even after leaving a seat for a while. For example, when I have to communicate on the phone while taking care of my kid, it is hard for me to talk calmly. With chatting, however, I can continue the conversation even sometime after. Also, it is very convenient to ask for confirmation or materials necessarily needed at the time when I am comfortable.

We have regular video conference. However, we have to wait until the conference to ask questions and also takes time to receive the response. But chatting not only have the time limits but also more comfortable than emailing when sharing the short notice. Furthermore, I can easily send request to the others when there is something to ask.

Mr. Ishida :

As a boss of Ms. Nishisaka, it became a great help to be able to keep the track of the situations during her teleworking. It is possible to check all the minor details about the work, which are not necessary to call and make deliberate inquiries. Also, it is possible to naturally share the situation with the team members via group chatting room. It seems like LINE WORKS plays a big role in terms of being enable us to check the overall situation with minimal communication. We believe that it is great pleasure to the company to have the opportunity to have smart and talented employees return to the office and show their ability with the work.

Ms. Sakakida :

We are utilizing LINE WORKS when creating the chatting room with other members and check detailed specifications or receive instructions from our boss. Because we sometime have obstacles for collaborations such as, seats of the participating members are located far away or the member is absent, there were the cases when neither confirming the work nor adjusting the opinion did process well enough. Ultimately, delayed time in development as well as re-do the work were unavoidable sometimes.

After the LINE WORKS introduction, we felt that the unnecessary time wasted while waiting for the response or reworking rate have been reduced than before since we can still share opinion regardless of its physical distance. Waste of communication has also reduced as the checking process with the employees is now simplified. As we can contact each other more often than before, we feel that the cohesion of the team got better.

Ms. Tanaka :

Work processing time has been speeded up. If we forward questions or issues need to be checked via LINE WORKS, we can do our work before receiving the response. Since we can also response to the received messages immediately with LINE WORKS, we are able to use our time efficiently. Up until today, it took time to communicate with the boss who are working outside the office regarding small issues and checks, since we only had phone or email for communication. With LINE WORKS, however, we can ask any question without feeling burdensome and our boss can also give simple reactions like ‘OK’.