Yukari Sato
Ticket Group, JAL Plaza Office
JAL Navia Co., Ltd.

Keiko Miyazaki
2nd Passenger Service Department
JAL Sky Service Co., Ltd.

Yumiko Uehara
Administration Group
JAL Navia Sapporo Co., Ltd.

Kengo Seki
2nd Export Department, Export and Mail Division
JAL Cargo Service Co., Ltd.

Taiga Shinoda
Domestic Passenger Sales 1st Group, Regional Office, Tokyo
Japan Airlines International Co., Ltd.

Noboru Tajima
Maintenance Engineer, Line Maintenance Department, Aircraft Maintenance Business Division, Haneda
Japan Airlines International Co., Ltd.

Takeshi Hattori
Flight Crew, DC-9 Flight Operations
Japan Airlines International Co., Ltd.

Akiko Isobe
Cabin Attendants Department Haneda
Japan Airlines International Co., Ltd.

The underlying strength of a company is the people who work there. Fiscal 2007 was the year when the JAL Group needed to show its underlying strength. The JAL of tomorrow will be born out of the efforts of its employees to change the airline’s corporate culture.

In the past, some may have described JAL as a company that does not reflect the true worth of its employees. At the end of 2005, the recommendations of the JAL Safety Advisory Group composed of outside experts indicated the importance of getting rid of the invisible walls between internal organizations, promoting exchange between departments, and encouraging action initiated by employees. Based on these recommendations, the Communication Leader Meeting (CLM)*1 was established by interested employees to promote reform of JAL’s corporate culture.

Sato When CLM started, about 50 Communication Leaders (CL) were selected from the entire JAL Group. Faced with the need to change JAL’s corporate culture, we had little confidence we could accomplish such a huge task, and most of us were not sure how to proceed.

Miyazaki At the first meeting, a flight crew member made an overly enthusiastic pronouncement, We’ve got to change JAL!” To be honest I was a little turned off by the intensity of his comment [laughs]. Eventually we realized that the formality of the meeting would not help us to share our feelings and offer true opinions from our respective workplaces, which was exactly what we needed to do to get started on this task. So we decided to go to a country retreat together.

Sato That’s right. We realized at the country retreat how little communication there was between departments. It was clear that, while everyone had a high sense of professionalism, employees were only interested in showing their abilities in their own positions.

Uehara Workplace education was being properly carried out, and thankfully, professionals were being developed in the respective departments. This is not something that any company can do. However, the problem was the horizontal connections. Therefore, the first step of CLM was to get to know the work of each other’s departments, and to create opportunities for conversations between departments.

Seki Before becoming a CL, I had experienced the effect of these invisible walls in my work. When I heard a senior co-worker CL talking passionately about changing our own work style and the corporate culture, I applied to be a CL, thinking that I needed to change myself. Everyone Really? So motivated!

Miyazaki Starting with the creation of meeting places for people from various departments, I planned a get-together for JAL Group employees in the Narita area. Between 50 and 60 people attended. As it is rare for people to socialize with employees outside their own company anyway, it was very difficult to get them together outside of work, and I had a hard time encouraging people to attend.

Shinoda At that time most employees had not yet heard of CLM. Even though I’m a CL, at first I thought that CLM stood for “claim.”

[Everyone laughs]

Isobe There are four cabin crew bases in Japan, and the number of cabin attendants exceeds 7,000. Since we don’t do deskwork and usually just meet colleagues on the same flight, there are few occasions for everyone, even in the same group, to come together for a meeting. When I became a CL, I was worried that it would be very difficult to improve workplace communication among cabin attendants.

Sato The first thing I did was to organize a large workplace tour, inviting about 60 CLs from other departments to visit my workplace. Since the goal was to deepen workplace understanding between departments, I asked everyone to wear their respective uniforms. Normally you would never see a group of people wearing different uniforms from other departments in our workplace, so the day of the tour made a huge impact. The tour enabled me to introduce CLM to the people where I work.

Tajima In 2007, we held a tour at the Safety Promotion Center, and carried out workplace tours and opinion exchanges in 33 regions across Japan. Gradually the CL activities spread throughout the Group, and I began to sense that people were responding to the activities.

Hattori Some people said that if the goal was really to reform the corporate culture, then we had to step up our activities. This led to the “JAL of Tomorrow”*2 initiative.

Hattori When I began reading the submissions that increased day by day, I felt the heavy burden of needing to make the optimal use of all these valuable comments.

Isobe I was also overwhelmed by the huge number of submissions. There were a lot of opinions from younger employees in particular, and I was amazed to be working in a company where people were this engaged.

Uehara That’s true. Everyone provided carefully thought-out ideas. Even in the case of negative comments, I could tell that they actually wanted to make things better.

Miyazaki Even with the frustration felt when JAL’s maintenance problems were being discussed in the news, I realized that everyone had basically the same reaction, regardless of the workplace.

Seki I was touched by the innocent comment of a younger co-worker who wrote about a desire to make friends with co-workers. It reminded me of what I used to feel like when I started working at JAL.

Hattori Given the amount of love that employees have shown for JAL, and because they are thinking about the company, JAL is sure to grow in the future

Over 10,000 employee comments have been compiled into a booklet that serves as a passport to the JAL of Tomorrow. Called Hirake JAL, it contains passionate descriptions of the kind of airline that employees are aspiring to create. Uehara The thing I have realized the most through the CLM activities is the importance of connections and direct contact. We in the reservations center have little contact with the airport staff. But I have learned that if we form connections, we will naturally get a sense of the problems in our workplace, which becomes the first step for improving our own work.

Shinoda We started a greeting campaign at the Tokyo Regional Office. Sales is a world represented by the bar graph. The mission is to produce results based on personal targets, and people tend to work individually rather than as a team. If they don’t need the help of people in other departments, they usually avoid eye contact or even saying hello. Therefore, we began a campaign where every Thursday a different employee stands at the entrance to the office and greets people. The atmosphere has changed quite a bit after three months. It has now become normal for people to make eye contact and say hello, and people are starting to remember the faces of employees from other departments.

Sato Among the activities I carried out in fiscal 2007, the biggest success was the experience in a different workplace. A group of 12 men from the maintenance department, who usually don’t have any contact with customers, put on trainee badges and went to work at the customer service counter. Although they smiled nervously, I was impressed by the way these gentlemen did their best to serve customers.

Tajima That was me with the nervous smile [laughs]. At first I was really worried that amateurs like us would be no help behind the counter. But it turned out to be a really worthwhile experience.

Hattori Since I had never attended an executive meeting before, I was thinking that everyone would be really cold and distant, but actually they were all smiling and friendly. President Nishimatsu listening attentively to my presentation, and said, The opinions of your group will definitely be reflected in the business plan, so please don’t worry.” My heart filled with pride and appreciation as he said that.

Tajima I have gained a lot through the CLM. At one time I could feel the walls between organizations and people, and I didn’t like the company much. However, during the past two years, I have realized that the walls are not external but inside of me. These internal walls were preventing me from seeing what was outside. Now the walls have been lowered, and I can see those around me.

Isobe Due to the different nature of our work, it is difficult for us, as cabin attendants, to feel a sense of solidarity with other workplaces in JAL. However through the CLM, I now have a sense of connection with other departments. If I can convey this feeling to other cabin attendants, I think that the corporate culture will have changed, if even only a little.

Sato That’s true. When I look at news about the company these days, I can see the faces of my CL friends and I feel happiness or concern for their situations as if they were my own.

Shinoda In order for a company to get out of a predicament, employees really must make a wholehearted effort. However, until recently I believed that I was working for the good of the company as an individual player, for example staying in the right field as a right fielder. However, I have come to realize that even if I increase my sales figures, it does not always make the company stronger. Similarly, in baseball, no matter how much an individual raises his batting average, the team may still not be winning. Our team is JAL and if we don’t work as team players, we will not win.

Seki Everyone is taking the same care in their work, as we do in transporting each and every piece of cargo that customers entrust to us. I believe that everyone’s cooperation is helping to support the quality of JAL and JAL Cargo’s services.

Hattori Our work is like a relay team. First Uehara-san takes a reservation, or Shinoda-san obtains a customer, and then Sato-san issues the ticket. Miyazaki-san is waiting for the passenger at the airport, where there is a plane that is maintained by Tajima-san. Seki-san loads on the cargo, and Isobe-san welcomes the passenger into the cabin with a smile. By taking good care of the baton all along the way - providing safety to customers - everyone flies together. In order to come in first in the relay race, it is important to pass the baton with this goal. That is why the CLM was created.

Everyone We will keep working to create the JAL of Tomorrow!