吉田工業（従業員25人、1981年設立）は新潟県燕市の企業ですが、私たちが行った先は新潟市の新潟青陵大学、吉田智社長の講義を聞くためです。「私の会社では社員が伸び伸び働いています。フレックスタイム制で仕事が終われば2時に帰る人もいます。40年間で、定年以外でやめた人は2人だけです。」私たちは教室の後部に座っていましたが、学生たちの背中が“ピン”と伸びた感じがしました。

吉田工業は集塵、局所排気、換気のシステムの設計と施工を行っています。顧客への最初の対応から、システムの設計、装置の製作・外注、顧客企業での設置まで、同じ社員が行います。この一連の過程における工夫は担当者に任されます。多くの場合、吉田社長の手法とは違うそうです。「うちは経営者の集団だ」と吉田さんは言います。労働時間も、月173時間を総枠とするフレックスタイム制をとっています。コアタイムは設けておらず、現場での作業が2時に終われば、帰社することなく仕事を終えます。フレックスタイム制で社員が働き方を自分で工夫するため残業代が減り、人員は3人増えたのに1年前に比べ給与の支払い総額は92％へ減りました。

現代の産業、特に大企業での生産原理は、計画する人と実行する人は別（「構想の実行からの分離」）、実行過程は細分化され、「部分労働者」が決められた通りの動作で決められた時間働く――ことです。これが人々から労働の喜びを奪い、労働を労働者に敵対するものにします（いわゆる「労働の疎外」）。蜘蛛や蜂は見事な織物、建築物を作り上げますが、本能に基づく労働で、彼らの構想を実現するわけではありません。人は作る前に構想し、それを労働力の多様な支出により実現します。人は頭で前もって描いたものが現れたとき、自分の能力を確信し、喜びを感じます。吉田工業の生産方式は「労働の疎外」を克服し、人間の労働に本来内在する喜びを復活させていると言えます。吉田工業の初任給は特に高いとは言えませんが、中途退職者が殆どいないのも、人手不足下で求人に苦労していないのも、その理由はここにあるようです。

吉田工業では声高に唱えるような経営理念はないと言います。社長自身は理念を持っているが、社長の行動を見て感じ取ってもらえればいいと言います。吉田工業の「伸び伸び」した働き方は先代社長のときからで、先代は社員がミスしようが、赤字を出そうが決して叱らないことをモットーとしていました。現社長は社員の自主性を大事にしながらも社員と積極的にかかわりあい、時には喧嘩もするそうです。そのような交流の中から、目に見える形ではないが自然と一つの規範が社内に出来上がっているように見えました。

吉田智氏の社長就任は2014年8月、2014年7月期決算の売上は2億５千万円に対し2019年7月期は6億５千万円、売上急増の直接の原因はビジネスモデルの変革です。先代の時から需要に追い付いていけない状況にあったため、社長継承と同時に、業務の中心を設計に置き、機器の製作は増やした協力企業に委ねることにしました。その効果は供給能力の増加だけではありません。設計業務に専門化した企業はなく、「吉田に頼めば何とかなる」との評価が高まりました。結果、大手の集塵機メーカーも同社の設計提案能力に依存し、同社から受注する協力企業になりました。「大手企業の営業マンはうちの社員に勝てない」（吉田社長）ため、「ライバルの協力企業化」にも成功したのです。吉田工業には営業部門はなく、顧客の方からアクセスがあります。顧客と対等の立場で、その固有のニーズに対応する設計提案を行うため価格競争に巻き込まれません。「ライバルの協力企業化」もこれを後押ししています。これらの原動力となる優れた社員が育つのも、上記のような社員が伸び伸び働ける仕組みにあります。

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YOSHIDA (25 employees, established in 1981) is a company in Tsubame City, Niigata Prefecture, however, we visited Niigata Seiryo University in Niigata City to listen to a lecture by President Yoshida Tomo.

“In my company, employees are working at ease. Some of us leave the company at 2 o'clock when we finish our work on a flextime system. In 40 years, only two left the company before retirement age." We were sitting at the back of the classroom, and felt the students stretched their backs to listen to his speech.

YOSHIDA designs and constructs dust collecting, local air exhausting and ventilating system. A same employee handles everything from the initial contact with the customer till system design, equipment manufacturing / outsourcing, and installation at the customer company.

The employee in charge can proceed with the whole processes according to his own ideas. In many cases, their working methods are different from that of President Yoshida. “We are a group of business owners,” says Yoshida. They have a flextime system with a total of 173 hours per month without core work time. So, if the work on site is completed at 2 o'clock, the employee can end the work of the day without returning to the company. Overtime pay has decreased because employees have devised their own way of working under the flextime system, and although the number of employees has increased by three, the total amount of salary paid has decreased to 92% compared to a year ago.

The production principle in modern industry, especially in large enterprises, is that the planner and the implementer are different ("separation from the execution of the concept"), the execution process is subdivided, and the "partial workers" work for a fixed time with the specified behavior. This deprives people of the joy of labor and makes the labor hostile to workers. (So-called "alienation of labor"). Spiders and bees make stunning textiles or buildings with instinctual labor, but it does not mean that they realized their ideas. However, people envision before making anything and realize it by diversely spending their workforce. People are convinced of their abilities and feel joy when they find what they have drawn in their minds appear in practice. It can be said that YOSHIDA's production method overcame "alienation of labor" and restored the joy inherent in human labor. The starting salary of YOSHIDA is not very high, but it seems that this is the reason why there are few mid-career retirees and there is no difficulty in recruiting new employees even in the era of labor shortage.

President Yoshida says there is no management philosophy for YOSHIDA to be chanted loudly. The President himself has a philosophy, but he thinks it better if employees could see and feel the behavior of the President. Yoshida's "work at ease" style has continued since the time of former President. It was the motto of the predecessor to never scold employees for making mistakes or running deficits. The current President values the independence of employees, but he also actively engages with employees and sometimes fights with them. From such exchanges with the employees, it seems that a norm was naturally created within the company, although it was not visible.

Yoshida Tomo became President in August 2014, and the sales of the fiscal year ended July 2014 at 250 million yen increased to 650 million yen for the fiscal year ended July 2019. The direct cause of the surge in sales is the transformation of business models. Since they could not keep up with increasing demands at the time of the predecessor, when the new President succeeded the company, he decided to put the center of business in designing, and entrusted the production of equipment to cooperating companies. The effect of the decision was not limited to increased supply capacity. Since there was no other company specialized in design work, the reputation of the company grew as an expert in designing because, "If you ask YOSHIDA, he can do something". As a result, a major dust collector manufacturer has also become a cooperating company that receives orders from the company, depending on the company's design capabilities. According to President Yoshida, "Salesmen of major companies cannot beat our employees”, so we succeeded in "making our rival to be a cooperative company". YOSHICA has no sales department, but customers come to ask for work. We do not get involved in price competition because we make design proposals that meet the unique needs of our customers on an equal footing. This is also the result of "making rivals to be cooperative companies". The excellent employees who drive these activities are nurtured by the working style of this company, which allows employees to work at ease.