The Importance of Treating Young Employees as Adults

Hello, I’m Ichiki of Sync Logistics.

In this issue, I’d like to share my thoughts on the importance of treating young employees as adults.

■ What does “treating them as adults” mean?

The training and management of young employees is an important job of their managers and company executives. Due to the limited experience of young employees, it isn’t easy to encourage their growth, but when I interact with young employees, I always try to treat them as adults. 

To me, treating them as adults means making eye contact and talking to them as equals.

For example, when I ask them to create documents, I don’t merely tell them the steps in writing them. I make it a point to tell them what the document is for and its importance. By doing this, next time, they will be able to properly create a document with its purpose and significance in mind. 

In addition, when I find a mistake, I ask the young employee, “Why do you think you made that mistake?” Sometimes, they initially stay quiet, but by looking back on the process, they gradually begin to understand the cause of the mistake, such as “I misunderstood the purpose of the document,” or “my priorities were ill-defined.” When they know the cause, they will be able to come up with improvements next time.

■ Cultivating the ability to think and act on their own

The management style of treating young employees as adults requires time, effort and patience. In contrast, giving step-by-step instructions such as “Write this document this way,” or “In this instance, do it this way” may make work proceed faster. 

However, by treating them as adults, we can foster their ability to think and act independently. International logistics operations are especially intertwined with many factors, requiring logistics staff to be flexible and responsive depending on the situation. Precisely because the nature of their work makes it difficult for them to proceed in a routine, standardized manner, I believe it’s important to train them in a way that makes them act independently.

There was a time when I also performed shipping tasks, and whenever I made a mistake or when problems arose, I thoroughly thought it through until I understood what happened and the cause. This experience of repeatedly thinking, understanding, and improving helped me understand the structure of the entire business and its cause and effect relationships, which in turn significantly shape the creation of services.

■ Flexible responses prevent lost opportunities

I believe that cultivating the ability of young employees to think and act on their own will also be beneficial to all stakeholders.

For example, if a container ship cannot be booked, shipping operations cannot continue as scheduled, leading to losses for shippers and associated companies. In this case, young employees shouldn’t just give up and say “We can’t ship because we weren’t able to book.” It’s important that they investigate why they were not able to book and come up with countermeasures.

The reasons why bookings cannot be made include “space cannot be secured (the ship is full),” “no empty containers,” and “rising freight rates.” If the employees in charge understand this, they can propose alternatives to shipping companies and shippers and can cut the risk of lost opportunities. If the cause is a shortage of empty containers, they can negotiate with the shipping company to bring in containers from other ports which then makes it possible to conduct shipping operations as scheduled.

To cultivate such flexible responses, I believe it is most effective to make students develop the habit of thinking and acting on their own right from the training stage.

Thank you for your time.