The Sukiya “one-operator” overwork crisis and the outside investigation (2014)

The logic of efficiency against the reality of the people working

At the centre of this decision was the limit of an operating model that had supported low prices and 24-hour opening with the density of a single person working through the night. Amid accumulating warning signs — frequent robberies, labour disputes — the strain in the model surfaced all at once when part-time staff left en masse. In an interview the chairman spoke frankly of the constraint on the floor, that the company could not survive if it doubled hourly wages, and yet he closed the overnight shifts and accepted the loss. It can be seen as the moment when a business design pushed to the limit of efficiency ran into another reality: the actual condition of the people doing the work.

That he deliberately entrusted the harshest possible investigation to the lawyer Kubori Hideaki suggests an intent to change the constitution of the company and still aim for the top of the world, rather than to deflect criticism. The deficit caused by cutting back overnight trading reversed within a year, and the company went on to recover earnings through restored night hours and diversification, turning toward a policy of raising wages. Together with the swing back from regional devolution to central control, the search for an optimum between labour and efficiency reflects a question common to a restaurant industry that has leaned on labour intensity.