Yahoo Japan Corp. said it will allow its 8,000 workers to live and commute from anywhere in Japan, even by air, starting from April.
The portal site operator will remove a requirement for coming to the office by 11 a.m. and an upper limit on one-way commuting costs of 6,500 yen ($57), the company said Wednesday. Still, its monthly commuting fee cap will remain at 150,000 yen.
Airplanes and express buses will be added to local trains and buses and bullet trains as a transportation option for commuting.
Yahoo Japan introduced the "Office Anywhere" system in 2014 to allow for working outside the office and scrapped a rule on working in the office at least five days a month in 2020 to address the increased need for teleworking amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Around 90 percent of employees at Yahoo Japan are working remotely as of January, saying that it does not hinder work quality, which in some cases improves, the company said.
Yahoo Japan follows flea market app operator Mercari Inc., which launched a similar scheme in September last year permitting its employees to live and work anywhere within the country.
Japanese companies are striving to offer flexible work environments to meet demand for diversified working styles and to retain a talented workforce in the face of labor shortages.
"It's important for us to improve our well-being, and exercise creativity and imagination in order to provide our users with a convenient and innovative service," Kentaro Kawabe, president of Z Holdings Corp., the parent of Yahoo Japan, said in the release.
In other industries, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. said last year that it is considering allowing all 320,000 employees of the telecom giant group to work remotely as the norm and abolishing job relocations.
ANA Holdings Inc., the parent of All Nippon Airways Co., is planning to allow 38,000 full-time employees barring pilots to switch their jobs within the ANA group as they wish so that they can choose where they live, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
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