Your Choice
At Mercari, we give members the freedom to choose where and when they work. Each individual and team can choose the work style that best enables them to demonstrate value and optimize their performance.
The Three Points of
Your Choice
Freely choose your own working space
- Each employee can choose whether they want to work in the office, go fully remote, or some hybrid combination of the two
- Employees may work from home, hotels, and other such establishments as long as security is ensured (remote work must be carried out in accordance with Mercari’s Security Guidelines).
Freely choose where you live
- Mercari employees can reside anywhere within Japan
- All public transportation is eligible for commute support by the company, including airplanes, bullet trains, express trains, express buses, and ferries (employees are entitled to a commuting allowance of up to 150,000 yen per month)
Freely choose your own working hours
- Employees can enjoy full flexibility in their working hours—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (there is no “core time” or “flex time”)
- Employees may, for example, step away from their work in the middle of the day or even increase the number of hours worked per day and instead have three days off per week
Note: No application or special permission is required for any part of the Your Choice policy. Each employee may set their own work schedule and choose where they live and work. However, there are exceptions for certain positions and types of work.
Why Your Choice
Works at Mercari
At Mercari, we have three values that serve as guidelines for action toward achieving our mission. In order for members to demonstrate these values to the fullest, our organizations need a shared foundation. All decision-making at Mercari is based on these values and our foundations, and Your Choice is a policy that strongly reflects these things.
For example, the “Be a Pro” value stipulates that each member, as a professional with strong expertise and knowledge of ethics in their field, will take ownership and responsibility for their own work, and aim to contribute to our mission by committing themselves to results and performance. Since this idea that individual members are responsible for their own performance is firmly established at Mercari, we believe that each individual should be similarly allowed to decide their own work style.
Your Choice is fundamentally in line with our culture of “Trust & Openness.” We avoid tying employees down with too many rules, setting only the minimum necessary guidelines and mechanisms for people to make the right decisions on their own. This is because we believe that everyone’s united thoughts and actions lead to both personal growth and a stronger organization.
However, this freedom of choice comes with added responsibility. We trust each person to make these choices while thinking about what’s best to maximize performance and demonstrate our values for both themselves and the organization.
Where Do Our Members Live and Work?
The Systems and Policies
That Support Your Choice
Slack communication
Mercari uses Slack as a tool for company-wide communication. As a general rule, interactions on Slack are conducted through open channels in order to maintain an open and friendly environment.
All-hands meetings and open-door sessions
Each Mercari Group company holds a regular all-hands meeting. In these company-wide meetings, management and project owners send out messages, answer questions posted by members, provide visibility for policies, and explain the background of key decisions. Furthermore, Mercari promotes open and direct communication by frequently holding open-door sessions (casual meetings for exchanging opinions) where anyone can freely ask questions about new initiatives, current issues, and other such matters.
Reimbursement for team-building expenses
Mercari actively encourages team-building activities for members to get to know people inside and outside of their own team. The company allows employees to expense food and drinks associated with these activities to the company. (These activities can be held online or offline, but there is an upper limit for expense reimbursement.) Recently, we have been seeing more offline activities to share in-person experiences with one another.
Work style sync
In the work style sync, team members share their ideal work styles with the rest of their team, including information like the time of day they feel the most productive and how often they prefer to come to the office, in order to help everyone understand each other better.
FAQ
Q.
Who can use the Your Choice policy?
All members of Mercari Group (including full-time employees, contract employees, part-time employees, and interns) can use Your Choice. However, there are exceptions for certain positions and types of work.
Q.
Do I need to apply or get permission for my work style?
No. However, in cases where the type of work must be done inside the office or requires that the member be in the office for security reasons, the member may be required to come to the office at the discretion of their division head or manager.
Q.
Are there plans to hold events that would require members to come into the office, such as company-wide events?
Company-wide events will still be held regularly, but employees will not be required to participate in person. Employees may participate online if they so choose. At the same time, we also believe in the importance and value of offline communication. Depending on the event, we may encourage members to join at the office.
Q.
Can employees expense overnight accommodations when traveling to visit one of our offices?
If you are visiting for work reasons (where staying overnight would be the logical choice), you may be reimbursed for the expense if deemed necessary by your manager.
Q.
Can employees work remotely from overseas?
As of right now, Mercari does not allow members to work remotely from overseas. However, exceptions may be made in special circumstances.
Q.
Will a member’s chosen work style have any impact on their evaluation?
No. At Mercari, we evaluate members based on their output and behavior while using our company’s values as a guide.
Q.
Will there be changes made to the Your Choice system in the future?
We established the Your Choice system to maximize the performance and value output of every member and the organization as a whole. If we find that it is no longer fulfilling this original intent and disrupting the mid- to long-term growth of the business and organization, the contents may be updated or changed based on the situation.
Q.
Are Mercari members allowed to do outside work?
We allow outside work, with the expectation that all members will conduct themselves as professionals and give their best at Mercari. Note that any outside work must also be done in compliance with our internal guidelines.
