Value Creation Example:
“Providing a Wide Range of Options”

Muneaki Hanabata

WILLOF CONSTRUCTION, Inc.
Kyushu Branch, Engineering Dept., Engineering HQ
Mid-career change to the company in 2018

Wide Range of Career Choices Not Limited to Japan
I Will Continue to Challenge Myself in the Future

Preference for Work Sites Over Office Work
That Led Me to Temporary Staffing at Work Sites through WILLOF Construction

After graduating senior high school, I worked at a building contractor for nine years as a formwork carpenter. I felt my skills grow day by day, but the contractor I worked at was struck by a downturn in the market and went bankrupt.

After that, I stepped away from the construction industry for a while and worked as an HR coordinator at a staff placement company, but when we later moved house to my wife’s home town, I returned to the construction industry. The next company I worked for primarily designed thermal power plants, and it was at that company that I had my first experience working on a site overseas. Beginning with Indonesia, I then went on to work in India and Saudi Arabia, and along the way I learned to enjoy working overseas as I was exposed to different types of national character, religions, and cultures. But after coming back to Japan, I received a notice that I was being transferred to office work. After much consideration, I decided to switch jobs again and join a company where I could work at work sites rather than on office work.

I chose a personnel placement agency instead of a construction company because the only work I had been doing up to that point was thermal power plant design. I thought that if I registered at a placement agency instead, I could look for the right type of work for me from a large number of options. This could include civil engineering, construction, and even within construction, it could include reinforced concrete construction or steel-framed construction. Since you can work at such sites even without experience, you can learn which jobs you are suited for and which you are not, and you can ask to learn about anything you do not understand. I sat for interviews at several personnel placement companies, and it was WILLOF Construction (hereinafter “WILLOF”) where I felt I would be able to form the career I wanted even as a mid-career hire without experience.

At WILLOF, a sales representative followed up with me and helped me secure my first work site. All of the sales representatives were so considerate, warmly lending an ear to my daily work and future career considerations, and even negotiating and changing my work conditions based on the work environment and circumstances. These sales representatives put my mind at ease so that I was able to focus on my work.

Due to my previous work experience, I was interested in working at a site overseas again. A few months before the end of my first contract at a waste treatment facility in Yokosuka in Japan, I let a sales representative know that I was interested in working overseas if possible. After another contract at a thermal power plant construction site in Ibaraki Prefecture, I was actually presented with a project working on school construction in Guinea, Africa. I was the company's first overseas placement, and I was deeply impressed that they looked beyond Japan to international work sites in order to satisfy my career goals. I was so happy I chose to work at WILLOF.

An Accommodating Company that Supports Career Formation Even for Mid-Career Hires and No Experience

The biggest change for me when I came to WILLOF was that I had been on the tradesman side as a carpenter at previous work sites, but now I was a construction management engineer on the management side. I needed to pay more attention to process management across the entire work site and to adjustments in the work operations of each individual laborer. I did not have any experience with construction management, but as I came to understand the overall process and flow of operations, I began to see things as a construction management engineer that I had not seen before.

For example, I developed the ability to look ahead and anticipate whether the work process was in an acceptable state, or whether there were enough workers on site. This experience gave me a broader perspective and improved my knowledge and skills. The real pleasure of construction management is to first plan out the flow of work - to implement this process, then follow with this procedure - and then to actually see the work follows that plan. I do not plan these processes out alone. I consult with people involved in every process along the way for their advice, and as I have gained experience, I have been able to conduct that sort of communication more smoothly as well. Organizing these various stakeholders is another important job.

The importance of communications holds true both in Japan and overseas. When I was first assigned to Indonesia in my previous position, I struggled with worries about how the scale of the work site was different than in Japan and how I would need to study both English and Indonesian. On the other hand, I also felt that would all be good experience, and that I would benefit from just watching, listening, and learning as I go. Naturally, I was not able to communicate properly in Indonesia, but I picked up a few words of English at a time, and as I became able to communicate what I wanted to communicate, the local staff began following my orders in their work. I began to learn that certain ways of communicating worked best, and this led me to begin enjoying work overseas.

There are several other factors that make working overseas attractive, including cultures and religions that differ from Japan, and the opportunity to go places that I likely would never have gone if not for work. Now I want to spend my life visiting all sorts of different countries.

After Guinea, my plan was to work at a fishing harbor construction site in Senegal, also in Africa, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and it became harder to go overseas, before eventually the entire project was dropped. During this period, I received a proposal to work at a construction site for a new reinforced concrete warehouse for heavy machinery on the site of a power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. Although I did not have any experience with reinforced concrete structures, I felt this would be a good experience and accepted the challenge. That was followed by other projects including metalsmithing and machine installation. If it were not for the COVID-19 pandemic, I would have continued my career overseas, but I am grateful to WILLOF for this useful career-forming experience even after having come back to Japan.

Company-wide Culture that Supports Challenging Oneself

What is attractive about working at WILLOF and the rest of the WILL GROUP is that you can challenge yourself, and that there is a culture, policies, and multiple other elements in place to support such challenges. One such initiative is the WILLCON AWARD, which is given to the staff member who was most successful at a work site in a given period. Entrants can be either self-nominated or nominated by others, and I personally won the very first MVP award. When I won the award, I was initially unsure I deserved it, but I was simply happy that my hard work was being recognized. As a winner, I had an interview article published about me and a celebratory dinner, where I was able to talk with personnel from the head office - people I rarely got the chance to talk to. This awards ceremony boosted my job motivation and strengthened my sense of belonging at the company.

The company has also begun focusing on a new media strategy utilizing social media, and I have noticed that they are making new plans that extend further into the future to energize the company as a whole. That also applies to the awards ceremony described earlier. I like that stance and those types of initiatives at this company, and I think it sets the company apart from others.

I switched jobs to WILLOF six years ago, and since then I have gained work experience at a variety of work sites, with a focus on construction management. My personality is such that I am not satisfied until I try something out for myself, so I have taken a positive attitude towards new experiences. This sort of career-expanding experience has also been useful for building skills for my current position.

In the future, I would like to try things I have not done before such as civil engineering, as well as study to become capable of doing facility design and machine installation work. I also want to get more certifications. I would also like to work overseas again, if I could have the chance to do. With all of this in mind, I would like to keep taking on new challenges as long as my health permits.

WILLOF is a place where your wishes will come true as long as you challenge yourself. I hope that whoever reads this article challenges themselves to anything they have a little bit of interest in, and dive right into a whole new world.