Some employers want to flip the script to indirectly get rid of workers they don’t want, company says.

In Japan, quitting your job can be psychologically complicated. Employment at many companies is indefinitely very long-term, without scheduled regular meetings to discuss whether or not to re-up the working arrangement, which also means fewer built-in opportunities to organically tell your boss, “I think it’s time for me to move on to something else.” Japanese culture also generally prefers to avoid direct conflict if it doesn’t offer any benefits over a calmer approach, and with most Japanese people not craving the position of being the center of attention, making a big-spectacle “You can take this job and shove it!” declaration in front of everyone in the office doesn’t hold much appeal, even to most pretty disgruntled workers.

That’s why the company Momuri got its start. A play on words with the Japanese phrase “Mou muri” (“I can’t take this anymore”), Momuri is a job-quitting proxy service. For a fee, generally between 12,000 and 22,000 yen (US$77 and US$142), Momuri will inform your employer that you’re leaving your position and also handle any associated paperwork or other correspondence. And to be clear, Momuri’s operations don’t include anything about setting you up with your next job. They’re just there to get you out of the one you currently have.

It’s an unusual service, but one uniquely suited to Japanese society and cultural values. However, while Momuri’s business plan is centered on being approached by individuals who want to quit their jobs, the company says that it also regularly gets contacted by employers who want to end their working relationships with their employees.

In a post on its official Twitter account, Momuri recently said:

“We regularly receive requests of ‘We want to make one of our employees to quit, so would it be possible to have you to contact them on the phone?’”

Though Momouri’s services are designed to help workers navigate quirks of Japanese work culture, those same services could, in theory, also be beneficial to employers on the other side of the tricky situations. Downsizing because of an economic turndown is generally frowned upon in Japanese society, and firing employees for anything less than deliberate malicious conduct is avoided too. The result is that, unless an employee is a complete screw-up, employers often feel obligated to keep them on the payroll, even if the company’s overall performance could probably be improved by firing them and restaffing the position. Of course, all those stigmas, and any potential compliance bylaws about letting the employee go, disappear if the employee themself is the one making the decision to walk away from the job. So, in theory, if the management at Company X wants to get rid of an employee, but cultural or legal concerns make that difficult to do, having a job-quitting proxy float the idea of quitting to the unwanted worker could neatly solve the company’s problems.

Of course, there are all sorts of ethical issues such tactics would raise, not the least of which is whether an employer having a third party contact a worker to make them consider quitting their job constitutes a form of workplace harassment. It’s worth noting that Momuri does not say that it has ever performed this service for employers, simply that it’s been asked to do so, and so it seems that the company has stayed focused on its role as a job-quitting poxy service, nota a firing proxy service.

Source: Twitter/@momuri0201 via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
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