Top Family-Friendly Tech Companies in Japan

Raising children is hard enough, and juggling a career on top of that just adds to the stress. 

You’d think that our society would be built around something so natural and a part of human life to make it less hard on everyone, but sadly, this isn’t always the reality in professional life.

Many people have to make personal sacrifices and let go of certain career goals just to raise their children right and be there for them when they need it. However, it doesn’t have to be like this.

Nowadays, as we evolve as humankind and mature as a society, there’s more emphasis on work/life balance than ever before. Naturally, this trend also extends to the issue of balancing childcare with work, and many companies offer well-thought-out childcare benefits that allow both parents to be sufficiently involved in their child’s development.

In this post, I’ll review some of the best family-friendly companies in Japan that offer childcare and other related employee benefits. Let’s get right into it!

Money Forward

Money Forward is a FinTech startup founded in 2012 that specializes in providing financial management services and products for individuals and businesses.

With childcare leave support and other initiatives, Money Forward wants all employees to be comfortable with starting a family. In fact, the company’s childcare leave system covers the period from when the pregnancy is confirmed, until after the baby is born. Here’s their detailed guidebook on parental benefits.

What’s more, the company offers shorter work hours for parents taking care of children and even provides financial support in the form of a childbirth allowance during pregnancy. 

In addition to the childbirth allowance, employees also receive a lump-sum amount at the time of childbirth as an additional childbirth allowance.

Cybozu

Cybozu has been inspiring teamwork and collaboration since 1997. Today, the company offers a range of office and mail solutions that are used by over 115,000 companies worldwide.

Cybozu supports employees who want to start a family and have children by offering parental leave support, which is mandatory by law. However, the company goes the extra mile and also offers shorter work hours for employees taking care of their children as well as financial aid for costs incurred due to childbirth and childcare to help ease new parents’ struggles.

Colorkrew

Colorkrew is known for its innovative cloud management, web system, and app development services. Their management product, Colorkrew Biz, helps companies improve their internal administrative structures, while their social media platform Goalus helps with goal tracking.

In addition to the parental leave that’s a statutory requirement, the company goes the extra mile and offers new parents the ability to work remotely and on flexible work hours. What’s more, Colorkrew also offers a congratulatory bonus to employees upon the arrival of their baby.

Freee

Founded in 2012, Freee develops cloud-based accounting products. In fact, the company’s accounting platform has the largest market share in the country. 

When it comes to supporting families, it’s safe to say that Freee goes above and beyond. For one, the company offers perks like subsidizing payments for house cleaning and babysitter services to make sure new parents are able to better utilize their statutory parental leave rights.

Also, Freee allows employees with newborns to work shorter hours so they can spend more time taking care of their children. 

Lastly, the company also provides support for employees who are afraid of having children due to not being able to return to their careers, and subsidizes the cost between unlicensed and licensed nurseries to ensure employees can have their children looked after by properly accredited institutions.

Mercari

Japan’s first unicorn startup, Mercari, is currently the country’s largest consumer-to-consumer marketplace. Mercari’s platform allows millions of users all throughout Japan to buy and sell previously owned items with great ease.

Mercari is one of the best family-friendly companies to work for in Japan, as it goes beyond the minimum requirements of parental and childbirth leave mandated by law. 

For one, the company offers to cover the cost of babysitters and medical facilities when employees’ children get sick without any time limitations.

In addition, Mercari offers financial support for employees when it’s time to send their child to preschool, which covers the cost difference between private and public preschools. 

Lastly, the company’s financial support also extends to daycare costs for the first year the baby is born, which is up to 100,000 yen per month and is available to not just the employee, but their spouses and partners as well.

Merpay

Merpay is a FinTech startup that’s owned by Mercari. Founded in 2017, the company provides online payment systems and aims to reduce the use of cash by making digital payment possible in every aspect of life.

Merpay, as a part of Mercari’s corporate group, offers the same perks as its parent company. This means that in addition to statutory parental leave, they offer flexible and shorter work hours and financial support for childcare.

Zeals

Zeals has been revolutionizing the way companies deliver customer service with its software products since 2014. The Tokyo-based company brings hospitality solutions to e-commerce with its chatbots.

Zeals supports employees who want to have children and offers employees with newborns to work flexibly. In addition to flex hours, employees are also able to work shorter days to take care of their newborn children. 

SyntheticGestalt

Established in 2018, ​​SyntheticGestalt was founded simultaneously in London and Tokyo. The company harnesses the power of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies to advance the field of drug and enzyme discovery.

In addition to the usual employee benefits like statutory childcare and maternity leave, SyntheticGestalt also offers discount tickets for babysitters as well as shorter work hours for employees taking care of children.

Rakuten

Rakuten was established in 1997, and today it’s one of the biggest multi-media conglomerates in Japan. The company has over 70 businesses under its umbrella, spanning multiple industries such as e-commerce and FinTech.

Rakuten has a dedicated solution for employees with children to ensure they can provide the utmost care to their kids. They have their very own daycare center called Rakuten Golden Kids and a nursing room is also available. What’s more, the company has contracted babysitters to support employees when they need it.

In addition, Rakuten employees get outpatient leave during pregnancy and childcare sick leave whenever they need it. The company’s support system also includes flexible work schedules and shorter work hours for new parents, exemption from overtime for parents taking care of a child, maternity gift money, and a lump-sum grant for childbirth.

Kraken Technologies

Established as part of the UK-based energy company Octopus Energy Group, Kraken Technologies is an EnTech (energy tech) company. The company’s mission is to spread the word about clean energy and how affordable it can be by providing businesses with the technology to switch to clean energy cost-effectively and efficiently.

Kraken Technologies wants its employees to have children without worry and extends the statutory parental leave to those who have a stillbirth and miscarriage after the 20th week of pregnancy. 

While the first six weeks of paid parental leave must be taken immediately after birth, the remaining six weeks can be taken anytime during the first six months after the child is born.

What’s more, the company also allows employees to take up to 12 months of unpaid parental leave once their paid statutory leave period ends. Of course, employees taking care of a child are also offered shorter work hours and a flexible work schedule.

Flatt Security

Flatt Security is a cyber-security startup launched in 2017. The company’s services and products ensure a secure development process that can be conducted on multiple machines and servers without the risk of losing data.

In addition to the statutory parental leave, which is fully utilized by all of their employees, the company also offers flexible and shorter work hours to employees taking care of children. 

What’s more, Flatt Security ensures their employees are able to balance their work and personal lives, and boasts a 100% childcare leave acquisition rate for both male and female employees, as well as a 100% return to work rate after their parental leave ends.

GLOBIS

GLOBIS operates in multiple industries, the most important of which is higher education. The company has the largest business school in Japan, GLOBIS University, and also offers corporate training solutions with its GLOBIS Corporate Education initiative.

The company is among the most family-friendly companies in Japan. 

In addition to the statutory parental leave, full-time employees can shorten their work hours by as long as 3.5 hours, and contract workers up to 1.5 hours daily. GLOBIS also offers exemption from overtime and flexibility in work hours to employees taking care of a child before and after childbirth and nursing leaves.

What’s more, employees can benefit from using the company’s contracted babysitters and can even get a discounted price. 

The company also offers contracted child healthcare providers in the event their employees’ children get sick.

NearMe

NearMe is a ride-sharing service that offers much more than a simple ride. Launched in 2017, the service has a variety of transportation solutions for airport transfers, daily commutes, and even golf course transfers in certain areas.

Even though the company doesn’t specifically offer new parents flexible work hours, NearMe’s general stance of flexibility allows employees to adjust their schedules so that they can drop off their children at school or run personal errands.

In addition, the company also takes parental care seriously and ensures that male employees take childcare leave as much as female employees, encouraging them to be more involved in their children’s lives.

Accredify

Launched in 2019, Accredify is a Singapore-based company that focuses on data verification. The company’s cloud system makes it easy to verify the source and authenticity of digital documents online.

Accredify allows equal opportunities for both its male and female employees to take maternity and paternity leave, encouraging equal participation in their children’s lives.

What’s more, Accredify strongly believes in the importance of work/life balance and allows employees who are taking care of children to work flexible hours. This way, employees can tend to their kids’ needs at all times, manage their work according to their personal lives, and not feel forced to prioritize their jobs over themselves.

WealthPark

WealthPark is an international company with multiple offices across the globe, including Tokyo. With a mission to revolutionize the real estate business, the company’s products help real estate investors effortlessly manage their assets.

WealthPark is also among companies with parental leave, which enables employees to prioritize their children's needs without any constraints. So, in addition to the statutory parental leave, WealthPark also allows employees to work flexible hours and take half days off, which gives new parents even more flexibility to take care of their children.

Cogent Labs

Established in 2014, Cogent Labs offers SaaS (software as a service) products. The company’s mission is to increase productivity by utilizing the power of AI with an intelligent document-processing service and a DX platform, COGENT DX. 

Cogent Labs knows that family comes first, and provides employees with a relaxed environment where they can work shorter hours or on a flexible schedule when they need to take care of their children. 

In addition to parental leave, which the company emphasizes is for both female and male employees, the company also provides financial support for childcare costs.

Shippio

Shippio is a company that aims to streamline international trade processes with its platforms. The company’s platform makes it so that all international trade operations can be managed digitally.

Shippio allows employees to use maternity and paternity leave 6 weeks before and after the child's birth. Employees are also eligible for childcare leave afterward on the condition that they have been employed at the company for at least one year.

In fact, the company takes childcare very seriously, as they state that they take the necessary internal measures so that employees don’t face mobbing due to taking childcare leave.

On top of all of this, Shippio even allows employees to work flexible hours when they need to take care of their children. 

Childcare leave at Shippio can be taken until the child turns one year old (or one and a half years old if there’s a waiting list for admission to a specific nursery or similar reasons). During this time, employees are also eligible to apply for childcare leave benefits.

Peatix

Established in 2011, Peatix is one of Japan’s most popular event websites. The website allows users to discover new events and buy tickets, while venues and event promoters can use it as a platform to manage, promote, and sell out their events.

Peatix values the concept of family and wants its employees to have the freedom to have children with peace of mind, which is why they offer flexible and shorter work hours.

Needless to say, the company also offers parental leave, and there’s a 5-day personal leave for when the parental leave offered by the company falls short and employees need extra time to take care of their families.

Learn About Childcare-Related Employee Rights and Benefits in Japan

In this post, I presented you with some of the best companies in Japan’s tech space that have family-friendly practices.

These companies do more than what is legally stipulated to allow their employees to spend sufficient time with their kids and are, therefore, worth mentioning as good places to work at.

Even if you don’t plan on having kids at the moment, this article can still give you a good idea of each company’s general stance on humane practices and how well they treat their employees.

That said, in order to be a good judge of this, you first need to know what your rights are regarding childcare and what companies usually have to offer as the bare minimum. 

So, while this is it for today’s post, if you’re still in the dark about your legal rights on childcare, as well as what type of childcare benefits are usually offered in Japan, make sure to head on over to my post where I talked about childcare leave in Japan more extensively.