Even If You Work at a Company for a Long Time, Can Anyone Do the Job? — A Book Questioning the 'Experience Myth'
Even If You Work at a Company for a Long Time, Can Anyone Do the Job? — A Book Questioning the 'Experience Myth'
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Chapter 1: The Atmosphere That Long-Tenured Employees Are Superior
Many companies have invisible common sense.
* The longer you have been employed, the more superior you are
* The longer you have been there, the better you are at your job
* The more you know about internal company affairs, the higher your value
* Young employees are still immature
This atmosphere remains deeply rooted even today.
But is that really true?
Being at a company for a long time and
continuing to create value are not the same thing.
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Chapter 2: Many Jobs Can Be Done Once You Get Used to Them
In reality, many jobs can be mastered if you continue them for a certain period.
* Administrative processing
* Customer service
* Inventory management
* Sales routines
* On-site operations
* Internal coordination
* Report writing
Even if they look difficult at first,
* Learning the procedures
* Knowing the patterns
* Experiencing how to handle exceptions
* Getting used to interpersonal relationships
Through this accumulation, many people become able to handle them.
In other words,
there are many jobs that are established through repetition rather than special abilities.
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Chapter 3: There Is a View That Comes with Age
Once you reach a certain age, many people realize:
'This job was too deified.'
When you are young,
* Your boss looks amazing
* Veterans look omnipotent
* Internal company rules look profound
But as you gain age and experience,
* It was actually just preparation
* It was actually just habit
* It was actually just the volume of their voice
* It was actually just internal politics
You start to see things like this.
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Chapter 4: Just Being There for a Long Time Does Not Mean You Have Value
Tenure also has value.
* Knowing the company's history
* Having connections
* Knowing past cases
* Having an intuition for avoiding trouble
However, just being there for a long time is insufficient.
* No new knowledge
* Weak against change
* Obsessed with old ways
* Suppressing young employees
With this, even if the years are long,
value has not grown.
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Chapter 5: The True Meaning of 'Anyone Can Do It'
'Anyone can do it' is not an insult, but an understanding of structure.
In other words,
* It is systematized
* It is reproducible
* It can be run if you train people
* It does not need to be person-dependent
That is what it means.
Originally, the better the company,
the more it aims for job design that does not depend on any one person.
Therefore, 'a job anyone can do' is not a bad thing.
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Chapter 6: Areas Where Differences Still Emerge
There are areas where differences emerge even in the same job.
* Speed
* Accuracy
* Attentiveness
* Improvement ability
* Ability to nurture people
* Judgment in emergencies
Even in jobs anyone can do,
not everyone can do them at the same level.
This is where individual differences and evaluation gaps are born.
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Chapter 7: The Illusion Created by Companies
Companies sometimes make jobs look more difficult than they need to be.
* Full of internal jargon
* Useless approval flows
* Complex rules
* Tacit knowledge known only to veterans
Then the newcomer thinks,
'The work at this company is advanced.'
But in reality,
it is not complex, it is just unorganized
in some cases.
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Chapter 8: Compatibility with Seniority-Based Systems
In cultures where you are evaluated more as you get older,
'Person who has been there a long time = valuable person'
is easily assumed.
But in the modern era,
* AI adoption
* Automation
* Expansion of the job-change market
* Performance-based systems
are advancing.
Then,
rather than 'how many years have you been here'
'what can you produce now'
becomes the question.
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Chapter 9: Truly Difficult Jobs Are Different
On the other hand, there are jobs that not just anyone can do immediately.
* Medicine
* Research
* Advanced technical professions
* High-level negotiation
* Management decisions
* Crisis management
So you cannot say all jobs are easy.
However, many routine tasks in general companies
are often things that can be sufficiently mastered through training.
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Chapter 10: What Young People Should Know
You do not need to be overly afraid of people who look like they are acting important at the company.
In many cases,
* They have just been there a long time
* They are just used to it
* They just have the information
That is all.
Therefore, young people,
* Learn
* Observe
* Improve
* Use new technology
This is often enough to catch up.
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Final Chapter: The Value of Work Is Not Years, but the Ability to Update
Not everyone who has worked for a long time is amazing.
Not all young people are immature.
People who are truly valuable are:
* People who keep learning
* People who can change
* People who can make others reproduce their work
* People who can adapt to the current era
Those are the people.
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A Word in the Epilogue
Once you reach a certain age,
anyone can do most jobs.
But what makes the difference beyond that
is not the person who has been there the longest, but the person who never stopped growing.