Tokyu Housing Lease Corporation

Japanese real estate firm Tokyu Housing Lease is actively using Microsoft Yammer to share information throughout the company. A key part of introducing Yammer as a solution was promoting its use among executives and department managers while leaving other employees free to use Yammer if they wished. Using Yammer, the company actively shares information across organizational and hierarchical barriers, fostering an open culture where all employees can share initiatives immediately, but the information is kept organized. The president and management team are extremely impressed with the results, and the company plans to use Microsoft Teams to improve work speed in the future.

In April 2015, three Japanese property leasing management companies (Tokyu Community,

Tokyu Livable, and Tokyu Relocation) were consolidated to form Tokyu Housing Lease, which

focuses on property leasing and provides asset management services such as building

management, redecoration, and renovation. Under its brand tag line, “Use your assets to

achieve your dreams with us,” Tokyu Housing Lease creates services and products that are not

restrained by conventional concepts, and works together with companies in the Tokyu Fudosan

Holdings Group to provide a full lineup of real estate services.

“Before the consolidation, the three companies were each using different groupware,” recalls

Tatsuo Odajima, Manager of the IT Strategy Department Business Strategy Division. According

to Odajima, Tokyu Fudosan Holdings migrated each of those solutions to Microsoft Office 365

during the consolidation to improve group synergies. “We decided to use Microsoft Exchange

Online for email and calendar, and Microsoft SharePoint Online for communication boards.

However, in the initial stages of the consolidation, these were the only platforms used to share

information, and there were no set rules.”

According to Odajima, employees used these information-sharing platforms for official

notifications and requests, but much of the day-to-day knowledge tended to stay within a

department. Because its business involves a lot of labor-intensive work, Tokyu Housing Lease

decided that sharing knowledge across the entire company would improve work quality and

efficiency.

To better accomplish this, the company decided to use Microsoft Yammer as an information-

sharing platform that would offer fewer hurdles than making official notifications and requests.

Consequently, the company defined rules for each separate information-sharing tool, then

CustomerTokyu Housing Lease Corporation

Products and Services・ Yammer・ Office 365

IndustryOther - Unsegmented

SizeLarge (1,000 - 9,999 employees)

CountryJapan

Published May 2019

Tokyu Housing Lease uses Yammer to foster an open culture

Use your

assets to

achieve your

dreams with us.

Tokyu Housing Lease Corporation

used managerial meetings to discuss proposals about the use of

Yammer. The company now positions Yammer as a social media

tool for unrestricted two-way communication across organizational

barriers and recommends its use for workshops, hobbies, social

activities, and more.

Promoting Yammer with an encouraging, balanced approachIn late November 2015, representatives of each department brought

their laptops to special briefing sessions. Each session participant

created a Yammer group, became the administrator, and learned how

to manage the group, including accepting member registrations and

removing members. In addition, the company set up all employee

computers to automatically display the Yammer screen on startup so

that employees can easily check Yammer posts every morning.

Company-wide implementation of Yammer began in December 2015.

Posts were sparse at first, and employees still shared information

between departments using analog methods. However, since

managers and senior-level employees could share information quickly

throughout the organization, the company created a Yammer group

for the president and management team. The president promoted

the group, and managers began to post frequently; as a result,

the company gained a better understanding of the value of upper

management using Yammer, and employees began actively posting in

a group containing all staff members.

“Even though we were not heavily promoting the use of Yammer, the

number of groups created with specific themes gradually increased,” explains Nobutaka Sato, Group Manager of System Control Group in

the IT Strategy Department Business Strategy Division. Information

sharing became particularly active across the entire group, and there

was a definite sense that when supervisors or the president clicked the

‘Like’ button, it increased the motivation for others to post. According

to Sato, “The president not only clicks “Like,” he often writes

comments such as “That's great!” and frequently makes face-to-face

visits to Yammer posters. If someone writes a negative comment, a

supervisor talks directly to the poster in order to avoid trolling and

decreased motivation.”

About a year after putting Yammer in place, the company decided to

make Yammer the information-sharing platform for all employees to

use routinely. To further energize Yammer use, the company started

a group called BIZ Relation BOX in May 2018, which opened up the

group previously exclusive to senior management to all employees.

This usage actively involves executives and managers in generating

various initiatives, while also respecting the autonomy of employees;

it’s a balanced approach that is not forced on employees by

management, yet which also encourages staff use.

Sato explains, “Executives notified all employees about the launch

of BIZ Relation BOX by email; the initiative has enabled knowledge

sharing that crosses hierarchical boundaries as well as organizational

ones, which has established a more open corporate culture.”

Incorporating individual experience and knowledge into the organization to foster an open corporate cultureStaff members have now set up a number of Yammer groups to share

different kinds of information. There is a wide variety of types of

groups, including a group for all employees (which has existed since

the initial introduction), the aforementioned BIZ Relation BOX, a group

for each department in the company, groups for each project unit

and workshop, groups for giving advice about passing the exam to

become a registered real estate dealer, hobby and social groups, and

groups for working parents with children to exchange information.

“Utilizing Yammer continues to foster a culture of immediate initiative

sharing,” explains Odajima. “In addition, as Yammer user information

includes profile photos, even employees who do not usually meet

in person share a sense of affinity. There are many cases of people

who participate in workshops and study groups outside the company

“ Utilizing Yammer fosters a culture of immediate initiative sharing. As Yammer user information includes profile photos, even staff who do not usually meet in person share a sense of affinity.”

Tatsuo Odajima IT Strategy Manager Business Strategy Headquarters　Tokyu Housing Lease Co., Ltd.

Tatsuo OdajimaIT Strategy ManagerBusiness Strategy HeadquartersTokyu Housing Lease Co., Ltd.

Nobutaka SatoSystem Integration Group ManagerIT Strategy Department, Business Strategy HeadquartersTokyu Housing Lease Co., Ltd.

Tokyu Housing Lease Corporation

sharing that content, and other employees are increasingly utilizing

the posted initiatives and ideas as topics in sales discussions and idle

chat. The enthusiasm of posters also rises when there is a response to

their content,” Odajima says.

Meanwhile, members of the IT Strategy Department System

Integration Group in the Business Strategy Headquarters say that

reading Yammer posts has deepened their understanding of the

work performed in other departments. According to one employee,

“Our job in IT is to improve work, and we often discover material for

improvement by reading Yammer posts; understanding what work

involves makes it easier to see a systematic image.”

The management team is also impressed with the results of adding

Yammer to the organization. The following message from President

and CEO Toshihiko Kitagawa was published in the Tokyu Housing

Examples of posts and comments on BIZ Relation BOX. Employees post a variety of knowledge useful for improving work, which attracts many positive comments from other employees. Even the president writes comments such as “That's great!”, which is very effective in improving employee motivation.

Tokyu Housing Lease Corporation

Lease company newsletter:

“Essentially, there is a limit to what a person can experience in one

lifetime. The experience and knowledge shared in Yammer BIZ

Relation BOX removes that limitation and incorporates personal

experience and knowledge into that of the organization. It has also

fostered a culture of openness within the company by giving us a

deeper understanding of the work of those in other departments,

which has helped to eliminate barriers between departments.”

In addition to Yammer, Tokyu Housing Lease is planning to use

Microsoft Teams and OneNote in the future.

“We want to utilize Teams as a tool to support decision making among

staff who are near each other, while also using Yammer for company-

wide information sharing,” says Odajima. The company is aiming to

eliminate paper for everyday work and streamline work as a result.

“Yammer has created an open corporate culture in our company; we

now want to combine it with Teams for extra speed.”

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“ We started company-wide operation in December 2015, and although usage is not mandatory, the number of groups gradually increased. Supervisors and the president clicking the ‘Like’ button became an important factor in increasing motivation to post.”

Nobutaka Sato System Integration Group Manager IT Strategy Department, Business Strategy Headquarters

　Tokyu Housing Lease Co., Ltd.