On Innovating Green Spaces Inspired by Countryside Living: Yuki Munakata's LIXIL Story

Please tell us about yourself.

My name is Yuki Munakata, and I am part of the Building Products Development Department. I live in Nagano prefecture, enjoying raising my children in the countryside with its rich nature, while working from home on the launch of a new business idea.

Can you tell us more about your career journey in LIXIL?

I used to live in Saitama prefecture and commuted to the office in Tokyo to develop kitchens and interiors. However, in 2018, I moved to Nagano prefecture and was fortunate to be able to continue my work remotely. 

Now, I work from home in the countryside, which has allowed me to fulfill my desire of living in a place surrounded by nature and raising my children in such a bountiful natural environment. As I continue to live here, I am becoming more familiar with agriculture, and it makes me wish that people in the city could have the chance to grow and eat their own vegetables too. 

Vegeteria Outdoor has been developed and commercialized with this idea in mind. It is an outdoor unit that combines soil equipment for growing plants with a place for people to gather and rest, allowing people to enjoy gardening/farming in a relaxing, green space.

Please share about a motivating or rewarding experience you’ve had while working at LIXIL.

LIXIL has a corporate culture that encourages innovation, new business proposals, and initiatives based on the Three Box Solution concept. An example of this would be the New Business Idea Contest held by the Building Division, which led to the commercialization of Vegeteria Outdoor. I recognized it as an opportunity to grow, proposed an idea that I had been working on for some time, and it was selected as the grand prize winner out of more than 500 entries.

When I entered the contest, I had a strong desire to win it, and I would spend all day thinking about how to create a good product. This was why I was delighted when I learnt that I would be awarded the Grand Prize, and it made me even more motivated to make this idea a success.

Vegeteria Outdoor is a product that can create a relaxing space within companies, and is expected to increase interaction and engagement amongst employees. Therefore, to make use of this product within the company, I had sent an e-mail to our Excitement Promotion Committee expressing my intention to collaborate. This committee helps advance activities aimed at creating a better workplace for LIXIL employees, and with their cooperation, Vegeteria Outdoor has now been installed at our Ichinoseki Plant (Iwate prefecture), Ariake Plant (Kumamoto prefecture), Hisai Plant (Mie prefecture), and Ibuki Plant (Gifu prefecture), and Noda Plant (Chiba prefecture).

What do you find attractive about working at LIXIL?

LIXIL is a company where work cannot be done by just one person. Although I am in charge of development, I know that my colleagues are there to support me, and as the phrase One LIXIL suggests, we always actively communicate with each other. When I share about the things I have worked hard on, various people in the company pay attention to me, and many will very often cooperate with me.

When we commercialized Vegeteria Outdoor, we gathered feedback through an internal monitoring evaluation regarding areas that were difficult to use, and on productivity. These comments from our internal review process led to improvements in the quality of our final product.

Currently, I am remote working on most days, but I am still able to communicate with others, so if I encounter a problem, I can immediately ask for help, and until now I have always received help when I needed it. Even though I work from home, I have never felt lonely or worried that I can't do something because of this. I don't have many opportunities to meet other employees in-person, but everyone sends out various messages on the company's communication tools, so I can easily see each person’s skill and preference for different kinds of tasks. For example, if I want to make a video, I can look at exchanges about videos, or if I want to know about business activities in a local area, I can look at different factory websites and gather information. These tools make it easier to share information and look for the right people to help you.

What would you say to someone considering a career at LIXIL?

To make your corporate life more meaningful, I think it is important to think not only about the kind of work you will do, but also how you will do it. In the past, I would decide where to live based on the location of my office and lived there while working and raising my children. Now, despite living in Nagano prefecture, I have not had to abandon my career and have been able to continue working on development of new products.

This has been made possible thanks to the support of the company, my manager, and my team. I can now work from home and be able to raise my children successfully by making use of the shortened work hours. Even when I work shorter hours though, I am able to complete my work if I focus on it, so it's not as if I work less than others. I would like to continue to make full use of the shortened working hours to enrich both my work and life.
(As of March 2024)