It is impossible not to be awed by the sense of duty of the Japanese workers who are fighting to secure and clear up the Fukushima nuclear power station after it was knocked out by a tsunami. Exposed to high levels of radiation, they expect to die, but still they work.

The numbers involved have varied: at one point, it was reported to be 300 – which immediately evoked the memory of the Three Hundred Spartans, a suicide battalion who marched against an unbeatable enemy fully aware that there was no hope of survival.

The workers have also evoked memories of an honourable tradition within Japan’s own culture – that of the Samurai, the warrior-servants for whom death was preferable to the disgrace of failing their lords.

Western managers look on with a little envy mixed with their admiration. Would Western workers behave as Samurai in a similar situation? Or would they be straight on the speed dial to their personal injury lawyers?

If, as we suspect, the latter is more likely, can anything be done to infuse our own employees with more of the Japanese work ethic? This is a question with which Western managers have long been obsessed. Some may remember that, from the 1960s until the end of the 1980s, there was a real vogue for all things Japanese in Western corporate circles.

Western executives bought katanas, took karate lessons, and read the likes of Miyamoto Musashi and Yamamoto Tsunetomo – usually missing their main points entirely – in the vain hope that all this would, somehow by osmosis, result in Japanese levels of productivity.

It never worked, and the fashion faded with the Japanese economy. The great secret of Japanese management is that it was always a product of a broader culture of mutual loyalty and obligation of employer and employee that extended beyond the workplace, and which did indeed go all the way back to the relationship between a Daimyo and his Samurai.

It is impossible to replicate that relationship without the associated broader culture, and the culture is itself the unique product of centuries of Japanese history. Indeed, many assumed it was dying out even in Japan – or at least they did until Fukushima.

Some employers are becoming positively paranoid about the abuse of business internet facilities by employees.

It is certainly true that many working hours are “wasted” by employees using company time and company computers to do a bit of online surfing or shopping ... or whatever. It seems that hardly a week goes past without some bureaucrat being fired for downloading pornography on taxpayers’ laptops – thus confirming our suspicions about the sort of people who become bureaucrats and what they spend their days doing.

It is quite right – and rather satisfying – that bureaucrats are disciplined for waste of resources they are given as a public trust.

However, private business can and should apply different standards. Our best advice to anyone thinking of a drafting a policy on employee use of work computers for private purposes is “Chill Out, Dudes”.

Accept that if technology is available, then it is going to be used – and if it can be used for personal purposes, then it will be used for personal purposes. Just accept it.

If you think too much time is being lost because technology is being abused, just reflect on how much time you are saving because you have that technology. Are you really saying you would rather not have it? A degree of wastage is the price you pay for having the technology – a price worth paying.

Of course, it is possible to reduce wastage by a combination of monitoring and tight disciplinary procedure. However, taking the time to check employees’ browsing histories and follow up with disciplinary measures is just as wasteful as unauthorised surfing. More importantly, it creates the wrong atmosphere in the workplace. If you show you distrust your employees, then the best of them will seek work elsewhere, where they feel trusted and valued – and you will be left only with those who need watching.

Here is a better idea. Stretch your employees. Set them challenging targets. At worst, this will leave them less time to waste. At best, it will engage their interest, so that they do not feel the need to relieve their boredom with a little surfing at work. Indeed, they may end up doing work at home, in their own time and on their own computers.

Zurich, Monday 16 August 2010

When most informed commentators are issuing dire warnings about the economic future of “Europe”, they usually mean the European Union, or at least the Eurozone.

So the warnings do not apply to Switzerland, which is neither a member of the EU nor in a particularly dangerous financial position. This is not to say that everything is perfect in Helvetia, or that the Twenty Six Cantons have some form of exemption from the problems of the global markets – but it does seem that Switzerland is in a far better condition to weather the storms than most other European countries.

Although Switzerland’s independence from the EU is currently working in its favour, it would be facile to attribute the relative prosperity of the Swiss to that one factor alone. It is rather a symptom of a number of deeper strengths that have allowed the Confederation to enjoy hundreds of years of wealth disproportionate to its natural resources.

1   In spite – indeed, because – of its small size, Switzerland has always understood its economy depends on being open to foreign trade.

2   The high sense of civic responsibility of the Swiss, combined with the small size of both the Confederation and its constituent Cantons, have always imposed a tight fiscal discipline on government. It is harder to hide public debt when it must be shared among a small population.

3   Swiss banking and tax laws have always been hospitable to outsiders with money.

4   Switzerland is proof that economic liberalism is compatible with a strong sense of social cohesion, based on shared traditional values. Switzerland is a clean and safe place in which to live and do business – a nation armed to the teeth in which there is little gun crime.

5   The Swiss retain a formidable work ethic, an obsession with the quality and precision of their products, and a passion for punctuality. Although Switzerland has been mocked as the nation which gave the world the cuckoo-clock, the clever little timepiece is actually a good symbol of the virtues that make a strong economy.

The combined impact of these strengths is a healthy economy, which means a strong currency. Perhaps that is why your contributor, trying to stretch out is his devalued pounds sterling, feels so impoverished travelling through this great nation.