With an increasing number of employees nationwide working remotely these days, human resource departments are also being stretched thin as they deal with a rise in harassment complaints between staff and their managers.

A number of Japanese companies are now in the process of frantically trying to resolve these remote issues before April — a time of year when a whole bunch of new recruits will join the workforce.

"In-person workplace harassment cases plummeted in 2020, mainly because it became awkward for bosses in their 40s and 50s to scold or reprimand underlings online,” says Hajime Takehana, a Tokyo-based lawyer who specializes in labor problems. “On the other hand, the number of complaints for remote work harassment soared, and bosses in the exact same age brackets are the most likely offenders. In many cases, the fact that the harassment is all happening online actually makes things worse."