Our specified skilled foreign worker Mino is mainly in charge of making ramen in the kitchen as well as general restaurant operations, including customer service.

Our restaurant’s relationship with Mino began in 2017. At the time, Mino was training at our Sapporo location in order to become a chef at Ichiryuan’s newly opened Shanghai franchise. The Shanghai location closed in 2019, but as we were in the process of searching for new employees in the midst of a domestic labor shortage, our manager reached out to Mino and asked him to work at one of our restaurants in Japan. At first, we hired him as a part-time student worker while he attended a Japanese language school in Sapporo, but in 2022 he came to work for us as a specified skilled foreign worker.

Mino takes his job very seriously and is a wonderful worker who is unmatched when it comes to thorough cleaning. Since he has experience as a chef, we make sure to have him work in a way that allows him to utilize his skills and culinary sense to the fullest. Moreover, when we gave him the opportunity to design a dish, the new ramen he created, “Kara-Bien”, earned a place on our menu. This ramen, a fusion of Japanese and Taiwanese flavors with a miso base and spices such as Sichuan pepper and cinnamon, is currently a big hit with our customers. Also, at restaurants such as ours with an open-plan kitchen, not only the flavor, but also the chef’s demeanor makes a big difference in the impression made on customers. To that end, we are careful to train our staff to pay close attention to their behavior and to be brisk and cheerful when serving.

We look forward to Mino taking on more leadership roles at work. Some examples of what we’d like to focus on are price awareness, sales management, staff training and the marketing skills needed to promote sales. Since his goal is to run his own restaurant, in addition to his skills as a chef, restaurant management skills such as these are also a must. We’ve explained to him that in order to run a stable business, it is necessary to maintain a balance of flavor, customer service, hygiene, management and marketing, and we are supporting him in improving his skills in these areas.

In order for customers to enjoy their dishes, not only must the food be delicious, but attention must also be paid to a number of areas, including general cleanliness of the shop, presentation of dishes, and the attitude of the staff. Since he is spending this valuable time in Japan, we would like him to learn things that he can only learn here, such as our values and the Japanese culture of hospitality and bring them back with him to his home country.

At our restaurant we’ve previously hired foreign students as part-time workers and we are visited by inbound customers from all around the world, so our staff didn’t really feel as if there was anything out-of-the-ordinary about working together with a foreign worker.

In addition to receiving high quality support from registered support organizations, Mino is already in his 40s and is used to living on his own, so we haven’t had any difficulties regarding his living situation.

When hiring foreign workers, we always make sure to check if there is an existing community of residents from their home country in Sapporo. We do this, because no matter how strong a foreign worker’s desire to work may be, if they don’t have a community where they belong outside of work, it’s difficult for them to continue to work with peace of mind. Whether or not they chose to take part in that community is up to the individual worker, but when hiring we take care to choose those who will have a community of their fellow country people, in order to foster a favorable long-term working environment.

When accepting foreign workers, we believe that it is important not to see them as their nationality, but to interact with them politely as an individual. In the future we’d like to continue to hire people with whom we share the same values and business philosophy, regardless of their nationality.