Haichi tenkan, often shortened to haiten, is the legal term for moving an employee within the company. It covers both a change of job, such as from sales to HR, and a change of workplace, which when it involves relocation is called tenkin. Moving someone to a different company, even a group company, is a separate matter: that is secondment.
The leading case is Toa Paint, decided by the Supreme Court in 1986. Where the work rules say the employer may order transfers, transfers have in fact been common, and the contract does not limit job or location, the employer can order a transfer without the employee's consent. The order is only an abuse of right if there is no business need, if it has an improper motive such as pushing the employee to resign, or if it causes a disadvantage well beyond what an employee would normally be expected to accept. That third limb was set high: in Toa Paint itself, living apart from a family was held to be an ordinary disadvantage. The Childcare and Family Care Leave Act now requires employers to consider childcare and caregiving situations before ordering relocation.
The broad power rests on the open-ended membership model of employment. Where the contract limits the job, it does not apply. In the Shiga Prefecture Social Welfare Council case on 26 April 2024, the Supreme Court held that where an employer and employee had agreed, even implicitly, to limit the employee to a particular job, the employer had no power to reassign them to another without their consent. Since April 2024, the written terms at hiring must also state the scope of possible changes in duties and workplace.
What it means for a foreign employer
- Your hiring documents now decide the power. A specialist hired for a defined role with a narrow scope of change cannot later be moved by order. Decide what flexibility you need before the offer.
- Job-based hiring cuts both ways. It attracts specialists who value it, and it removes the redeployment option that Japanese law expects before a dismissal.
- Bilingual senior hires often ask for limits. Candidates leaving Japanese companies for gaishikei frequently want no relocation. Agreeing to it is a real commitment.
- A punitive transfer is a liability. Moving an under-performer to a meaningless role to prompt resignation is the improper-motive case courts strike down.
Sources
- Supreme Court, Toa Paint case, 14 July 1986.
- Supreme Court, Shiga Prefecture Social Welfare Council case, 26 April 2024.
- Act on Childcare Leave, Caregiver Leave and Other Measures, Article 26.
- Ordinance for Enforcement of the Labour Standards Act, Article 5, as amended in force April 2024.