How to investigate a harassment complaint in a Japan entity

When a harassment complaint reaches a Japan entity, the procedure matters more than your first instinct about who is right. Picture it. Monday morning, an email lands in the country manager's inbox: an employee says her supervisor is harassing her. The first reaction is usually one of two. That supervisor has always been solid, so this must be a misunderstanding. Or: this can't wait, pull him out now. Both reactions are human. Both walk the entity into trouble.

Japan has a procedure written into law. It isn't long, and every step is there for a reason. Skip one and you can lose a labour tribunal later, wherever the facts actually lie.

What the law requires of you

Workplace power harassment in Japan has three elements, and all three must be present. It exploits a position of superiority. It goes beyond what is necessary and reasonable for the work. It damages the working environment. Note the second one. Strict work instruction is not harassment in itself, and the official guidelines say so. Since April 2022 every employer, including a three-person Japan entity, has had to do the following: publish a policy, set up a consultation channel, establish the facts promptly and accurately after a complaint, support the complainant, take measures against the perpetrator, and prevent recurrence. Two conditions run through all of it. Protect both parties' privacy. And never treat anyone adversely for complaining or for cooperating.In a 2026 case, three nurses who reported abuse at their facility were sent home on standby, then dismissed or transferred, and the court voided the dismissals and transfers. I wrote about it in When an employee reports a problem, how the Japan entity should respond.

The labour ministry's guidelines say plainly that fact-finding means hearing both sides: the complainant, the person accused, and third parties if needed. This isn't procedural politeness. In Japanese labour tribunals, a sanction imposed without giving the accused a chance to respond is easily found to be an abuse of rights, and void.

What protects the company is hearing both sides before any conclusion

The order and timing of handling a complaint under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare guidelines, with the step not visible in reporting on the Chiba case (2026, still in court)

1. Day 1Record receipt in writingGive a deadline for establishing the facts, ask about interim measures, and promise no disadvantage. Reach no conclusion and say nothing outside
2. Week 1Hear both sides separatelyA third person present each time, a signed record, each remark or act put to the accused one at a time. In Chiba, reporting shows no sign the manager was formally heard before the sanction
3. Week 2Test the three elements, sanction in writingWrite the conclusion and reasons. A sanction must be proportionate, let the person respond, and be a type the work rules list. In Chiba the sanction was oral
4. AfterTell each side separately, fix the systemDon’t show one side’s statement to the other. Fix setups like two people alone on a 30-minute early shift

The Japanese procedure is designed to be a little slow. Those slow days are the ones that save two years of back pay later.

A case now before the courts

A 2026 case in Chiba is worth reading because it collects the common mistakes in one place. The setting is a bakery run by a consumer cooperative, where the store manager had been in charge for 22 years. In December 2025 a part-time employee, one month into the job, complained about a thirty-minute window at 4:30 a.m. when only the two of them were in the shop. She said the manager made seven remarks in that time, including "be gentle, like with a child", "don't cry at work" and "do you want to quit". The manager admitted several. He said she had been banging baking trays against the oven wall, and that he didn't want colleagues to think he had made her cry. He denied three, saying what he had actually asked was whether she wanted to go home for the day.

Then came the cooperative's handling. In February 2026 his superior told him, orally, that he was suspended for five days and transferred to a distribution centre where he had no experience. In that meeting he said "I quit", and withdrew it by email the next day. At the end of March the cooperative treated him as having resigned voluntarily, citing his refusal to follow the transfer order. In May he sued in the Chiba District Court, asking it to void the resignation treatment, the suspension and the transfer, and claiming unpaid overtime. In the suit he has asked for the cooperative's complaint procedure, the employee's memo and the investigation report. The shop paused for "renovation" and closed for good in September. About twenty staff lost their jobs. The cooperative declines to comment while the case is pending.

There is no judgment yet. I don't know what was said in those thirty minutes and I won't guess. Whether seven remarks crossed the line from instruction to harassment is for the court to decide. I want to talk about procedure.

What went wrong procedurally

From the reporting, there is no sign of a formal investigation record, or of the manager being formally heard before he was sanctioned. The sanction was oral. It combined a suspension with a transfer to work unrelated to his 22 years, which Japanese case law readily reads as a punitive transfer and an abuse of the employer's power to transfer. Then "voluntary resignation": one heated remark, withdrawn the next day, treated as an intention to leave. Finally, the closure after the lawsuit. Whatever the real reason, that sequence invites the court and the public to read it as a response to being sued.

All of this is wrong whichever way the facts fall. If the manager did harass her, the procedural errors void the sanction and put the cooperative in the defendant's chair. If he didn't, the errors erase a 22-year employee and twenty jobs along with him. That is the whole point of procedure. The outcome shouldn't depend on who was liked first.

What a Japan entity should do

The day the complaint arrives, record receipt in writing. Tell the complainant within how many days the facts will be established. Ask whether interim measures are needed, for instance no solo shifts with the other person for now. Say clearly that she will suffer no disadvantage for complaining. Reach no conclusion about anyone, and say nothing outside.

Within a week, hear both sides separately. Have a third person present each time, keep it in writing, and have both sign the record of what they said. When you hear the accused, put each specific remark or act to him one at a time and let him answer each. Don't just ask "did you harass her". Collect witnesses and chat logs. A small entity without HR can bring in an outside labour attorney or lawyer to run the hearings. That typically costs an order of magnitude less than a tribunal.

Within two weeks, test each of the three elements against the facts and write down the conclusion and the reasons. If there is a sanction, it has to be proportionate, notified in writing, preceded by a chance for the person to give their side, and one of the sanction types listed in the work rules. If a sanction isn't in the work rules, you can't use it.A new Japan entity should settle its work rules early for this reason alone. I made the wider case in Set the rules in the first ninety days, or don't bother.

Afterwards, report the conclusion to each side separately. Don't do it by showing one side's statement to the other. File the record, and look for anything structural to fix. Two people alone in a shop at dawn for thirty minutes is itself a structural problem.

One last thing for the country manager. When a complaint arrives, the strongest urge is to make it go away fast. Japan's procedure is built to be a little slow. Those slow days are what keep the entity from paying for the next two years.

This article summarises public reporting and the legal framework. It is not legal advice; for a specific case consult a Japanese lawyer or licensed labour and social security attorney. The case described is pending and nothing here is a finding of fact.