Sales of recruitment and staffing services were halved

Due to the covid19 pandemic from 2020, our sales as a company were halved. As well as the crisis in the company, what was most distressing was to see that there were people who wanted to work, but there was no place for them to do so.

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It was at this time that we moved our Yokohama head office to a building in Higashi-hakuraku, which we owned, only to find that the entire tenant area was now vacant. This was also due to the covid19 pandemic.

It was at this time that we moved our Yokohama head office to a building in Higashi-hakuraku, which we owned, only to find that the entire tenant area was now vacant. This was also due to the covid19 pandemic.

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Faced with this old, hollow building, awaiting demolition, my mind was somehow set in the opposite direction: "Let's take care of things that were unable to make use of.” This was the beginning of a new challenge for us.

The surrounding buildings are similarly full of empty tenants.

When we looked again at the city, we noticed that there were many buildings around us that were also full of empty tenants. Covid19’s impact was spreading throughout the area and it looked like the very future that the building owners were wandering into.

We could have given up the building and moved to another place. But we chose to "inherit the place". It was not about nostalgia, it's about creating a place where the people of this area can come together and create a future. In order to achieve this, we thought it was necessary to create a package scheme that would beautify and revive a dilapidated building and use the space with new business content. We thought that if we could come up with this business model, it would give hope to other building owners.

There are 3 pillars to the challenge.

First of all, in order to make the most of the talent available to you, you should not only wait to receive requests for placement or temporary employment, but also become the main operator of your own sales.

Furthermore, we make the most of our registered staff by developing and selling our own products.

The stage for achieving this is the rehabilitation and use of old buildings.

We decided that the best way to achieve this was the “sixth industry” and we revitalized a building.

What is the sixth industry

The sixth industry is an initiative to create a new industry by combining the first industry (agriculture, forestry and fishing), second industry (manufacturing and processing) and third industry (distribution and sales).

Creating a hydroponic farm inside a building

Manufacturing and developing our own products

Café / Restaurant

We launched the SustainuS project to create a hydroponic farm in our building, a kitchen to process the produce, and a café and shop to sell it. As a company that has been in the human resources business for a long time, we wanted to create a place where we could make the most of everyone involved, including ourselves, our employees, registered staff and local talent. The idea behind this project was inevitably based on the proposition that we should all make the most of what we have, sustainably.