This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.
NPO G-net, based in Gifu, promotes regional revitalization through human resource development across the Tokai region and nationally. The organization's vision: "an environment where anyone, regardless of position or age, can participate in communities and businesses they feel connected to." That vision shapes not just what the organization does, but how its staff work.
This interview features Toshiaki Taniai, who joined G-net during his parental leave, relocated with his family from Aichi to Shiojiri in Nagano Prefecture, and works fully remote while also contributing to local NPO MEGURU. For anyone navigating the intersection of childcare, remote work, and regional engagement, his experience offers a practical reference point.
G-net's Work and What the Job Involves
Can you describe what G-net does, and what your role looks like?
I work in G-net's new business development team, primarily on the Regional HR Department initiative. The concept — promoted by METI — is for multiple regional companies to pool their hiring and employee development functions into a shared HR department, rather than each running those functions independently. I manage this initiative across Gifu, Aichi, and Mie in the Chubu region, coordinating with local government officials and with regional support organizations like G-net.
My schedule is four days per week, eight hours per day — 32 hours total. I had prior ties to Gifu and lived there at one point, but I'm now based in Shiojiri, Nagano. I work almost entirely remote. G-net keeps a dedicated Zoom room open in the office for remote staff, so there's a continuous communication channel throughout the day.
My entire team is effectively remote. Online meetings and chat are the default. There are occasional in-person situations where face-to-face matters, but the baseline assumption is remote work, and it functions without friction.
Was remote flexibility the reason you joined G-net?
Not primarily. The main reason was the organization's philosophy — I connected strongly with the vision of creating an environment where people can participate in work they genuinely care about, regardless of their circumstances.
I joined during parental leave. At that time, I noticed many people around me — especially women — facing situations after returning from parental leave where the work arrangements they needed weren't available. G-net's vision spoke directly to that. The remote infrastructure was also genuinely helpful — being able to stay engaged while caring for a young child, and to respond quickly when needed, mattered.
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Remote Communication Norms
What communication practices do you maintain working fully remote?
The most important lesson I've learned: update frequently, including when things aren't finished. My instinct before joining was to consolidate updates for scheduled meetings. But if a week went by between meetings, I'd hear from colleagues that they wanted more frequent check-ins through chat.
The norm at G-net is to share work-in-progress openly and often — even if it feels like too much from the sender's perspective. It creates ambient awareness across the team. I also share personal situations proactively: if a family member is unwell or something might affect my availability, flagging it early prevents confusion. My colleagues do the same, and it creates a functioning remote culture rather than just a collection of people working in separate rooms.
One result I noticed: the new business team had previously been described as "a black box" within the organization — people didn't know what we were doing. When I started posting updates habitually (drawn from communication habits from a previous team), colleagues from other parts of G-net started telling me they could finally see what the new business team was working on. Cross-team support became more natural — when someone specific is unavailable, other team members step in.
Dual-Role Synergies: G-net and MEGURU
You also work for MEGURU in Nagano. How did that develop, and what's the overlap?
MEGURU is based in Shiojiri — where I live now. The focus is community-based workforce development under the theme "work, live, be well." I'm primarily responsible for a project with Shiojiri City to increase the number of people actively engaged with the city, including those who live elsewhere but have ties to it.
The synergy comes from the complementarity of scale. G-net operates at a regional platform level — we think about systems across a broad area. MEGURU is deeply embedded in a single city, working directly with individual residents and businesses. Living in Shiojiri, I naturally bring a community-level perspective to the G-net work, and the G-net regional experience gives me a wider frame when thinking about Shiojiri.
The organizations have also collaborated directly. We co-organized a 200-person event in Shiojiri, with me operating in both capacities simultaneously — contributing as a G-net team member during planning and as a MEGURU member on the day. The dual role made coordination smoother than it would have been with two separate liaisons.
The Society He's Working Toward
What gaps do you see in current work structures that you want to address?
The biggest one: people who want to participate in childcare, eldercare, or other caregiving responsibilities, but can't structure their work to allow it. G-net is actively working on this internally — cross-functional process improvement, transparent information sharing — but I'd like to see those practices spread much more broadly across industries.
Parental leave policy has improved, but implementation is still incomplete. What's needed isn't just formal leave policies — it's operational flexibility that allows teams to function when someone is out, rather than systems that are brittle to any individual's absence.
What does the ideal look like for work-life balance, particularly around childcare?
Ideally: anyone should be able to adjust their working hours or take time off when they need to, without it being an exceptional event. A spectrum of arrangements, not a binary choice.
When my wife and I got married, we discussed what would happen when our children reached elementary school age. The assumption in many households is that the mother reduces her hours. I found that assumption hard to accept. If I can work remotely and be home when the children return from school, there's no structural reason my wife needs to reduce her working hours rather than me — or rather than both of us adjusting together.
I don't want our children to grow up feeling that work and parenthood are in conflict. The model my wife and I are trying to build is one where both parents retain their professional engagement while both participate in raising children. That requires flexible infrastructure — remote work, flexible scheduling, team cultures that accommodate variability. That's what I want to see become normal.
This interview was produced by TIMEWELL.
