How Google-Style Perks Help Japan’s Carmakers Attract Engineers

Woven Planet is an exemplar of Silicon Valley corporate culture. Its office has hammocks, massage rooms, and plants to promote relaxation; glass-walled rooms for an open feel; and Segway-like personal transporters. Employees can mostly work when and where they want. Even its futuristic-sounding name exudes a Bay Area vibe. Except that Woven Planet is based in Tokyo, not Palo Alto, and far from being a startup, it’s a unit of a titan of Japanese industry: Toyota Motor Corp.

The venture is Toyota’s advanced software and technology arm, where the world’s biggest automaker is developing the self-driving, internet-connected cars of the future. Toyota and its Japanese rivals are opening shiny offices for their tech divisions and offering flexible work arrangements to attract the software experts they need to shift from processes heavy on manufacturing to ones that run on code.