Working in a Mixed Team: Colleagues From Abroad in a Hotel

If you join a hotel in Japan today, there is a good chance some of your colleagues will be from other countries. This article looks at how many, what the ministry's figures show, and some practical habits for working well in a mixed team. It is written for Japanese applicants, and also for anyone who has not worked in this kind of team before.

How many foreign workers are there

At the end of October 2025, employers reported 2,571,037 foreign workers in Japan, 268,450 more than a year earlier and the most since reporting became compulsory in 2007. Workplaces employing at least one foreign worker numbered 371,215. By nationality, the largest groups were Vietnamese (23.6%), Chinese (16.8%) and Filipino (10.1%). These are all-industry figures.

In accommodation and food service, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare counted 319,999 foreign workers, which is 12.4% of the national total, at 53,855 workplaces. That is up 17.1% on 273,333 a year earlier. The five-year trend shows how fast it has grown.

The industry category combines hotels and restaurants. The ministry's table splits them. In 2025, 47,007 foreign workers were in accommodation (hotels and similar), at 6,311 workplaces, and 268,769 were in restaurants and other eating places. So hotels alone account for roughly one in seven of the accommodation and food service total, which is a smaller share than the combined figure suggests. For comparison, manufacturing had 24.7% of all foreign workers.

The figures don't say what jobs these people do, their visa categories within the industry, or how many work in the same hotel. They are headcounts reported by employers.

What this means for a team

For many hotels, a mixed team is an everyday fact, and it brings real advantages. Colleagues who speak the guests' languages can help with a check-in at a moment's notice. People who have worked elsewhere bring other habits to a problem.

It also brings the ordinary friction of any team where people start from different places: instructions understood differently, jokes that don't land, and assumptions about how things are done. None of that is unique to foreign colleagues. But it is easier to deal with if you plan for it.

Plain Japanese helps everyone

The Immigration Services Agency and the Agency for Cultural Affairs published Guidelines on Plain Japanese for Residency Support in August 2020, and a spoken-language edition in October 2022. They were written for public bodies communicating with foreign residents, but the method works at a workplace.

Their approach has three steps. First, make the message clear even for Japanese readers: organise the information, simplify the sentences and watch out for loanwords. Second, make it clear for non-Japanese readers: simplify further, choose words carefully and think about how things are written. Third, check that it has been understood.

In a hotel that comes down to a few habits. These are our practical suggestions, in the spirit of those guidelines, and not quotations from them.

Say one thing at a time. A short sentence with one instruction is easier to follow than a long one with three.

Say what you mean. The indirect phrases that are normal between Japanese colleagues, such as "それはちょっと難しいですね" for a no, or "検討します" for "probably not", can be misread. Say "it can't be done", then say what can.

Be careful with katakana words. Many borrowed words in Japanese don't match the English word, as we show in Hotel English. A colleague may know the English and not the Japanese version.

Show as well as tell. Point, demonstrate, or use a photo or a checklist. For tasks that follow a fixed order, such as a room-ready check or a closing routine, a simple illustrated card is easier to follow than a paragraph.

Check understanding by asking the other person to say it back, or to show you. "Do you understand?" gets "yes" nearly every time, whether or not they have.

Write key information down. Shift changes, handover notes and safety instructions are worth having in writing, in simple words. If your hotel has a bilingual or translated version, use it.

Small things that matter

Learn how to say and spell colleagues' names, and ask how they like to be addressed. It is a small effort that is always noticed.

Don't assume language from nationality. A colleague from abroad may speak Japanese very well, or very little, and may speak a different language from the one you expect. Ask.

Keep to work topics for personal questions. Don't ask a colleague about their visa status or their family's situation. If they want to share, they will.

Share the unwritten rules. In a Japanese hotel there are many things that nobody wrote down: how to answer the phone, how to bow, who stands where. A new colleague of any origin benefits from being told rather than left to guess.

The same labour law applies to everyone working in Japan, whatever their nationality. If you see a colleague being treated differently in pay, hours or safety, that is worth raising with a manager, or with a labour consultation corner if need be.

Colleagues who hold a skills qualification

Some foreign colleagues will have passed the Specified Skilled Worker (accommodation) skills test, which sets a pass standard of 65% on both the written and practical parts, and the Japanese language level that goes with it. It is described in Hotel Qualifications. It tells you they have been tested on hotel practice and Japanese, which is a good starting point for working together.

What this means for your own career

If you work in a mixed team, you build a skill that is useful across the industry: explaining clearly. People who can brief a colleague, train a newcomer and hand over a shift so that nothing is lost are the ones who move into leadership, as Beyond the Front Desk describes.

If you speak another language, say so. Beyond English describes how to put languages on your profile in a way that tells a hiring manager what you can do.

A handover in plain words

Here is the difference, with an invented example of a Japanese instruction to a housekeeping colleague.

Before: "シーツの交換は、お客様がご不在のうちに、できるだけ早めに済ませておいていただけると助かります。"

After: "シーツを替えます。お客様が部屋にいないときです。11時までに終わります。"

The second version says three short things: what to do, when, and by what time. The first is polite and clear to a Japanese colleague, but it asks a newcomer to interpret "if possible" and "as early as you can". In English, the difference is "It would help if you could change the sheets as early as you can while the guest is out" against "Change the sheets. Do it while the guest is out. Finish by 11."

Five steps to train a newcomer

This is our method, not an official one.

1. Show them: do the task while they watch, saying what you are doing.
2. Do it together: they do it with you beside them.
3. Let them do it: you watch and say nothing unless it is unsafe.
4. Ask them to explain it back, in their own words.
5. Check a day or a week later, and tell them what went well.

When something goes wrong

Raise it early, specifically and privately. Say what happened, not what kind of person someone is. Don't judge competence by accent. If you see a colleague being bullied or treated unfairly, tell a manager. The customer-harassment rules in The New Customer-Harassment Rules cover abuse from guests. A problem between colleagues is a different matter, and a labour consultation corner can advise on it.

A short checklist

• One idea per sentence, and say what you mean.
• Show, don't only tell.
• Ask people to say it back.
• Write handovers in simple words.
• Learn names.
• Keep personal questions to work.

Where to start

On your next shift, pick one habit from the list, and use it for a week. If you are looking for a first hotel job, ask at interview what the team looks like and how new staff are helped to settle in. On KankoHR, create a profile that lists your languages and what you can do in each.

Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Foreign Workers Employment Status notification report, end of October 2025 (tables on employers and workers by industry); Immigration Services Agency and Agency for Cultural Affairs, Guidelines on Plain Japanese for Residency Support (2020, spoken-language edition 2022).