Year-end organization-wide promotions, restructuring, and new assignments for teams are traditionally a part of Korean corporate culture. Top to bottom within Korean companies they occur sometime between early December and early January, with the changes to senior leadership announced first, and team level changes as a norm made known the week just before or between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
After the Holidays, teams then report back to work. Some assume new roles frequently in departments where they have little experience—requiring employees to acquire new skills—sink or swim.
In the days that follow those shuffled brief their replacements, as staff remaining in their jobs update new management teams on the status of projects and issues.
Meanwhile, others will be en route to assignments in overseas operations; a challenge for those working outside Korea for the first time.
This can also be a challenge for local overseas operations. In particular, it is common for those newly assigned to be unfamiliar or have very limited experience with the many nuances in the localized foreign business, as well as the new role and responsibilities. Not to mention, working outside Korea is in itself a learning curve that can take months and even years.
And I strongly recommend leadership—Western and Korean– have countermeasures in place to mitigate any transitional gaps. They do occur. In fact, over the years I have worked extensively to facilitate smooth transitions.
So, what to look for…
The top Chaebol will and have begun to announce key promotions, which can provide some insight into future trends. The Chaebol usually also comment on whether this year’s promotion number is more or less than in the past and the reasons “why.”
On restructuring, top Chaebol have already announced plans. These can range from granting more independence to business units to consolidating control.
In their restructuring, SK Group elevated a number of executives to vice-chairman level and granting independent decision-making authority to their key affiliates that span from semi-conductor chips, batteries to wireless network, energy, and biotech.
In contrast, Samsung Electronics noted as a shake-up they will merge 3 of their business units.
Samsung also announced several changes in its corporate policies. With the new year, they will employ a new personnel management system. Under the new system, Samsung will abolish a set of requirements before an employee gets promoted to a certain level, such as a minimum term of service that lasts roughly eight to 10 years. Instead, top-performing employees will be eligible for their work performance and expertise be taken into account as key factors for promotion over time in grade.
The Hyundai Motor Group, too, has announced its executive reshuffle. To align with the new Chairman E.S. Chung’s future vision, we see a plan to bring younger faces on the C-suite with a focus on future mobility and on technology sectors such as infotainment, ICT, and autonomous driving. This then means many of the current leadership are stepping aside to the advisory posts.
New Years’ Message
This said, as in the past, with the new year, we can expect leadership will share their 2022 plans in an annual New Years’ company announcement, too. I monitor closely and as they are in Korean will share when appropriate and upon request.
As a final note, for western global teams, I suggest congratulating those who are promoted but also be sensitive to Korean team members who were passed over… or possibly moved to what may be seen as a less strategic assignment.
BTW Time in grade is just a criteria for promotion, or in some cases if a junior is promoted over a senior it is deemed as their time to retire.
Questions? Please feel free to reach out. dsoutherton@bridgingculture.com
Digitization of Hangul
October 9 is a National Holiday in South Korea—Hangul Day. This digitization of Hangul commentary will provide some insights into not only Korea but their native written language.
The Hidden Driver of Korea’s Economic Success
Dr. Peter Wonsok Yun and Don Southerton, October 2020
The Digitization of Hangul–we often see terms like “Miracle on the Han,” that highlight South Korea’s economic rise after decades of harsh Japanese colonial rule and then the devastation of the Korean War.
With only determination and its people as resources, Korea became one of the world’s top industrial, export-driven economies. In particular, the main contributions to this success story include the nation’s emphasis on higher education, as well as the role of government and private investment in innovation, technology, and R&D.
Looking deeper, what may be missed is the impact of digitizing the native written language Hangul. Crafted in the mid 15th century during the reign of King Sejeong. Hangul linguistically is seen as a very logical and structured written language script.
Inspired by a vision to make Korea information independent
Jumping forward, it was in the early 1990s that a local Korean company, today’s Hancom Group, successfully developed a native word processing program for the Korean language.
As Hangul was created so that the common people could accurately and easily read and write the Korean language, so too, the word processing software allowed Koreans to communicate digitally. https://office.hancom.com/about/history/
Although the Hangul word processing software grew in popularity, by 1998, the company nearly went bust, even though it was considered a national treasure: the Asian Financial Crisis and software piracy had brought the company to its knees.
Rival Microsoft which had only about 15% market penetration in office software at the time in Korea, offered $20 million to Hancom to stop producing its software and instead resell Microsoft’s localized Word program.
For a small investment, Microsoft would have wiped out their main competitor in Korea, one of the few countries in the world that had still resisted wide adoption of Microsoft’s office suite.
When the news of the proposed deal offering surfaced, Koreans united in a national fervor and raised over $10 million through a campaign to save the company.
In addition, the company’s near-bankruptcy brought the issue of software piracy under the spotlight. As a result, Koreans began to pay for their software and more began to adopt and use the Hangul software in Korea.
An Economic Driver
With the rise of globalization, and Korea as a nation leapfrogging economically, experts attribute much of the growth to the streamlining of both government policy and regulations. This was possible with a universally accepted digitalized Hangul well suited to the E-Government transfer of information. E-Government refers to a government that uses technological communications devices, such as computers and the Internet, to provide public services in a country or region.
This has also given Korea a strong competitive advantage—data management critical in the digital age.
Looking forward, South Korea today is at the forefront of AI and Cloud-based technology. That said, one may argue that many under-developed nations, most with their own indigenous languages, too, could follow Korea’s digitalization model.
Globally, South Korea and key digital firms like Hancom are well-positioned to support this and similar new endeavors such as Mobility, EV and AI—as the Korean proverb noted—A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats.
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