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Samsung Group's head office in Jung-gu, Seoul
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On a pillar next to a smoking area in an outdoor parking lot at the Samsung Life Insurance building in downtown Seoul is a sign that says time spent idle while worrying about getting caught is wasted time for the company. Under a phrase that reads, ¡°Creative Work Hours¡± (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) is another sign that urges Samsung workers to cut down on unnecessary overtime work while using free time on self-improvement.
The Samsung Group is leading the way in improving corporate culture because of a realization that the ¡°creative management¡± stressed by chairman Lee Kun-hee cannot take root under the current bureaucratic corporate culture at the conglomerate.
Samsung¡¯s internal broadcast network aired a three-part series on creative corporate culture. It focused on areas Samsung needed to improve on by comparing the conglomerate with the corporate cultures at leading companies around the world. For example, according to a survey of Samsung managers, around 25 percent said they worked past 9 p.m. The program stressed the need to use working hours efficiently and avoid unnecessary overtime.
One vice president at Samsung, who was hired from a foreign company, said senior management briefed employees using power point presentations they prepared personally, while at Samsung such presentations were prepared by staff. He was criticizing the hierarchical structure at Samsung. The broadcast indirectly criticized Samsung¡¯s corporate culture by pointing out that global companies clearly divide work, while their corporate cultures are not authoritarian, enabling staff to operate efficiently and enjoy improved quality of life in their free time. It also said there were rather a lot of managers at Samsung.
A Samsung Group staffer said efforts to improve the corporate culture at the conglomerate are nothing new. He said the latest measures came about from the need to change the basic make-up of Samsung¡¯s corporate culture and raise it to the global level rather than insisting on past practices, since this is the only way for Samsung to reach a higher level.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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