The headquarters of Netmarble, one of South Korea’s leading mobile game makers, was once located in the Guro-dong Lighthouse, an industrial area in western Seoul, where engineers often stayed up all night to meet game release deadlines. ” was called.
However, Netmarble’s stressful working environment came under the spotlight following a spate of employee deaths in 2016, with developers in the IT industry working long overtime hours to complete projects. Public criticism of the so-called “crunch mode” has increased.
Netmarble wasn’t the only one. Naver, South Korea’s largest search engine, came under fire in 2021 after a developer in his 40s committed suicide, leaving behind a note indicating extreme stress caused by persistent overtime work and workplace bullying.
But now that these incidents have revealed a clear failure to care for the mental health of its employees, a slow cultural shift is taking place in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. There is. South Korea’s government has pledged to overhaul the country’s mental health system, and large companies are offering mental health programs for their employees.
“Following the tragic events of 2016, we have worked proactively over the past eight years to encourage a healthier work-life balance for our employees,” Netmarble spokesperson Seijin said.・Mr. Park stated.
The company has abolished the so-called “comprehensive wage system,” which forced employees to work unpaid overtime. A health care center staffed with professional counselors has also been established.
Meanwhile, Naver has established an internal human rights committee and says it regularly evaluates its corporate culture. We also operate a counseling center for employees and provide free mental health checkups each year.
“The (personal) growth and well-being of employees is directly related to a company’s competitiveness,” Naber says. “We strive to enable our employees to be the best they can be.”
Experts say widespread working conditions have improved since South Korea capped the maximum working week at 52 hours in 2018 and enacted legislation to crack down on workplace bullying in 2019.
“As working hours become shorter, productivity becomes even more important for Korean companies,” said Jeong Sang-won, director of the Workplace Mental Health Research Institute at Gangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul. “Major IT companies are becoming increasingly aware of the seriousness of presenteeism as well as absenteeism, and are actively investing in the mental health care of their employees.”
However, many workers are still dissatisfied with frequent overtime and hierarchical corporate culture. The country has the longest working hours in the OECD and continues to face accusations of bullying due to its rigid, top-down management style.
“When I get busy, I have to work overtime almost every day,” says a 34-year-old office worker who works in a department at Samsung. “The pressure of high performance is exhausting me. When one of my executives berated me recently, I really wanted to quit.”
Like many other major Korean companies, the Samsung Electronics subsidiary ranks 49th on the Asia-Pacific region’s Best Employers list and offers free mental health counseling.
The employee said he had never used the service because he feared the information would be shared with his boss, but the company insists the service is confidential.
Samsung says it adheres to legal working hours and supports employees’ work-life balance. We also have various programs in place for their mental health and will take firm action against any reported abuse.
Jeon estimates that 60% of Korean employees’ occupational stress comes from interpersonal conflicts, which he attributes to the Confucian culture’s emphasis on teamwork.
“They suffer from all kinds of conflicts due to generational, gender and class differences,” he says. “Younger workers in particular are frustrated by the country’s corporate culture, which has lagged behind generational change, while working mothers are experiencing increased occupational stress due to pervasive gender discrimination.”
DH Kim, a communications manager at one of the country’s largest conglomerates, recently sought outside counseling for insomnia due to a heavy workload and conflicts with colleagues.
“Adjusting to a collective culture is very stressful,” she says. “For example, you have to attend a company dinner even if you don’t want to.”
Like Kim, many South Koreans remain dissatisfied despite the country’s rapid economic growth. South Korea’s suicide rate last year was 27.3 per 100,000 people, the highest in the OECD. And, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of South Koreans seeking treatment for mental illnesses increased from 3.2 million in 2017 to 4.3 million in 2022, an increase of 35%.
Last year, President Yoon Seok-yeol established a commission to oversee new mental health initiatives. He also pledged to provide free counseling services to one million people and increase the number of mental health facilities by the end of his term in 2027.
But Jay Kwon, a senior counselor at MindGym, which provides employee benefits services to companies, said companies are still too focused on performance to give mental health the attention it deserves.
“Employees in cutting-edge industries are more stressed because they are under more pressure to perform, but these companies tend to focus on growth and profits over the mental health of their employees,” he observes. Masu.
Chung believes that Korean companies need to make a systematic effort to overhaul their toxic culture, but most companies are relying on traditional management consultants and facilities rather than investing in mental health. believe that spending money on is a better way to increase productivity.
“Most top managers still avoid consulting on corporate culture because they don’t want to reveal the dark side of their companies,” he says.
However, he adds, “If your fish has trouble breathing, you should change the water in the aquarium.”
