The Korea Labor Foundation is stepping up its field visits to promote shorter working hours and flexible work arrangements. The foundation plans to identify companies that have eliminated fixed overtime pay and adopted a 4.5-day workweek without cutting wages, then spread those models across industries.
The foundation said Wednesday it would conduct its fifth field visit under the "Actual Working Hours Reduction Support Team" program, calling on DisplayHub, a display panel manufacturer in Jungnang-gu, Seoul. The team assesses companies' progress in reducing working hours and implementing flexible work systems, and shares workplace innovation cases.
DisplayHub joined the foundation's workplace innovation consulting program in August last year, working to improve its performance evaluation and organizational management. Since May this year, the company has been in a second phase of consulting focused on redesigning its wage structure and introducing a 4.5-day workweek.
In line with the government's push to shorten working hours and reform the comprehensive wage system, the company plans to eliminate fixed overtime pay for display installation technicians — a group prone to frequent extended hours — and fold that amount into base salaries. Going forward, overtime pay will be calculated based on actual hours worked.
Office staff will move to a 4.5-day workweek without a pay cut, reducing their scheduled weekly hours from 40 to 35. The company also plans to designate the last Friday of each month as "Family Love Day," allowing all employees to leave two hours early. The foundation said it would ease the financial burden on companies adopting the system by linking it to its work-life balance support subsidy program.
DisplayHub already operates a reduced-hours program for workers with young children, a remote work policy and a flexible commuting system for parents of young children. The company has been recognized as a family-friendly certified company, a participant in the work-life balance campaign, an outstanding employer for gender equality and a Seoul Metropolitan Government work-life balance points company.
"Reducing actual working hours cannot be achieved through a single policy alone — it takes root in the workplace only when the wage structure, work practices and organizational culture change together," said Park Jong-pil, secretary-general of the Korea Labor Foundation. "We will continue to identify and spread workable models for reducing working hours that fit the characteristics of each industry."
fact0514@heraldcorp.com
