Workplace innovation cases featured at Gwangju forum

The labor ministry said Thursday that fairer job evaluations and flexible schedules can lift productivity and employee engagement, citing three company examples at a Gwangju forum.

The Nosa Baljeon Jaedan held the fifth workplace innovation case-sharing forum at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center. It presented three workplace-innovation shared-growth consulting cases carried out by the Korea Productivity Center.

"Workplace innovation that moves beyond productivity centered on time and labor and toward working intensively is a new solution for companies and workers to coexist and grow amid rapidly changing conditions," Park Jong-pil, secretary general of the foundation, said.

Uni Information, a machinery-equipment wholesaler in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, joined the consulting program to strengthen its ability to attract talent, based on a management belief that sufficient rest can lead to more efficient work. After interviews with all employees and team-level meetings, it expanded and formalized a once-monthly early-departure policy into a 4.5-day workweek. The schedule cuts every Friday by two hours and lets staff participate voluntarily on a rotating basis.

Forlink, a network-equipment design company, combined work schedules tailored to job functions with a vacation-compensation system. Annual leave usage rose to 85 percent from 29 percent, while average monthly overtime per employee fell to 19.5 hours in 2025 from 38.4 hours in 2024.

DH Global, which manufactures electronic components, revamped its evaluation system to weigh department performance and individual contributions. It also introduced a multi-rater process involving supervisors, peers, subordinates and employees themselves. Its turnover rate declined to 2.1 percent in 2025 from 5.05 percent in 2024.