[Desk Column] What the '1.5 Billion Won Treasury Stock Jackpot' Left Behind

Why do they offer a quitting bonus? This intriguing question points to Zappos. It is an online shoe store owned by Amazon. It recently made headlines for selling a single shoe or two shoes of different sizes. It is the very company that sent flowers to console a woman customer who ordered boots as a gift for her husband, only to lose him in a traffic accident.

The exact name of the quitting bonus is "Pay to Quit." It targets new employees whose business cards are barely dry with ink. The idea is, "Does your philosophy align with our company?" If you cannot answer this question, you are offered a bonus to willingly leave the company. As the slogan "Powered by Service" suggests, Zappos aims for "extreme service." The quitting bonus is an extension of that. It seeks a graceful farewell when the visions of the organization and the individual do not align.

There are also awkward farewells. SK Biopharm, which hit the jackpot with its IPO but is seeing a wave of resignations. It marked a rare achievement as the first domestic company to independently discover candidate substances, conduct clinical trials and approvals, and successfully enter the U.S. market in the era of "K-Bio." To prove this, it raised a record-breaking subscription deposit of 31 trillion won, the largest in IPO history. The stock price still exceeds the offering price (48,000 won). It is undoubtedly a blue-chip stock, but some employees who received employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) seem to think otherwise.

It is reported that about 40 employees decided to resign. With a total of 207 employees, that is roughly one in four. The ESOP has a one-year lock-up period, so to sell the shares, they must resign now. Each of them is expected to receive about 1.5 billion won. One can roughly imagine their mindset aiming for a "life lottery." "How long will I stay with this company? So let's seize the opportunity now." In other words, they are "all-in" on guaranteed current earnings rather than future expected profits. No doubt, the management must have felt somewhat disappointed. They tried a petty revenge by delaying severance pay, but it failed. The ESOP, which symbolized a covenant for the company and employees to share the future, is heading toward a sad ending.

There is also this case. About ten KB Financial Group employees were dispatched to Kakao Bank, a joint venture between Kakao and KB Financial. At the end of last year, when they had to decide whether to stay with Kakao or return to KB Financial, not a single person went back to their original company. Similarly, Naver Financial, a financial subsidiary of Naver, attracted many experienced professionals from the financial sector and large corporations. Companies losing employees sigh deeply. "After all the effort to nurture them..." Some see this as a crisis for traditional industries. There is a sense of threat that Naver and Kakao entering the financial market might not be minnows but whales.

Although "the sum of individuals" makes up an "organization," the gravitational pull of the organization is not as strong as before. The millennial generation (born early 1980s to early 2000s) epitomizes the increasingly individualized trend. Unlike older generations who relied on organizations for a long time, younger generations have loose senses of belonging and solidarity. Their top priority is their own happiness. This trend is evident in cases like SK Biopharm and Kakao Bank.

The rapidly changing industrial landscape also plays a role. Over the past decade, half of the top 10 U.S. companies by market capitalization have been replaced. ICT companies have taken the place of traditional industries. It is uncertain whether the current top 10 will remain so for the next decade. The uncertainty that current status does not guarantee the future amplifies the centrifugal force called individualism. On top of this, there is the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Long-term remote work weakens physical solidarity, which is a major concern for companies. What should organizations do in an increasingly individualized society? Zappos' quitting bonus is not the answer, but it offers a small hint. The greater the centrifugal force of individualism, the more the gravitational force of the organization must be strengthened somehow. Whether through vision, innovation, or values.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.