Korea Railroad, Slimming and Streamlining Organization Including Reduction of Headquarters Management Support Personnel

Korea Railroad will implement the second phase of structural reform starting this month, including reducing headquarters management support personnel. Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) will reduce about 100 headquarters management support personnel (8.9% of the total). This is a follow-up measure to the recent organizational restructuring, including the integration of regional headquarters. KORAIL plans to continue streamlining and optimizing the organization until the end of the year.

According to KORAIL on the 12th, on the 21st of last month, as the first phase of structural reform, KORAIL carried out an organizational restructuring that reduced one-third of the nationwide regional headquarters and optimized the vehicle maintenance organization. This was the first step to improve management conditions by adjusting personnel to promote efficiency.

The second phase of the ongoing structural reform focuses on streamlining the management support organization by reducing headquarters management support personnel and simplifying all business tasks. The intention is to prevent excessive workload with the reduced personnel by simultaneously simplifying company-wide tasks through personnel cuts and abolishing or integrating inefficient tasks.

To this end, since July, KORAIL has been reviewing the entire management support organization, including the headquarters and affiliated institutions, abolishing unnecessary tasks through job analysis and collecting employee feedback. In addition, similar and overlapping tasks are being integrated, and efficiency will be enhanced by promoting government digital New Deal policies utilizing information and communication technology (IT).

As the third phase following the second phase of structural reform, KORAIL plans to innovate field organizations. The plan includes reorganizing field organizations such as railway freight stations and travel centers handling train travel products, and improving the efficiency of management support personnel in headquarters-affiliated operational institutions.

Furthermore, considering the prolonged spread of infectious diseases and the resulting decrease in railway tourism demand, KORAIL’s blueprint includes reorganizing travel center operations by introducing non-face-to-face services.

These measures are being promoted to respond to the emergency situation where operating losses are increasing due to the impact of COVID-19.

KORAIL President Son Byung-seok said, “Considering the increasing difficulties in overall management, comprehensive structural reform without distinction between headquarters and field is an unavoidable task. Although it is a very difficult and challenging process, we will carry out the structural reform with determination to complete it and become a public railway trusted by the people.”

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