"Accelerating Work Innovation and Increasing Happiness Index" SKT Park Jung-ho's Over One Year of '4-Day Workweek'

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] "At first, I didn't know what to do." Mr. Kim, a man in his 40s working at SK Telecom, used to awkwardly leave his house on the third Friday of every month about a year ago. With the introduction of the ‘Happy Friday’ system, which allows a four-day workweek once a month, he had a day off, but he had nowhere to go and no plans. Wearing his usual suit and tie, he took an awkward walk. Then he went to an art museum. That is the first Happy Friday he remembers.

Happy Friday, introduced by SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho’s idea, has now been in effect for over a year, and Mr. Kim’s Fridays have changed. Now, he plans schedules in advance with family and relatives and enjoys new hobbies. His daughter often teases him, saying, "Dad was someone who knew how to have fun."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Once a month, a four-day workweek, commuting to a nearby hub office instead of the headquarters. The changes in work style confirmed at SK Telecom over the past year are clear. Right after the spread of COVID-19, SK Telecom was the first large company to implement company-wide remote work, leading the way in ‘work innovation’ during the pandemic more than any other domestic company. The CEO’s determination to enable working freely from anywhere accelerated this innovation.

According to SK Telecom on the 1st, the company has developed and conducted public testing of an application that can verify whether the changes in work style pursued over the past year have actually affected employee happiness.

Based on about 100,000 data points accumulated in the second half of last year, the average happiness level of employees was measured and analyzed, recording an average of 0.82 on a seven-point scale ranging from minus 3 to 3. When happiness was checked using emotion stickers selectable on a six-level scale, the response ‘Calm (52.8%)’ was the highest, followed by ‘Happy (32.2%)’ and ‘Sad (6%)’.

This survey also confirmed that the introduction of company-wide holidays on Happy Friday raised employee happiness. Compared to Monday to Thursday (0.69), the happiness level on the third Friday, Happy Friday (1.16), increased by 68.1%. This is much higher than other Fridays that are not Happy Fridays (0.85). Another Mr. Kim, who has been with the company for eight years, said, "It’s nice to have a whole day off company-wide." Team leader Mr. Lee said, "At first, there was some cautious atmosphere, but after a year, it is considered well established."

The ‘Work From Anywhere’ policy, allowing work from home, hub offices, or anywhere, is also positively impacting work satisfaction. SK Telecom explained, "Satisfaction with working at a third place has risen from 0.53 in August last year to 0.61 recently."

The strong motivation behind SK Telecom’s acceleration of ‘work style innovation’ is the management’s firm belief that individual happiness leads to organizational capability and performance. CEO Park believes that if long commuting times lower employee happiness, the company must find solutions to this problem. This aligns with the group’s management policy that sets ‘employee happiness’ as a management goal.

CEO Park has repeatedly ordered the reduction of working hours by improving work efficiency based on new technologies. He is said to have shown special interest in this happiness measurement. SK Telecom plans to analyze these data with artificial intelligence (AI) in the future to identify factors at both individual and organizational levels and derive organizational improvement tasks.

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