KTH Receives 'Industrial Medal' for Contributions to Work-Family Balance and Employment Equality

Kim Tae-hwan, Vice President of KTH.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] KTH announced on the 26th that Vice President Kim Tae-hwan received the Industrial Medal, the highest honor among individual merits, at the '2021 Employment Equality Contribution Awards' hosted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

On this day, the Ministry of Employment and Labor awarded individuals with outstanding contributions in the field of employment equality, including improvement of discriminatory employment practices, expansion of maternity protection, support for work-family balance, and promotion of women's employment. Vice President Kim was highly praised for implementing various proactive systems for work-family balance and employment equality, in addition to receiving the Minister of Employment and Labor Award for labor-management culture merit last year, and was awarded the Industrial Medal, the highest honor for individual merit.

KTH implements company-wide and rotational work-from-home policies, as well as work-from-home for pregnant employees, to ensure the safety of its employees. The company supports online classes for employees' children by providing unused company laptops, and recently introduced vaccine leave to alleviate the burden of vaccination for workers.

As part of actively practicing ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management, KTH introduced blind recruitment by removing discriminatory factors such as gender, educational background restrictions, and military service history during hiring, establishing a competency-based recruitment system. This contributed to creating youth jobs accounting for nearly 60% of the total number of employees. The female employment rate accounts for 53%, and through competency-based employment, the company has attracted excellent talent. The gender ratio of promoted employees over the past three years has also been equal at 5:5.

KTH proactively implements various systems supporting child-rearing, such as an automatic parental leave system that requires no application and a three-hour reduction in working hours during pregnancy that exceeds legal requirements. Additionally, paid paternity leave for spouses has been extended from 5 days to 10 days, encouraging male employees to actively use paternity leave. Furthermore, the company operates reduced working hours without salary cuts, including a 10 a.m. start time for employees with children entering elementary school and an early leave system one hour before closing on the last Wednesday of every month, designated as 'Culture Day.'

Vice President Kim said, “I believe that creating a fair and equal workplace centered on people is the beginning of actively practicing ESG management,” and added, “KTH will continue to make greater efforts for work-life balance through proactive systems.”

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