[The Editors' Verdict] No "Happy New Year" in Korean Corporations

To Those Exhausted by the Flood of New Year's Messages
Hoping for Words of Support, Not Just Demands

"It is thanks to the hard work of our employees. This year, you can expect a significantly higher wage increase and bonuses compared to last year." How wonderful would it be for employees to hear such a New Year's message from their CEO?

On the first workday of the new year, the words employees most want to hear from their CEO are full of hope, blessings, support, and encouragement like this. Rather than "work harder and run more," employees would have hoped for messages like "thank you for working hard as you have," or instead of "facing an uncertain future," messages that say "more pay and benefits await you."

However, such messages are hard to find among New Year's addresses by CEOs of Korean companies. Most of the time, what you read or hear are requests from superiors to work harder, which can even be felt as pressure from work.

Fortunately, the frequency of the word "crisis" appearing in New Year's messages has decreased compared to last year. According to CEO Score, a corporate data research institute, an analysis of words used in the "2024 New Year's messages" of the top 10 conglomerates revealed that the word "crisis," which was the 4th most mentioned word last year (33 times) due to concerns over the global economic downturn, dropped to 19th place (12 times) this year. This is thanks to having endured last year’s extreme economic uncertainty caused by the spread of COVID-19.

Although the relative frequency has decreased, uncertainty and crisis remain recurring words in corporate New Year's messages. Shin Dong-bin, Chairman of Lotte Group, said, "To leap forward without resting on past successes, we must create opportunities within crises." Kim Seung-yeon, Chairman of Hanwha Group, pointed out, "The market repeatedly faces crises threatening survival amid the triple hardships of interest rates, high inflation, and low growth." Sohn Kyung-shik, Chairman of CJ Group, described the current situation as an unprecedented crisis and urged, "We must regain the desperation to become the best and the determination to succeed no matter what."

In fact, for executives responsible for running companies in Korea regardless of size, it is difficult to talk about a company’s direction and future outlook without addressing the global economic uncertainty and resulting crisis. CEOs’ sense of crisis connects to the challenges the company faces, the direction it must take, reforms and innovations, and areas where employees need to put in more effort. Ultimately, the New Year's message inevitably leads to a call for employees to do more to escape the crisis.

The atmosphere is different in foreign companies. Global CEOs often leave messages they want to share with employees through emails or social media at the end or beginning of the year. Their messages are characterized by brevity. Apple CEO Tim Cook left a short message on social media early on January 2, the first workday of the new year: "Wishing everyone a new year full of hope and happiness." Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, also said, "Happy New Year!" They omitted the traditional "New Year's speech" that outlines the company’s vision, direction, and requests to employees.

In Korea, instead of the executives’ New Year's messages disguised as formal addresses, can we hope for warm New Year's messages filled with support and encouragement for colleagues who endured a year-end storm of greetings, organizational restructuring, and layoffs?

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