Asiana Airlines are looking for a Foreigner to work as a Star Alliance team coordinator

Saw this interesting position listed this morning so I thought I would Re-post it. However it has been listed by a headhunter.

Asiana are looking for foreign candidates in what sounds like a liaison position with star alliance.

______________________________________

Asiana Airlines - Alliance Team Coordinator Position

[Contents of Work]
- Preparation and Progress for Star Alliance Team Conference
- Drawing up document regarding the conference
- Examination of contract / Communication of content


[Qualifications]
- Bachelor or above degree
- English native speaker
- Fluent in spoken & written Korean
- Prefer to have experienced in airline field
- Good interpersonal & communication skill


[Conditions]
- Permanent or Contract Position (Employee’s Options)
- Working Hour: 08:00 ~ 17:00 (Five-day work-week system)
- Working Place: Asiana Town (Osoe-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul)
- Salary: Negotiable
- Benefits: Follow Company’s Regulations


[Application]
- E-mail address: fernando.moon@manpower.co.kr
- E-mail Titled: Asiana_Name
- Submission Form : Both Korean and English Resume / Cover Letter (MS Word Style)
- The person in charge : Jeong Suk Moon, 02-6420-0393


Don't have a Korean resume? Learn how to write one here!

7 Benefits of working for a Korean company

Just to show that this blog isn't always just about the negative aspects of Korean corporate culture I thought I would do a piece on some of the more positive aspects of a Korean workplace. Actually come to think of it, Korean companies do have some really awesome policies and benefits which are comparable to the "dream" benefits that are constantly promoted about Google, just that the Korean system and way are more understated in their promotion of such benefits.

Now most of the following points cover the medium to large Chaebol Korean companies which are for obvious reasons the most desired employers in Korea. Small companies and offices are unlikely to have such benefits but that doesn't mean they won't have some of the following.

So here are my 7  benefits of working for a Korean company

Investment in Education
Koreans love to learn and more to the point love to spend money on learning - and Korean companies are no different. As a staff of a Korean company you will get the opportunity to take advantage of a range of self development programs which will allow you to participate in workshops, attend seminars or even register for language courses. Other education benefits not always advertised by Korean companies is that most will sponsor MBA programs annually for highly rated staff they even fund school fees from kindergarten to University for staff who have served at the company for a set amount of time. My previous company was set at 7 years - so staff that had stayed on for 7 years or longer their children's school fees were being paid by the company (even those in private school). So if your worried about providing a college education for your kids then just sign up to a Korean company for life! (or 7 - 10 years)

Supporting Staff Hobby and Sporting Groups
Korean companies although demanding of your free time are actually surprisingly supporting of staff hobby groups and teams. It's actually more part of their strategy to have their workers bond and become 'family' like in their relationship. Typical groups that are funded are baseball teams, fishing groups, mountain hiking groups. Funds usually cover the cost of meals for the group and other necessities such as registration fees / uniforms. Not only that but as part of many Korean companies self development programs they will cover their workers gym membership fee's or in cases like my old company have a staff gym available in the office building!

Free Lunch!
Now who doesn't like a free lunch? Most Korean companies big and small provide lunch in someway or another. Larger companies will usually have a restaurant / cafe on site that will serve a variety of options for lunch! The bigger the company the better the food on offer and it doesn't just stop at lunch some companies will even provide for breakfast and dinner as well! Of course these are tactics to keep you at the office longer but hey for a young guy living alone eating at the office sure beats cooking at home - especially considering companies hire nutritionists to plan weekly menu's and ensure staff are eating healthy!

So if you thought getting served lunch was good then it gets better because most Korean companies will allow an hour for lunch (even if you are eating at the company cafeteria) so that means on average you are getting an extra 40 minutes to use how you would like! A lot of staff use this time to grab a coffee, have a smoke, go to the gym or even attend language classes! Lunch is also always a communal affair and provides a great way for staff to mingle and communicate with other staff and departments (although this doesn't always occur) regardless it sure beats eating a sandwich at your desk!

Healthy Workers are Happy Workers
Health insurance is standard as part of a Korean workers compensation package but what this usually also includes is regular physical checkups; monthly nurse visits to the office and sometimes even a personal trainer on site! A pretty good benefit especially for someone looking to improve their health or lose some weight!

Staff Dinners / Drinks
Depending on your age and where you are in life this can be a awesome benefit or an absolute hell.
If only held on exclusively Friday's then it would be perfect! Korean companies will encourage and pay for regular staff dinners and drinks and not just the cheap stuff - some items of choice that I was able to sample thanks to my previous company include Korean AAA grade beef, Lobster, Sashimi, even a 5 star restaurant once! And of course you are able to drink to your hearts content and not just Soju! Depending on your team leader you will also get to drink the good stuff - whisky, vodka, wine and other liquers all at the cost of the company - You beauty! Safe to say with staff dinners and a cafeteria at the office I never paid for a single meal during the weekdays.

Company Events
While sometimes they can be comparable to a North Korean propaganda rally Korean company events held for staff are so over the top that they are awesome. Think firework displays, overnight stays at top class resorts, snowboarding trips, performances and concerts by famous singers and bands, a 48 hour bender of alcohol, food, music and laughter - Koreans do staff workshops RIGHT!

Now there will usually be a large company wide event held once to twice a year and then smaller workshops for departments / teams or even age groups. Some of the things I was lucky enough to be involved in was a retreat to a secluded lake area, a camping/fishing trip in Namhae including canoeing, a trip to a ski resort and a performance by After School (Kpop girl band) of course each trip also involves some sort of work related workshop but you are usually too hungover to care!

The aim of said events are to build loyalty towards the company and what better way to do that then with bribery!

Concerts by famous singers are common at company events

Regular Staff Awards
Recognizing and awarding staff achievements is something Korean companies do well and do often. Usually using the above events to recognize high performing staff and rewarding them with significant bonuses or opportunities.

Now the above is not a definitive list - there are a range of other benefits I'm sure that others have experienced but I hope the above made working in Korea sound that little bit more exciting; a lot of the said benefits are quite attractive to a younger worker like myself.

8 Reasons Why Korea has some of the longest working hours but low productivity in the OECD

Why do Koreans work so late?

It is probably the question that most foreigners working or studying in Korea love to discuss and outsiders frequently ask or have heard rumours of. It’s true; Koreans have some of the worst working hours in the OECD. In fact, according to 2012 statistics they were ranked 2nd in the OECD for Average annual hours actually worked per worker. In reality there are some interesting and unique cultural forces in play which are causing Koreans to stay later at the office than others.

The culture of working long hours in Korean companies are a result of a variety of influences: the epic rise from poverty to middle class power; top – bottom hierarchy structures; constant reporting; micro management; perception; loyalty; face; and Noonchi.

  1. Rigid Structures and Hierarchy
Korean corporate structures are notorious for their top-bottom approach and rigidness. Some experts even compare corporate Korea to an army division such is the influence of military service and leadership history on the corporate landscape. What these structures have led too is constant and unnecessary reporting to senior directors (Like soldiers to a general). Teams will brief department heads weekly and sometimes even the board on a regular basis. If a director wants to know about something (even if it does not concern their direct business) then a team leader will be forced to present said topic in a structured meeting in a very short time frame. The team leader will then drop whatever work they were doing (usually their real work) and have their team spend the next few days researching and preparing an over the top presentation so said director can be informed about the topic of curiosity and the team leader does not get blasted for not being an expert on a unrelated topic - It's all about perception!. This constant vicious circle ensures that their is no strategic work and movement within a company but rather a fire department type scenario where teams are on call for a fire and need respond to it immediately- never moving forward or GROWING. My previous company was a never ending merry go round of audits and presentations which meant my boss was often occupied with trivial things like making PPT presentations look pretty for the CEO, hardly the scenario you imagine you would be in after 20 years of work experience.

2. Communication Issues
Despite the regular drinking and socializing, Korean companies suffer from a lack of direct, honest and effective communication. Teams within themselves and departments will often function fairly well together but the constant socializing, eating of lunch together and drinking sessions actually create the side effect of factions. As a result, teams across departments become somewhat enemies. Inter departmental links are almost non existent and often teams from other departments become suspicious and competitive. Poor communication always results in poor performance and when there is poor interdepartmental relationships performance suffers even more.

I will also mention here the obvious issues with English language. Many Koreans frustrated with the emphasis on English often question why they need English when they never use it in the workplace. Most Koreans are wrong in thinking that English study is only useful for practical communication with a foreigner or for use in business emails which they may type rarely. Most Korean office workers look over the obvious fact that world of resources and knowledge (Think case studies, annual reports, professional tips) that is now available to the world via the internet is predominately in English and only a fraction of what is out there has been translated thus far into Korean and made available on the internet. Foreign workers will always have the advantage of a simple Google search which will provide hundreds to thousands of alternative information sources to what is available to a Korean limited to searching in Korean on Naver. 

3. Mobile Phones and Office Communicators
I am sure some were frothing at the mouth for me to mention the above reason. Korea is a truly connected society with a fantastic broadband network providing the fastest internet and LTE coverage in the world to it's businesses. However the ease and preference for communicating via online or through a messaging app on a phone is becoming a real issue. Levels upon levels of an office building will appear as if they were a library such is the silence. Everyone is tapping away furiously and you presume 'Wow everyone is a hard worker', But check again and you'll see most workers are engaging on some form of office communicator whether it be Kakaotalk PC version, Microsoft LYNC or Nateon - workers will normally be chatting away to office buddies (occasionally about work) but more often then not just wasting time. What's more ridiculous is that Korean noonchi (As discussed in a previous post) determines that talking in the office gives off the appearance of not working - So lets send messages via the intranet to the person sitting right next to me instead of turning our heads to have a real discussion! 

If it's not the office communicators then it's the mobile phones - checking them every ten minutes or blatantly getting up to go out to receive a personal phone call. Now I am all for being able to make personal calls and check your phone at work but the frequency in which it is done is the issue. Workers will go off to hide in bathrooms where you can hear mobile message tones going off like a fire cracker; the sounds of mobile games...sometimes even the sound of a youtube video they are enjoying while doing the "other" business.

4. Stressed / Hungover Workers = Lazy Workers
So yes Korean companies encourage and pay for workers to enjoy dinner and drinks together on a regular basis believing it improves loyalty and the relationship between workers. The only requirement being that they are at work the next day (preferably on time). It's amazing after all these years that they still believe that being hungover doesn't affect work. Staff may as well not be at work the next day because a heaving, headache ridden corpse of what used to be a fully functional worker is going to be useless for the entire next day without the proper rest and recovery from the night before.

Smoking too is also a major issue affecting productivity. That said I believe it does provide workers with the benefit of getting out of their seat to stretch and refresh once an hour but the time taken to smoke is so large that non smokers are the losers because they will effectively be spending on average 1 hour a day longer at their desk if we assume most smokers will take around a 10 minute smoking break 6 to 7 times a day - which is most likely. Eventually the non smokers have caught on and hijacked the coffee break which they will take 3 to 4 times a day to also enjoy in their extra hour of rest a day.

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

5. Perception is King
My previous work colleague would spend two days on a powerpoint presentation adding in an array of fancy looking shapes, images, flow charts and graphs for a report which contained roughly half a day of research. That is the power of perception in the Korean office and it forces workers to spend ridiculous amounts of time "beautifying" simple reports which would take 10 minutes to present in an informal meeting or chat.

6. Poorly Equipped Graduates
This is one of the more controversial issues I've listed but it might resonate with a few professionals who find Korean graduates to be grossly under-prepared for the workplace and stuck with poor researching and reporting skills from their university days. Many young graduates come into the workforce with next to zero work experience. That's right - it's their first job...EVER which is astounding considering most Korean men are 27 - 28 when they get their first job (A result of 2 years army service, Gap years and 4 year degree courses). But what that has created is a workforce of young adults with unrealistic expectations of work and money. Poor research skills based around the use of Naver (probably the worst search engine in terms of finding real information) coupled with poor reporting and presentation skills which are all a result of developing skills based to fit a certain professors style and curriculum to ensure the best grade but not the most practical approach.

7. The Art of Looking Busy
In business or social situations Koreans have a penchant for giving off the impression of being busy. Rarely will you meet a Korean that will they say they have spent their time recently doing nothing because work isn't busy at the moment. I believe this style of thinking is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome the unproductive culture in Korea.  Being honest with themselves in the fact that they are not really "that busy" and by association that does not make them a lazy worker! Finishing your work on time and going home on time is in fact the reverse of a lazy worker - it's an efficient one!

8. Parkinson's Law of Time
Parkinson's law is the adage which states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". The Korean workforce all know that they will be expected to work overtime hours whether they have work or not - it's again another test of perception and loyalty so what naturally occurs is Parkinson's law. Why finish your work by 5 o'clock when you know you will be at the office until 10 anyways? Good point! 

I hope I was able to provide a little bit more insight into what issues some Korean companies are dealing with and some reasons as to why Korea has low productivity but I will just add that these are a generalized view with my own opinions and definitely do not cover every single Korean company or worker that ever existed! So take everything with a grain of salt.

Edit: This article is getting a lot more attention than I ever imagined! I just thought that I would point out that these issues are not unique to just South Korea nor do I mention that they don't exist in foreign companies. These are just my experiences from working at a major Korean company and should not be interpreted as fact - just opinion! It has also been brought to my attention by an article by Ask a Korean that the productivity statistics in the original Business Korea article are output/hours which is different to the official OECD statistics of labour productivity. I have since adjusted the article as a response to the two source articles I originally quoted which show Korea ranked as 23rd in labour productivity and 2nd (out of 34) for longest hours worked.

How Korean 눈치 (Noonchi) or 'Self-awareness" affects Korean corporate culture.

Now most foreigners in Korea are familiar with the word '눈치 (noonchi)' sometimes translated into "Tact" or as I have put in the title "Self-awareness". 

I don't think there is just one way to translate this Korean concept but the way Koreans act in the office is determined by this ‘Noonchi’. I like to think of this concept as sort of the invisible set of office rules and expectations that all Koreans believe they have to abide by. I refer to them as invisible because there is actually no one in a company that enforces such rules there is just a profound belief that the company directors or team leaders want it so!

Ok so have I confused you enough? Think of it basically as a set of unspoken rules in the office which are centered around the concept of looking good in front of your superiors.It is a really difficult concept as an Australian because our culture and to extent business culture frowns upon non genuine actions or words to please superiors. Sucking up to the boss in a lot of countries in fact is looked down on; However in Korea these actions, which are completely insincere, are expected by superiors and creates the situation where if you are not sucking up to the boss and everyone else is, then you might lose out.

So where exactly in Korean business culture will I encounter Noonchi?

Working Hours

Why do Koreans work so late?

Koreans have some of the worst working hours in the OECD and while most of your Korean coworkers and friends will have you believe that they are genuinely THAT busy that they need to work overtime (which in some cases is true) the fact is that Korea is also among the worst for productivity in the OECD. The culture of working long hours in Korean companies are a result of a variety of influences - the epic rise from poverty to middle class power; top - bottom hierarchy structures, constant reporting, micro management and Noonchi. 

What holds most Koreans back so late is the belief that they can't leave on time because this gives the impression of not working hard or rather not working as hard as their colleagues and boss. The general rule in a Korean company is to not leave until your direct team leader has left which would be fine if not for the team leader also believing that they can't leave until a certain time because  they also want to give off the impression of working hard. Perception reigns supreme in a Korean office and giving off the impression of working hard by staying late is something all Koreans will do. In fact although your contract will state working hours from 9am - 6pm working until 8-9pm will be the common "noonchi" finish time.

Presentations and Meetings
Noonchi affects business meetings and presentations in a variety of ways but non more so than what I have just mentioned above about perception. In the western world we are taught to make our powerpoint presentations simple, use easy language, short, to the point with a focus on what we say and not what we put up on the screen. The 'Noonchi' of appearing that you have worked hard means many if not all the presentations you will encounter in Korea will have 40 to 50 slides; 30 of which are unneccessary. Slides are busy, packed with information, big words and structured into useless diagrams and flow charts. My Korean coworker used to spend 2 - 3 days on the PPT alone for a short 10 minute presentation report. 

Strict levels of hierarchy and to a lesser extent "Noonchi" will also dictate how junior staff act during meetings. Once again in Western business we are encouraged to voice our opinions and in fact if we have nothing to say at a meeting then it's looked down upon. In Korea it is the opposite. As a junior staff your role in a meeting is to just sit there with your notebook open and pretend you are jotting down important stuff. Opinions are not expressed!

Communication
Another side affect of Noonchi that really hurts productivity is the inability to be direct about ones thoughts, opinions or too even ask when you don't understand what is required! Noonchi once again dictates that younger workers in an effort to appear adequate at their jobs will avoid asking their team leader directly any questions or seek any help; rather they will use office messaging applications to ask others who they are more friendly with to help them out! The office communicators (like msn messenger) are also another major issue in the Korean work space. Because of noonchi it is unlikely that there will be much talk around the office, because it will seem like they are just having fun and not working, or they are afraid of disturbing others - so everyone, EVEN IF they are sitting right next to you will communicate via the intranet messaging applications. It's ridiculous to think that you are not able to turn to your colleague next to you and ask flat out what it is that you need help with but instead have to send them a message via your computer like it's a secret in-coded message all for the sake of "looking" like you are working and not just chatting.

Company and Coworker Events
As I have said before in Australian society insincere gestures or actions are considered far worse than not making any gesture at all and this concept is most tested in this aspect of Korean company culture. Company and coworkers events are regularly posted on intranets - the common ones in Korea include weddings, funerals, and baby's first birthdays. Where noonchi comes into play here is events related to coworkers in your team / department you are expected to attend. I have my own example in which I attended the funeral of our Department directors father, this director who I had met once at my interview I was now seeing for the second time at his fathers funeral....awkward! 

Such an appearance is so insincere I couldn't even imagine attending such a function in Australia but in Korea it is encouraged. Yes I get it is a nice gesture of support but the reality is you have a group of coworkers who don't care about who died or even about how the HR director is feeling but are solely just at the event because noonchi dictates that they should go. Not to mention the money side of things! Weddings and funerals all in which you give money its starts to become an expensive cost - the idea being you will get it back when you have your own wedding for example (provided you are still with the same company!)

My Thoughts
Overall the best way to navigate Korean noonchi is to embrace it to the point where you can see how it affects your coworkers actions. Ultimately being skilled at noonchi and getting a feeling for your coworkers feelings and emotions is one of the most important assets in corporate Korea. That said, I believe its important for all foreigners in Korea to recognize Noonchi to the point that they can actively remove themselves from the actions. By all means it is great to understand why Koreans work late or attend coworker functions when they don't want to  but to follow those sets of rules yourself is just giving into a system that is unsustainable. Koreans want changes in the office and if the foreigners conform then what hope do they have?