Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
SK hynix vows to continue supports for workers
By Kim Bo-eun
SK hynix' logo / Korea Times file
By Kim Bo-eun
SK hynix said Wednesday it will continue supporting its employees, saying its performance assessment system strictly follows labor regulations.
“All divisions came up with the changed system and assessment criteria after sufficient communication with members,” an SK hynix official said Wednesday, adding that the assessment system does not go against any labor regulations.
The official added that the semiconductor affiliate of SK Group is seeking to resolve performance assessment systems with employees.
The remarks came after SK hynix was placed in a challenging position with employees over performance-based pay last month. Some workers are calling for management to improve its assessment system.
Some office workers affiliated with SK's union pledged to file a suit against SK hynix over the assessment system they claim works against their interests. The company has three unions ― one representing office workers and two representing manufacturing-site employees. The office workers' union, however, only represents 1,000 of a total 28,000 SK hynix employees.
The assessment system in question is applied specifically to office workers.
According to SK hynix, the system was introduced in 2018, but was more widely implemented in 2020, as the company switched from absolute to relative assessments of employees. An SK hynix official claimed the company changed the system based on requests from employees, which stated that a relative assessment system worked against them because even if all of the workers performed above average on an absolute scale, the system had to draw up an underperforming group.
Union members state that the change in the system enables management to assess employees based on their own standards. This is because the company has provided heads of divisions among office workers with the authority to provide the final evaluation of members of their division.
Earlier this year, the chipmaker's union called for more performance-based pay, after the company posted handsome profits in 2020, seeing its operating profit grow by more than 80 percent year-on-year. Employees protested the company's plan to provide the same level of performance-based pay as the previous year, and called for management to unveil how this form of compensation is calculated.
Regarding the issue, SK Chairman Chey Tae-won said he will return his salary he received from SK hynix last year, estimated at 3 billion won.