Advising Foreign-Invested Companies on HR: What Should Be Different

If you are in charge of HR at the Korean entity of a foreign-invested company, you have probably faced moments like this.

A notice of union formation has arrived, and you do not even know where to begin explaining it to headquarters. Headquarters asks, “Why do we have to negotiate?”, while in Korea the statutory deadlines are already running. While you wait for approval, the moment to respond slips away.

HR and labor issues at a foreign-invested company cannot be resolved by knowing Korean law alone, because there is one more variable: headquarters.

FAIR HR & Labor Consulting runs a Foreign Company Support Center on its website to help with exactly this. Today we introduce what you will find there.

The four issues foreign-invested companies face most often

1. Labor relations and collective bargaining

This covers the initial response to union formation, bargaining strategy and agenda management, and the operation of the Labor-Management Council. Once bargaining starts, its schedule runs on timelines set by law. Preparation must be finished before then.

2. Communication with headquarters

This means organizing Korean labor law and the progress of a case into a form headquarters can understand. In many cases this is harder than the practical work itself.

3. Localizing global policies

We find and adjust the points where headquarters’ HR policies and codes of conduct collide with Korean labor law. It is not uncommon for a headquarters standard applied as-is to cause problems in Korea.

4. Preventive risk diagnosis

We review risks across working hours, pay structures and HR systems before a dispute arises.

Why “specialized in foreign-invested companies”?

Many firms say they support foreign-invested companies. Few, however, bring all four of the following together at the moment they are actually needed.

First, real labor-relations experience beyond document clean-up.

Much of the advice marketed as “foreign-company specialist” stops at preparing English rules of employment and contracts. But the phase in which a union is formed and the first bargaining session opens requires an entirely different capability. FAIR has personally handled more than 200 labor cases and Labor Relations Commission cases.

Second, the representative labor attorney responds personally, with no hand-off to junior staff.

Large law firms are strong on major matters, but the cost is high and every routine judgment means waiting for a reply. At FAIR, the representative certified labor attorney—27 years of experience, formerly of Kim & Chang—responds personally.

Third, a record that headquarters can trust.

What a global headquarters asks of its Korean entity is not just a report of results. It is governance: on what basis, when, and what was decided. Because advisory history, diagnostic reports and the history of rule changes accumulate in FAIR CRM, they can be presented at any time during a headquarters audit.

Fourth, the same advisor in normal times and in a crisis.

Payroll and HR outsourcing providers are good at processing set procedures accurately, but they cannot offer legal judgment the moment a union letter arrives or a labor inspection begins. FAIR keeps your rules in order in normal times and, when a dispute arises, steps in as your representative and handles the case.

What you will find in the Support Center

The Foreign Company Support Center in the top menu of our website has four sections.

■ HR News for Foreign-Invested Companies

Each month we summarize the labor issues in Korea that HR managers at foreign-invested companies should know about. The August issue covered the employer status of principal contractors under the amended Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act.

■ Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations Support

This is our track record of taking part—as bargaining committee members, on bargaining strategy and as special advisors—in collective bargaining at foreign-invested companies in manufacturing, IT, logistics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, consumer goods, finance and other sectors.

■ HR Compliance Investigations

We verify workplace harassment and sexual harassment, breaches of internal guidelines, breaches of trade secret obligations, and violations of non-compete and outside-employment restrictions through neutral external investigations. If the investigator belongs to the same organization as the parties, the fairness of the outcome will be questioned whichever way it goes, and that objection later resurfaces before the Labor Relations Commission or the courts as a procedural defect.

■ FAIR Korean–English Labor Law Glossary (in preparation)

We are preparing it so that searching a Korean term shows its English rendering together with practical points to note.

• HR News for Foreign-Invested Companies (in Korean)
• Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations Support (in Korean)
• HR Compliance Investigations (in Korean)

Finally

For 27 years, FAIR HR & Labor Consulting has advised foreign-invested companies, including Microsoft, GE and GSK, on HR and labor matters.

• Foreign Company Support Center
• Request a consultation (in Korean)