Doosan set to redesign its evaluation of employees

Challenging the conventional way of ranking employees based on cumulative performance evaluations, Doosan Group has decided to completely revamp its system.

According to an announcement by the company yesterday, it will eliminate previous rankings and launch a new assessment system that has a more individualized focus.

Doosan employees will be given a list of 45 keywords, such as fairness, communication skills, innovative mindset, guts and business insight, and will be expected to conduct self-evaluations based on these criteria.

Evaluators and employees will then sit down and exchange opinions on how to improve weak areas and develop strengths. Based on mutual understanding, evaluators and employees will set one-year goals. If employees successfully meet these goals according to evaluators’ recommendations, they will be promoted.

The nation’s 12th-largest conglomerate has also abolished public announcements of the names of promoted employees.

“Previously, our focus in personnel evaluation was to pinpoint those who received relatively higher scores compared to others,” said Choi Sung-woo, head of the HR department at Doosan Holdings. “The new system will help each employee figure out what should be improved based on individual capabilities through constant dialogue between evaluators and employees.” Market observers said Doosan’s innovative personnel system is a product of rapid changes in its corporate management environment.

Half of Doosan Group’s 43,000 employees are foreigners and 60 percent of revenue is generated overseas. This has led the company to abandon its Korean-style personnel evaluation system, they said.

“Given that we’re living in an era of low growth in which uncertainties prevail, it’s difficult to apply a unilateral measure stick to cope in the management environment,” said Sung Sang-hyun, a business professor at Dongguk University.

By Kim Mi-ju, Kim Young-hoon [mijukim@joongang.co.kr]