Posco orders employees back to the office but other companies still wary

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Posco orders employees back to the office but other companies still wary

Published: 03 Apr. 2022, 06:59

Posco Center in Gangnam District, southern Seoul. Posco is set to bring its employees in Seoul back to the office, starting from Monday. [YONHAP]

Posco employees are coming back to the office in April after two years of remote work and while some companies may follow, many remain cautious.

According to Posco on Thursday, it ended remote work in its Seoul offices from Friday. Other Posco subsidiaries including Posco Chemical and Posco International are planning to gradually bring workers back to the office as well.

“The government is easing social distancing guidelines and health authorities said that Korea has passed the peak of the Omicron wave,” said a Posco spokesperson. “Therefore we decided to end remote work.”

Posco employees at steel mills have been working on-site during the pandemic. But office workers at the company’s Seoul offices have been working remotely, with only 50 percent of employees coming into the office.

Some 1,000 employees are currently working at Posco Center in Gangnam District, southern Seoul.

With a company as big as Posco making the decision to bring employees back to the office, other firms could follow, though some are still concerned about whether it is safe to do so.

Subsidiaries of Samsung, Hyundai, SK and LG have implemented a so-called hybrid system, meaning 30 to 50 percent of employees work remotely.

When Omicron infections sharply surged at the end of last year, companies kept the in-office work to a minimum, but have gradually eased the rules since then.

“Companies adjust remote work rules based on the government’s social distancing guidelines,” said an insider at one of the major conglomerates in Korea.

“The government has been relaxing the guidelines, so companies adopted more relaxed rules as well, with each subsidiary and department in the companies adjusting the details in accordance with their situation,” explained the insider.

It was mandatory for Samsung Electronics' employees who worked within 8 meters (26 feet) of someone who tested positive for Covid-19 to work from home. But the company recently eased the rule. Now, only those who worked within 2 meters of a confirmed Covid-19 patient are required to work remotely.

“About 70 percent of the employees had been working at the office for some of [Lotte] subsidiaries, but the rate dropped to 50 percent recently because the number of Covid-19 cases has skyrocketed,” said a spokesperson for Lotte Corporation.

Many companies are still reluctant to end remote working, saying that it’s too early to make a decision.

“It seems Posco decided to adopt a preliminary measure since the Covid-19 pandemic is waning,” said a Hanhwa spokesperson.

However, the spokesperson said that Hanhwa doesn’t have plans to end remote work yet and “is going to monitor how things unfold for now, since the [number of] cases are still high.”

Some expect that more companies will begin to fully reopen their offices from now on.

“According to the government’s guidelines, even those who are living with a Covid-19 patient can go to work or school if they don’t show any symptoms,” said an anonymous executive at one of the major companies in Korea.

“It seems like remote working doesn’t really mean anything in the current situation,” said the executive, adding that “the efficiency declined, as people have been working through virtual meetings or social media for a while.”

However, experts forecast that fully reopening offices will be easier said than done.

“Local tech companies and global corporations like Apple and Google are encouraging working at home to secure top talent,” said Lee Jang-hee, a business professor at Konkuk University.

“It won’t be easy to suddenly bring back all employees amid the current trends,” said Lee.

BY BAEK MIN-JEONG, KIM GYEONG-MI, LEE SOO-JEONG [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]