[1mm Financial Talk] "Use English Names"... Even the Traditional Kyobo Life Insurance Is Changing

Unifying Employee Titles to English Names
"Fostering a Horizontal Organizational Culture to Adapt to Change"

Kyobo Life Insurance has encouraged employees to use English names to create a horizontal corporate culture. This move comes as Chairman Shin Chang-jae consistently emphasizes change and conviction, urging a more horizontal organizational culture, leading to various attempts.

According to industry sources on the 3rd, Kyobo Life Insurance plans to implement a system where employees use English names to address each other on a large scale in line with its upcoming anniversary next week. Some departments are already using English names. A large number of English names have also been registered on the intranet for employees. This is considered an unusual attempt in the traditionally conservative Kyobo Life Insurance.

This is interpreted as an extension of Chairman Shin Chang-jae’s recent emphasis on improving organizational culture and innovation through intergenerational communication. Given Shin’s constant emphasis on the rapidly changing business environment, it is understood that he judged a mutually horizontal and flexible organizational culture to be essential to respond effectively.

Earlier, at the second half management briefing last month, CEO Shin met separately with MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) employees for over an hour to stress this point. At that time, Chairman Shin said, "To create a healthy organizational culture, it is important for members working together to understand each other," adding, "I always tell team leaders and executives to understand the MZ generation well, but I also want to ask the MZ generation to understand their superiors from Generation X (born in the 1970s)." Changing forms of address is a means to promote active communication and understanding.

While the insurance industry has already seen a trend of adjusting ranks and changing forms of address, Kyobo Life Insurance is somewhat late in joining this movement. DB Insurance reduced the rank system for employees below executives last year from 'staff, assistant manager, manager, deputy general manager, general manager' to two levels: responsible and senior. Industry leader Samsung Life Insurance also revised ranks and forms of address early on. Since 2019, they have eliminated titles such as junior staff, senior staff, responsible, and senior, and all employees call each other "Pro." This unified form of address excludes executives such as department heads, branch managers, and team leaders. The purpose is to eliminate the conservative and authoritative culture unique to insurance companies. Additionally, Shinhan Life has been using the "Pro" form of address since 2021.

However, some criticize the sudden use of English names as an excessively radical change and question its effectiveness. A Kyobo Life Insurance employee with 10 years of service, Mr. A, said, "It’s ridiculous that the intranet employee information includes how to pronounce the English names in Hangul, and executives or team leaders are excluded. Companies like Kakao Bank have such a horizontal atmosphere that even the bank president is called only by an English name, but here it feels like we are just imitating."

In response, a Kyobo Life Insurance official explained, "All employees, including Chairman Shin Chang-jae, will use English names," adding, "We also plan to stop attaching the honorific suffix 'nim' after English names."