"Working is Hard": Office Workers' Organizational Culture Scores Drop Over One Year

Jikjang Gapjil 119 Survey of 1,000 Employees
Organizational Culture Score 60.7... Last Year 68.7

Scores given by office workers for this year's organizational culture diagnosis have dropped compared to last year. This means that the guarantee of workers' rights to work safely in the workplace has not improved but rather regressed.

On the 12th, the civic group Workplace Bullying 119 announced the results of an online survey on organizational culture conducted by the public opinion research firm Embrain Public. The survey was conducted from April 4 to 11 last month, targeting 1,000 office workers nationwide aged 19 and older.

This survey was conducted by scoring 25 questions across seven areas: rest, evaluation, hierarchy, communication, prevention of harassment, response, and follow-up measures, with scores ranging from 0 to 100 points. The average score for all questions was 60.7 points, down 8 points from last year's 68.7 points.

Office workers commuting at Gwanghwamun Intersection, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yongjun jun21@

The lowest scoring question was "I feel that the identity of the reporter will be exposed when reporting workplace harassment" (51.7 points), which dropped 12.5 points from last year's 64.2 points, marking the largest decline. Among the five lowest scoring questions, four were related to workplace harassment. Scores for questions such as "It will be difficult to return to normal life after reporting workplace harassment" (54.6 points), "Appropriate punishment will not be given to the perpetrator when workplace harassment is acknowledged" (54.7 points), and "I feel I will suffer disadvantages such as disciplinary action, ostracism, or rumors when reporting workplace harassment" (55.7 points) all fell by more than 10 points compared to last year.

The survey results showed significant differences in responses depending on job rank. Among the 25 questions, regular employees gave lower scores than senior managers on 21 questions. Senior managers did not rate any items below 60 points, whereas middle managers and staff rated 10 items below 60 points, and regular employees rated 12 items below 60 points.

Additionally, in the area of rest, including leaving work, vacation, and sick leave, smaller workplaces and lower wage levels tended to have lower scores. Companies with fewer than five employees scored about 10 points lower than companies with over 300 employees on questions such as "It is difficult to take vacation at the desired time" (53.8 points) and "It is hard to rest comfortably even when sick" (53 points).

Labor attorney Kwon Oh-hoon of Workplace Bullying 119 stated, "The significant decline in organizational culture survey indicators within one year means that the right of workers to work safely, guaranteed by Article 32 of the Constitution, is regressing," and suggested, "The Industrial Safety and Health Act and other laws should be amended to regularly conduct 'risk assessments of labor rights violations such as sexual harassment and bullying' and strengthen the obligation to prevent workplace harassment from occurring."