Case study: How IIAC advances labour-management relations

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2016 Social Responsibility Report IIAC identified a range of material issues, such as anti-corruption, compliance with social regulations, customer safety and health, noise management, employee training and education. Among these, advancing labour-management relations stands out as a key material issue for IIAC.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups IIAC engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics IIAC conducted an on-line stakeholder survey among business partners/ construction companies, employees, in-house retailers/ logistics companies, customers, the local community and airline/ ground staff, asking stakeholders to rank issues according to importance.

What actions were taken by IIAC to advance labour-management relations?

In its 2016 Social Responsibility Report IIAC reports that it took the following actions for advancing labour-management relations:

• Establishing a labour union
• IIAC Labour Union was established in 1995, and it is a member of the Federation of Korean Public Industry Trade Unions in the Federation of Korean Trade Unions. All employees with job Level 3 or lower are eligible for membership and, of the total 959 persons eligible to be a member, 957 (99%) have joined the labour union. IIAC complies with domestic and foreign labour laws, and always consults the labour union before making changes to business or organisation that will cause a material change to working conditions and employment.

• Updating labour relations strategies
• IIAC updated its strategies for advancing labour-management relations, to carry out government policy initiatives and increase employee morale, while fulfilling its social responsibilities. IIAC’s labour-management strategy aims to “create a labor-management relationship that is beneficial to the employees, corporate, and the People.” To achieve this goal, IIAC identified four strategic tasks: 1) upgrading and implementing a labour-management relations strategy, 2) creating output through sound labour-management relations, 3) promoting constant labour-management communication and improved relationship management, and 4) actively implementing government policy initiatives.

• Setting up communication channels
• To promote a consistent communication between the labour and management, IIAC has established several communication channels, including official meetings such as the Labour-Management meeting and Labour-Management Representatives meeting. Additional channels include top-down, bottom-up, two-way, and on/ off-line communication. IIAC also launched the “Online Proposal Bulletin”, to enable open communication regarding irrational customs, inefficient systems, work, and culture. Likes and dislikes functions and response functions available on the bulletin, make it a creative and constructive forum for discussion. In addition, IIAC further solidifies sound labour-management relations by holding on-demand working level meetings and joint workshops.

• Preventing labour-management conflicts
• IIAC seeks to prevent labour-management conflicts by forming a common understanding between labour and management. Accordingly, IIAC has established and implements an optimised salary peak programme in advance, in response to the government’s introduction of the Salary Peak Programme for Public Corporations. To boost employee morale after the implementation of normalisation measures for reckless management, IIAC also implemented various innovative campaigns and systems. These include the 337 Campaign, compressed workweek, recharge vacations, and celebrating Department Days to improve employees’ work ethic and mutual understanding. As a result, no labour disputes took place during the reporting period.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 402-1 Minimum notice periods regarding operational changes

Disclosure 402-1 Minimum notice periods regarding operational changes corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Business theme: Labor/management relations

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by IIAC, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page

3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx

4) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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