A 10 February 2023 piece, and Samsung’s step from 2017 staff practice to executives

Kim Gyeong-min’s Maeil Kyungje piece, filed on 10 February 2023 and revised on the 17th, describes a wind of title-breaking meant in part to catch the MZ generation, and also a caution that changing a title will not easily loosen a blocked culture. This is workplace form of address, not grammatical honorifics.

Samsung, the piece says, extended a staff practice in use since 2017 — name-plus-nim or “pro-nim” — to executives. A DX guide posted on 1 February 2023 asks for English names, initials, or given-name-plus-nim, including Jay, JY, or Jae-yong-nim for the chairman. Han Jong-hui had already asked to be called JH. Those dates stay with the article.

From CJ in 2000 to doubts that a title alone will shift the work

CJ, from 2000, is placed as the originator. Hyundai Motor, from 2019, cut five ranks to two and abolished seniority years for promotion. SK Innovation, from 2021, unified staff below executive as PM. Kakao, Coupang, LG, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Samsung C&T construction are also listed. Motives in the February 2023 frame include faster decisions and talk with the MZ generation, beside COVID-19 and a supply-chain shock; those points stay with that date.

The same article records doubts: vertical reporting may stay, leapfrog promotions are rare, Samsung’s 2017 Career Level system had only a slight effect, and Naver in effect revived executives after cutting ranks. A student reply marked opposed worries that responsibility may dilute. This page stays with that February 2023 reading, and does not invent later official surveys. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. Maeil Kyungje, Kim Gyeong-min, filed 10 February 2023, last revised 17 February 2023, on “title-breaking” and horizontal workplace titles, in part to catch the MZ generation. A common caution in the piece: merely changing a rank or a title will not easily loosen a blocked organizational culture. This is a debate about workplace forms of address, not about Korean or Japanese grammatical honorifics. Samsung Electronics decided to extend a horizontal-title practice from staff to executives, using an English name, initials, or a Korean given name plus nim instead of a job title. Employees were asked to announce a preferred initial or nickname. The Device Experience (DX) division posted an executive horizontal-title guide on the intranet on 1 February 2023; executives were asked to put the form of address in the messenger nickname field, to be used in town halls, executive meetings, mail, and chats. Chairman Lee Jae-yong is to be called Jay, JY, or Jae-yong-nim. Vice Chairman Han Jong-hui had already asked, at a DX CONNECT town hall the year before, to be called JH rather than vice chairman, division head, or chief executive, because a title stacks a wall. In the Device Solutions (DS) division, already using horizontal titles from the year before, President Kyung Kye-hyun is called KH. Among staff, Samsung had used name-plus-nim or “pro-nim” since 2017; the new step was to extend that culture to executives, and the guide also drops titles such as team-leader-nim, group-leader-nim, and part-leader-nim. The company asked for practice based on mutual respect. CJ, called the originator, dropped ranks such as department head, section head, and deputy from 2000 and had people call one another nim, and later collapsed six executive ranks below president (president, executive vice president, vice president, vice-president equivalent, managing director, managing-director equivalent) into a single “management leader” — the first large firm, the piece says, to do that. At Kakao and other IT firms, and at Coupang, even the chief executive is often called by an English name or a nickname. Hyundai Motor Group, from 2019, cut five staff ranks to two — manager and responsible manager, with staff and deputies becoming managers, and department, deputy-department, and section heads becoming responsible managers — abolished seniority years for promotion, and simplified executive ranks from four steps (director equivalent, director, managing director, senior managing director) to two. Hyundai Heavy Industries unified section, deputy-department, and department heads as a “responsibility” rank, and folded technical posts into responsible engineer. LG Electronics cut ranks to three — staff, senior, and responsible — called with nim. LG Energy Solution, from the year before the article, unified in-house address as given-name-plus-nim. SK Innovation, from 2021, abolished the old staff-deputy-section-department ladder, unified those below executive as PM, and let promotion as a concept fade, with treatment by performance rather than rank. Samsung C&T’s construction division simplified all staff below executive to “pro.” Motives as the February 2023 piece places them: faster decisions and closer talk with an MZ generation now at the center of organizations, in a frame that also mentions a Fourth Industrial Revolution, fiercer competition, COVID-19, global inflation, and a supply-chain shock around the war in Ukraine; those points stay with that date. Doubts in the same article: a manager-level employee says seniors and juniors more than ten years apart may share a title while the work and the vertical reporting stay the same, so a title change alone cannot undo a long military-style culture. Some in the MZ generation say tearing down titles will not by itself bring creative ideas. Officially, a talented staff member could outrank a section or department head, but such cases are said to be rare, and some read the mergers as a way to pay less. Samsung’s 2017 Career Level (CL) system, which dropped deputy, section, and deputy-department ranks, is placed as having had only a slight effect. Titles sometimes revert when the work system does not change. Responsibility can become unclear. Naver cut ranks to two levels, A and P, and abolished the executive system, then soon introduced “responsible leader” and, in that account, in effect revived executives. Experts in the piece say title-breaking should not stop below department head: if team, group, and part leaders and executives are still called by title, a top-down hierarchy barely fades; a fair evaluation and pay system, plus a shift from person-centered to job-centered culture, including the yearly pay-grade system, would be needed. A student response in the core, under the name Chae Eun-yeong and marked opposed, first imagines fewer stiff seniors and easier talk with younger colleagues, then doubts whether horizontal titles will actually change culture or deliver results, notes that some young workers even say a vertical structure is more comfortable, and worries that if address goes flat, responsibility may dilute until no one holds it. This page stays with that February 2023 reading and those dated company turns, and does not invent later official surveys.

Last updated: 14 November 2026