Dongyang Life CEO Sung Dae-kyu improves work systems via staff feedback
Dongyang Life Insurance employees recently gathered to watch the film Intern alongside actual interns, part of a broader corporate push by CEO Sung Dae-kyu to reshape internal operations and decision-making structures.
Bypassing Traditional Executive Meetings
The life insurer introduced several new channels intended to bypass traditional CEO meeting formats and connect the executive suite directly with junior staff and middle management. Rather than collecting feedback through standard surveys, the company is routing employee suggestions straight into institutional policy changes. Dongyang Life stated that CEO Sung has recently increased communication with employees across generations and job ranks, focusing on improving actual work methods and systems based on staff voices rather than merely listening to them.
Junior Board Reduces Paperwork to Speed up Decisions
A ten-person committee of employees aged 35 and under, known as the Junior Board, handles proposals regarding corporate culture, digital shifts, and artificial intelligence integration. That youth-led group successfully pushed through the “One-Paper Reporting” system, which cuts out redundant paperwork and restricts memos to a single page so executives can focus entirely on core information and rapid decision-making.
Expanding Brown Bag Knowledge Sharing
The Junior Board also originated the concept of brown bag lunches for cross-departmental knowledge sharing. Participant caps on those midday sessions grew from 30 to 50 employees as demand increased across the firm.
Bridge Board and CEO Sung Address Operational Friction
Middle managers—specifically supervisors and managers serving on the Bridge Board—meet regularly to address operational friction, surface front-line challenges, and transmit those realities upward to the executive team. Beyond internal headquarters channels, CEO Sung visited 83 subsidiary branches personally to inspect regional working conditions and hear employee grievances firsthand.
Tangible Procedural Shifts in the Field
Those branch visits prompted the introduction of individual corporate credit cards designed to simplify expense processing for field staff. Company leadership views these structural adjustments as proof that employee proposals must yield tangible procedural shifts if internal communication channels are to succeed long-term. Dongyang Life explained, Corporate culture is difficult to change simply by establishing communication channels. Communication can take root as an organization’s way of working only when the opinions suggested by members are reviewed and experiences accumulate that lead to actual change.
The company plans to continue connecting employee opinions with business improvements and organizational culture development through CEO Sung’s various communication contact points.