[이슈IN]“I can’t believe the executives.” “Performance-Pay Conflict” continued at Naver’s shareholders’ meeting

“Minority-based compensation policy, employees turn their backs” On this day, the Naver union also held a picket demonstration in front of the state president.

Amid ongoing internal conflicts over Naver’s compensation system, Naver’s labor union attended the shareholders’ meeting and complained about incentives. Despite the highest performance every year, the employee’s annual salary increase rate is low, while the compensation for executives is increasing, criticizing that it is a’minimalism’.

Naver held the 22nd general shareholders’ meeting at 10 am on the 24th at Naver Green Factory, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do. The Naver Branch of the Chemical Fiber Foods Union of the KCTU was delegated 4496 shares of stocks owned by its members to attend the shareholders’ meeting.

“Even in the same industry, the compensation for employees is always the same even for continuous growth, such as achieving the best performance every year,” said Oh Se-yoon, chairman of the labor union. said. Contrary to this, it is pointed out that executives recognized their achievements and paid higher compensation than last year, increasing distrust in management. “The amount of compensation for executives is rising sharply,” he said. “There is nothing as important as investment in people, but the company focuses on the present, not the future, and investment in people is negligible.”

“Executive compensation has risen… ”Employees feeling deprived

The incentive conflict arose when Naver recorded its record-high performance. Last year, Naver posted consolidated sales of 5,3041 trillion won and operating profit of 1,2153 billion won. This is an increase of 21.8% and 5.2%, respectively, compared to the same period last year.

However, the incentives paid to employees were frozen at the previous year’s level. As domestic game companies such as Nexon, Netmarble, NCsoft, and Krafton decided to raise their salaries one after another, employees’ dissatisfaction came to the surface when they set an annual salary increase below expectations. On the 6th of last month, the union sent an entire company e-mail insisting that the company should reconsider compensation for its employees. The management also requested that the calculation standards be transparently disclosed. Last year, it is reported that the annual salary of Naver’s management has increased by more than 55%.

As the controversy grew, Naver held’Companion Day’ on the 25th of last month and began to evolve. Long-term compensation measures such as stock options (stock options) were introduced, but the method of calculating incentives was not mentioned. At the time, the union protested, saying it was one-way communication. It was criticized for missing a specific additional compensation plan. In the end, on the 12th of this month, Haejin Hae Jin, the Global Investment Officer (GIO), sent an e-mail to the employees directly, saying, “I want to hear the compliment that’I also shot Hae Hae-yi’.’ “I started to’appease’.

The Naver union, who attended the shareholders’ meeting, pointed out inequality in compensation between executives and employees and demanded improvement.

Will we offer’short-term compensation’ in addition to stock options?

Naver has emphasized long-term compensation to its employees. It is explained that it has designed an unprecedented compensation structure, such as granting stock options to all employees every year since 2019. On this day, the agenda was passed to provide 3253 employees with 111,4143 shares of stock options (worth 362.4 billion won) that can be exercised after two or three years. It costs 130 million won per person. The exercise price is 36,500 won. However, since stock options cannot be monetized immediately and there is a restriction that they have to give up when they turn over, internal voices are known to demand additional compensation, such as an increase in incentives and annual salaries.

Choi In-hyuk, Naver’s chief operating officer (COO), who was reappointed as an in-house director, said, “One of Naver’s most important assets is our employees. I will find the best way while thinking about a helpful structure at the board of directors,” he promised.

It is reported that Naver held a board of directors after the shareholders’ meeting to discuss the improvement of the compensation system. This is expected to be announced in-house later.