The Problem of Our Society's Vulnerable Employment System
Korea's employment system is always referred to as an important social problem. There are various methods too — from relocating government offices to selecting strong local companies and supporting regional universities. We seek change within the system we have, but reality is not easy. In 2021, Hana Financial Group derived "creating quality jobs" through finance as a major agenda of its ESG management strategy. As a financial company, it identified job creation as the social problem it would confront. And as a start, in 2022 it launched the job brand "Hana Power On," which can contribute to socially balanced development, and is operating programs for those who need quality jobs — university students, youth, startups, seniors, and more.
[The Hana Power On brand © Hana Financial Group]
Supporting the Growth of Social-Innovation Companies and Contributing to Job Creation
"Hana Power On" began with a clear mission. Hana Financial Group seeks to support the growth of social-innovation companies and contribute to job creation. Together with various stakeholders who agree with this mission — government, academia, expert partner companies, and more — it sought ideas for creating quality jobs, and after conducting small-scale pilot tests, officially launched "Hana Power On." Hana Power On began with four representative job programs: fostering youth startups at regional universities, matching social-innovation companies with youth internships, discovering and investing in social-innovation companies, and improving mid-to-older-age job skills and job matching. Now in its third year, let us review this job brand from the perspective of the "Healthy & Sustainable Living" study released by the research firm "GlobeScan."
1. Make it meaningful | Purpose-oriented branding for sustainability
"Hana Financial Group," presenting the ESG vision "Big Step for Tomorrow" in 2022, set ESG mid-to-long-term promotion goals of achieving 60 trillion won in ESG finance by 2030, and zero site carbon emissions and zero coal project financing by 2050. Based on those goals, it gathered various job ideas in 2022 and launched the job brand "Hana Power On." The department operating this brand is Hana Financial Group's ESG Planning Team, which aims to approach the social problems finance can solve with sincerity and to work for a broad range of financial consumers without prejudice of age, gender, region, and so on.
[The Hana Power On program held in 2023 © Hana Financial Group]
2. Make it big | Expanding the scale of consumer behavior change
Hana Power On, which began with four representative job programs in 2022, expanded the project to "Hana Digital Power On" in 2023 to discover talent fusing finance and digital. In addition, it incorporated into "Hana Power On Care" support projects for resolving social inequality through support for vulnerable groups — support for small business owners, self-reliance support for unwed mothers, support for abused children, and so on. With this, it created two large axes: new job creation held in Hana Power On Challenge, and job creation through support held in Hana Power On Care.
[A poster for "Hana Social Venture University," under way in 2024 © Hana Financial Group]
3. Make it shine | Differentiating ESG efforts and results
"Hana Power On" achieved several results in 2023. First, through the "Hana Social Venture University" program, which helps foster youth startups at regional universities, it selected 60 excellent startup teams out of 650 teams gathered from 30 universities nationwide and supported them with 150 million won. The "Innovative Enterprise Internship," which helps match social-innovation companies with youth internships, matched 230 companies nationwide with 230 interns, achieving an internship completion rate of 95.6% and a regular-conversion rate of 73.5%. The "Hana ESG Double Impact Matching Fund," which helps discover and invest in social-innovation companies, invested a total of 2.65 billion won in 14 innovative companies, and the value of the selected companies was assessed at about 139.7 billion won. "Second Life," which helps improve mid-to-older-age job skills and job matching, produced 1,153 online-education participants, 459 advanced-education completers, and 148 re-employed people. Lastly, the "Hana Digital Power On Project," which helps foster young digital talent, provided 15 teams of 44 participants with 30 million won in prize money and support for hiring at global companies. As a result of establishing the brand identity of a business focused on job creation and support and carrying out various communication, there was also the additional result of a 2,500% rise compared with the previous year in NAVER search trends in 2023.
4. Make it easy | Lowering the accessibility of participation
Hana Power On was designed as everyone's brand, in which various stakeholders participate and operate together. Accordingly, various operators are pooling their intentions: the "Children and Future Foundation," which creates a society where all children and adolescents can play healthily, learn stably, and experience diversely, dreaming of and achieving a bright, healthy future without discrimination; "Sangsang Woori," which pays attention to the various problems of the newly middle-aged and, through various solutions, expands work opportunities and coordinates the job ecosystem; "Korea Social Investment," which makes a better world as a professional impact-business partner for sustainable growth; the "Korea Social Enterprise Promotion Agency," which helps social-economy companies grow stably and creates a healthy social-economy ecosystem; the social-innovation R&D company "Inno Social Lab"; the "Social Economy Vitalization Support Center," which supports the various activities of social-economy organizations; the Ministry of Employment and Labor; the "Work Together Foundation," which supports the growth of social enterprises; and the startup-education specialist company "Underdogs."
5. Make it credible | Enhancing corporate and brand credibility
For any company, the budget for a communication project is limited. To that extent, one cannot help but consider efficiency. From the early planning stage of "Hana Power On," effort was put into the SEO of the website that serves as a communication hub — recruitment, mediation, results sharing, and more. Simplifying the recruitment and application procedures to lower the participation barrier was also an important point. When developing communication assets, too, it created and distributed brand guidelines, and approached the users who needed it with a promotional strategy of spreading widely together with a media pool and partners with high target understanding.
We have looked at Hana Financial Group's ESG brand "Hana Power On" from the above five perspectives. From this perspective, going forward "6. Make it affordable | A more reasonable pricing policy" and "7. Make it 'yes, and…' | Providing services that respond to sustainable consumption trends" should continue. In 2024, now in its third year, "Hana Power On" is still close to an incipient stage. Let us watch its growth as a brand that creates customized job opportunities for Korea's working-age population.
By Editor N