It was their second encounter since CEO Chung had visited Google’s headquarters in April, 2012. Through using ‘Hangouts,’ a video conference solution by Google, the meeting was held for about half an hour. During the smartly held meeting, Mr. Chung said “POSCO’s Smart Workplace (SWP) is shifting the way POSCO operates and its corporate culture to a great extent. This revolutionary platform, with speed, openness and information technologies from cutting-edge corporates such as Google, is being fused with POSCO’s unique corporate culture.” Chairman Schmidt replied by saying “The momentum POSCO has shown for these changes is very surprising.”

POSCO’s SWP consists of communication and cooperative work solutions via Google’s Gmail, Google+, Google Search and other tools. Since the launch, there has been monthly average of 14,000 transmissions of exchanging knowledge and ideas amongst POSCO’s employees. Also, costs for off-line meetings and reports have been cut down by about 30 percent given the online working solution. The times spent for decision-making procedures illustrated a 63 percent reduction per day with the mobile office environment having no time and space limitations.

Since SWP was introduced POSCO employees have been able to engage their tasks through smartphones or PCs in real time at wherever they may be. As the figures show above, business decisions can now be determined much faster than before as SWP provides quicker communication and cooperation. Notably, a knowledge share system has been constructed to allow POSCO’s entire staff around the globe to inquire, search, access and compile information on specific issues. The system is designed to maximize POSCO’s collective intelligence to synergize its operations and productivity.

POSCO is planning to provide ‘know-hows’ of constructing SWP environment for its mutual investment companies by the end of 2013. In collaboration with Google, the new, revolutionary culture will be broadly shared with every POSCO employees. Keep watching out for the future POSCO and Google are making.

In light of such trends, we would like to introduce one of POSCO’s innovative way of working, ‘Smart Workplace’.

Innovative Working Experience with Cutting-Edge IT System

According to Gartner, a worldwide information technology research and advisory company, the importance of internal/external communication and cooperation is expected to reach up to 90 percent of the entire business operation by 2015. Also, corporates often face management issues involving several interactive factors. Therefore, the need for sharing and blending professional knowledge suggested from the inside of organization is increasingly desired. Moreover, there is a growing number of concerns over the balance between work and personal lives of employees.

Does it sound too good to be true? Well, for POSCO, this is something not for the future, but for the now.

POSCO’s Innovative ‘Smart Workplace’

POSCO aims to generate smart and creative business operations, hinged on sharing the knowledge of our expert employees without any unheard voices. This innovative platform is afoot to gather various experiences and ideas, freely submitted by POSCO’s employees with no limits of time and space.

POSCO Chairman Chung Joon-yang meets Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, in November, 2011

Since 2011, POSCO has strategically cooperated with Google and collected various ideas from POSCO’s own employees to materialize a unique way of working. It is labeled ‘Smart Workplace’, combined with social media, mobile devices, cloud computing and numerous state-of-the-art IT technologies. It has been in operation since December, 2012.

Cooperation and Communication Beyond Time and Space

The ‘Smart Workplace’ interconnects and analyzes POSCO employees’ personal profile (department, responsible task, past record), interests and expertise. With this function, the system allows appropriate project partner searching and coordinates effective cooperation. The information is also shared with other organizations for smooth communication and monitoring amid multiple work places. Also, every outcome of the cooperated operation is managed via the category of ‘Essential Achievement’ for the participating personnel and the supervisors, promoting the settlement of employee engagement and transparent evaluation.

Moreover, the participants are able to jointly create an online shared document through E-mail, Messenger, SNS and Video conference. The infrastructure provides an environment for interactive, real-time communication amongst the involved staff cooperating with each other. In doing so, POSCO’s employees, with the expert knowledge are capable of cooperating freely with one another. Their time is also managed more effectively as the system saves a great deal of time consumption, usually taken for meeting, travelling, instruction and briefing.

Online Cooperation utilized by PC video conference

The video conference via PC is noteworthy as there are more than 3,000 on-line meetings held every month. Such active usage of the online communication and cooperation has resulted in a 14 percent decrease in long-distance business trips and reduced about 30 percent of wasted costs for travelling.

The online scheduling is also being actively used. A productive environment has been settled where the supervisors and staff can easily communicate and focus on their tasks by exchanging directions and cooperate online. POSCO says the numbers of document prints are now cut down by 77 percent and the briefings involving printed documents have also been decreased from 71 percent to 20 percent.

The system’s automatic and real-time translator also contributes for sharing information in different languages amidst POSCO’s staff. Any contents in text-format can be translated with the translator’s ability of processing 66 languages. As you might have guessed by now, it also saves time as there’s no need to spend time and costs for translation.

From ‘Smart’ to ‘Speed’ Workplace!

The ‘Smart Workplace’ provides an environment for mobile work and telecommuting, enabling the staff to undertake giving directions, receiving reports and every other task which they are responsible for, from the outside the office.

Working in ‘Smart Office’

After the introduction of ‘Smart Office’, 90 percent of POSCO employees handed in positive reviews. They also stated that the ratio of cooperation enhanced by 81 percent. The time required for approval and authorization by the superior employee has also been reduced by 63 percent. The faster speed of job accomplishments was feasible as supervisors could get on with their assignments while also moving one place to another.

‘Knowledge Share’ is another major feature of ‘Smart Workplace’ we shouldn’t neglect. Every form of the data related to utilization and information sharing amongst employees is stored in the contents storage. The documents created by the Unified Contents Management System are numbered 11,400 daily on average. 85 percent of them are shared for cooperation purposes.

Furthermore, on the basis of ‘one blog by one person’ campaign, working, education and creative activities insights are accessible to all employees whom have registered. The active knowledge spillover and communication is also continued in the SNS environment.

POSCO is planning to extend its unique working style to the firm’s domestic and overseas affiliates and corporations. In terms of communication and cooperation, the participation from POSCO’s subsidiaries and partners will continuously be promoted. On the foundation of ‘Smart Workplace’, a platform for communication and cooperation, POSCO’s innovation for enhancing the ways of everyday work continues.