Hybrid work in Korea: set team office days and review the policy yearly

This guide is for HR staff, managers and team leaders who design or follow hybrid work rules at companies in Korea. Most large Korean IT companies have brought staff back to the office since around 2023. The most closely watched exception, Naver's "Connected Work", kept a remote option but has tightened it step by step. Its changes show a pattern: keep some choice, fix minimum team days in the office, and review the rules every year.

Korea's shift back to the office

During the COVID-19 pandemic many Korean companies introduced working from home (재택근무, jaetaek geunmu). Most returned to office-based work around 2023. According to News1 (July 8, 2026), Kakao ended remote work in 2023 and adopted an "office first" model, and major game companies such as Nexon, NC and Netmarble dropped remote work around the same time. Krafton, which allowed partial remote work at team leaders' discretion until 2025, has also ended it. Segye Ilbo (July 16, 2026) reported that Hyundai AutoEver ended remote work entirely in 2025 after finding many cases of employees not working properly at home.

Concerns often raised about fully remote work include weaker teamwork, a diluted company culture and slower adjustment for new hires.

Naver's Connected Work in numbers

Naver introduced Connected Work in July 2022. Employees choose between two types and can switch every 6 months.

Naver announced the 2026 rules on July 30, 2025, saying it needed a closer and more active culture of collaboration. Segye Ilbo reported that staff had split roughly 50:50 between the two types.

What Naver plans for 2027

In July 2026 Korean media reported a further change from 2027. According to News1 (July 8, 2026), Type O becomes the default, with office attendance of at least 3 days a week, and Type R will be allowed only as an exception after review by the division head and approval by the responsible leader. Segye Ilbo (July 16, 2026) reported that staff who choose Type R will first have to discuss with their unit head how they will collaborate, what their role is expected to be and what their work involves. Naver said it would hear staff opinions in the second half of 2026 and tell employees once the rules were final. Check the final version before you use it as a benchmark.

What research says about office time

The case for regular in-person days rests on two well-known studies:

• A laboratory study and a field experiment in five countries, published in Nature on April 27, 2022, found that videoconferencing reduces the production of creative ideas compared with meeting in person. Video groups were not worse at choosing which idea to pursue. The authors linked the effect to the narrower focus that comes from looking at a screen.
• A study of 61,182 Microsoft employees in the United States over the first six months of 2020, published in Nature Human Behaviour, found that company-wide remote work made collaboration networks more static and siloed, with fewer links between different parts of the company. Synchronous communication fell and asynchronous communication rose.

Neither study shows that full-time office work is best. They support a narrower point: idea generation and links across teams suffer when people rarely meet.

Keeping the choice real

A choice between work types only matters if people can actually use it. Pressure from team leaders or the organization can limit the choice in practice. HR should check how the policy works on the ground, for example by tracking which types people choose and asking about pressure in staff surveys. Naver's mix of individual choice and a minimum office requirement tries to balance personal freedom with the company's need for cohesion.

A fixed review cycle also helps. Running the policy in one-year terms and asking staff to choose next year's work type in advance lets the company plan office space and team projects.

Lessons for HR teams

1. Offer choice instead of one rule for everyone, where the work allows it.
2. Set a minimum number of shared team days, and make the office time long enough for real work, not a short visit.
3. Review the policy every year and adjust it with data and staff feedback.
4. Explain the reasons before you tighten office rules. Expect resistance and leave time for questions.
5. There is no single right model. Industry, culture and workforce differ, so learn from other companies but design your own.