The Korea Enterprises Federation said on the 9th that it has begun accepting entries for the third Safety Culture Innovation Awards, a program aimed at spreading voluntary safety practices across Korean industry.
The awards were created in 2024 as the first private-sector program of their kind, designed to identify companies with exemplary safety cultures and encourage efforts to prevent serious workplace accidents.
Entries will be accepted in two categories: large corporations, and mid-sized and small businesses. One grand prize and one excellence award will be given in each category. Applications are due by October 12, with supporting documents such as records of achievement accepted through October 16.
Judging will be based on five criteria: activities to spread safety culture, management's safety and health leadership and follow-through, the design and operation of safety and health management systems, labor-management cooperation and worker participation, and the level of cooperation on safety and health between contractors and subcontractors. The process will move from document review to on-site inspection to final judging.
The federation said it plans to look more closely this year at how each company's safety culture, developed to fit conditions at its own worksites, is actually put into practice, given the growing emphasis on safety at industrial sites.
The federation's secretariat will review detailed items in the document screening stage. During on-site inspections, judges will visit candidate companies to verify that their records of achievement match actual operations and will conduct in-depth interviews. A panel of experts from various fields will then select the winners. The awards ceremony is scheduled for early December.
"Safety culture is not created by any single system or program alone. It has to take root in a company's decision-making and in how work is done on the ground," said Lee Dong-keun, vice chairman of the Korea Enterprises Federation. "We hope this competition will bring to light the cases of companies driving that change at their worksites, and that those practices spread throughout industry."
