Culture 3.0: Building LG AI Research's Unique Work Environment

At work, organizational culture is as important as the jobs that are done. It doesn’t matter how much money you make or how solid your career is-- if the organizational culture is unhealthy, employees will be unhappy. That’s why companies have people who work behind the scenes to make sure that everyone’s individuality is respected while ensuring everyone is heading in the same direction.

Photo 1. Culture 3.0’s Jihee Ryu (left), Haewon Son (right)

As always, Culture 3.0 is working hard to ensure that LG AI Research members are happy at work. Let’s talk to Haewon Son, who plans and runs work method and team-building programs, and Jihee Ryu, who is in charge of internal communication, organizational activation, and onboarding programs.

Culture 3.0, an organization for the happiness of members

Photo 2.  "Happy Lab" to discuss the direction of change for members

Culture 3.0 is an organization created to establish LG AI Research’s unique culture, with the goal of creating a culture of communication, a culture of performance, and a fun workplace. For this, once a month, Culture 3.0 organizes “Meet up” to open communication with all members, “Happy Lab” to discuss important issues, “NTMY (Nice To Meet You)” to help new hires get settled in, and “Once again, NTMY” to celebrate the one-year anniversaries of members. There is also a group-level “LG Way Survey” in which leaders and members discuss openly and examine how they work and how they can do better.

In addition to these regular events, there are many networking events that happen from time to time. To make the organization more flexible, from Typing Competitions, Arm Wrestling Competitions, Company Outings, Year-end Party, Chobok Event, Ping-pong Champion, Han River Night Walk, April Fool’s events, Isn’t Han River Great, Bing-soo Party, Seoul Botanical Garden Flogging, Community, Perspective seminar, Culture 3.0 is busy keeping the members happy. 

Q. Is there anything in particular you pay attention to when planning/operating a program??

Haewon: “We work really hard to find out what LG AI Research members want from the company or what pain points they have. Even if we’re working on a small program, we’re always thinking about how to make it our own culture. So if I suddenly have a great idea, even at night, I’ll message Jihee like, ’Are you awake? Want to try this?’ and have conversations about it.”

Jihee: “Is this program a good fit for our researchers? Is this program too obvious and cliché? Those two things seem to be our main focus when planning.”

Haewon: “Even if we’re planning one program, it’s for all members, so we constantly think about their interests, how to motivate them to participate, and how to communicate with them and incorporate them into the program.”

Q. What do you think is the core of LG AI Research’s culture?

Haewon: “I think the most important thing is to create a culture where everyone can be different and still get things done. There are so many different teams and so many different people within the institute. Each has their own charms. We see our role as helping to bring those Differences together so they can shine like a colorful rainbow.”

Jihee: “I think a culture of caring about each other, a culture of being considerate, is key for employees to collaborate, communicate, and achieve results. Even if it’s a place that does AI research.”

 

Photo 3. "Meet up" to open communication with all members

 

Q. Are there any difficulties when planning or operating programs?

Jihee: “I think a lot when choosing a name for the program. We have an autonomous organization called Happy Lab. It’s a program where members gather to express their opinions on the direction of change at LG AI Research. When we first started planning the program, we wanted to give it a proper name since we couldn’t just call it an autonomous organization. As we thought about the nature and value of autonomous organizations, we stared to ask a question such as “Isn’t the reason we want a voice through an autonomous organization to be happy?” That’s why we called it Happy Lab. Like many labs within our organization, such as the Vision Lab, Language Lab, and others, the autonomous organization is called the Happy Lab. Like this, we try to come up with names that capture the colors of LG AI Research.”

 

How would you describe the culture of LG AI Research in one word? “BBC”!

 

Photo 4. A photo wall featuring LG AI Research members’ BoMs (Best of ME)

 

Haewon sums up LG AI Research’s culture in one word, “BBC (The Best Benefits are your Coworkers.).” She explains that LG AI Research’s culture is to provide a supportive environment where people learn and grow as they work, and Culture 3.0’s role is to help create such a culture.

Jihee : “I think the culture of LG AI Research is “Attention.” The care and respect for one another have been a big part of shaping the culture of our institute. In order to create a healthy culture, I don’t think it’s possible for an organizational culture group like ours to simply work hard. It requires the interest of everyone. I think that the leaders’ attention to members, the members’  attention to the company, and our Culture 3.0 members’  attention to the members all have to come together. I think it’s that kind of attention that shaped our culture.”

Then, what do the members think about the culture at LG AI Research? Let’s hear from the members.

 

“I think LG AI Research has done a really great job of creating an environment for researchers to grow and exchange ideas across different topics. I think it really helps us come up with new creative solutions to the issues we’re working on.” - Materials Intelligence Lab Hormazabal Rodrigo

“The arm wrestling competition last year, or the events we organized this year where we put members’ names on cup noodles or energy drinks, are memorable. They may seem like just small events, but I think they made enough of an impression that they were all over the members’ personal social media accounts at the time.” - EXAONE Lab Soyeon Kim

“I’ve been very happy with my life at the company, both in terms of everyday life and work, and how friendly everyone is. In particular, when I was a new hire, we had a profile photoshoot at a studio, which I thought was a very different experience. I think it was a nice change of pace to go outside after being indoors all day and get some fresh air and take photos.” - Language Lab Hyungchan Yoon

“I feel like I was able to grow a lot while working with my coworkers in a great company atmosphere. Other than that, I think Culture 3.0 and a lot of the other things they helped with to make onboarding easier has helped a lot.” - Language Lab Wonkee Lee

 

“I have all the member's cell phone numbers saved” - How Haewon works

 

Photo 5. Culture 3.0 Haewon Son

 

After working as a computer programmer for about 6 years, Haewon took on an HR organizational culture role in a job transition at her previous company, then joined LG AI Research two years ago. She has run a variety of programs over the course of two years, but her favorite was the “e-DISC Workshop.”

“e-DISC is a behavioral test that identifies four personality types: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The test is meant to help us know how individual members work, what situations stress them out, and how they can work more synergistically so that they can work better together.”

Haewon is not the only member who likes the e-DISC program. Shall we hear what they have to say?

 

“It was nice to get to know the personalities of the many people I work with. In particular, it was fascinating and fun to see the personalities that showed during the workshop appear while working.” - AI Platform Team Jiwon Ham

“It was a very meaningful time, getting to know the personalities of my team members and to reflect on myself. I think it’ll be a great reference point for work in the future.” - AI Platform Team Jinsang Lee

 

Photo 6. Culture 3.0 Haewon Son

 

Q. When do you feel the most rewarded, Haewon?

“I have a “You can do it!” folder in my phone album. In that folder, I have messages that people sent me after programs. For example, “The e-DISC workshop gave us the opportunity to get to know our members better,” “You’ve been working so hard on the events,” and things like that. Every time I see such messages, I feel energized.”

Q. What’s your secret to communicating well with members, Haewon?

“I always save the mobile phone numbers of all LG AI Research members. When a new employee arrives, if they ask, “Do you know so-and-so’s number?” I can tell them right away. My tip is to be prepared like this so that when someone calls me, I don’t answer, “Who is this?”, but rather, “Hello, so-and-so.”

 

“Taking pride in our culture programs is what drives me” - How Jihee works

 

Photo 7. Culture 3.0 Jihee Ryu

 

Before joining LG AI Research, Jihee worked in human resources at a US-based IT company for about 4 years. Then, she came to LG AI Research when she realized that she was very interested in people and thought that she could be good at organizational culture work.

“My favorite program is the NTMY (Nice To Meet You) program. LG AI Research’s recruitment structure isn’t a mass recruitment system, but a constant recruitment system, so we have 1 to 2 new employees almost every week. As a result, we don’t have mass groups of new hires coming in, and apparently, this makes it harder for new hires to adjust. So we came up with the NTMY program, which is a once-a-month program for members to get to know each other.”

The new hires say the NTMY program allows them to quickly become familiar with different members of the organization. Let’s hear some real testimonials.

 

“When I first joined the company, I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to communicate with people from other teams, both personally and professionally, so it was nice to have a lot of personal and close conversations with people from different teams.” - AI Platform Team Suhyun Jung

 

Q. What’s the most common question you hear from new hires?

“We operate under a first-name culture here at LG AI Research. We even call Chief Kyunghoon Bae, as Kyunghoon. So, new hires often ask, “Do you really just call him Kyunghoon?” “Can I just call my lab leader by her name?” And I tell them that it’s perfectly fine to do so.”

 

Photo 8. Culture 3.0 Jihee Ryu

 

Q. When do you feel the most rewarded, Jihee?

“I think it makes me happiest when our members tell us that the programs we create are now indispensable to the institute. Actually, when we first created “Meet Up” or “NTMY,” the names were kind of confusing, so many people asked, "What is that?" Now that people recognize that having these events once a month is both a staple and beneficial, I feel super proud. It fills me with pride to think that we’re creating tradition at LG AI Research, too.”

 

Chemistry at its funniest and finest

 

Photo 9. Haewon and Jihee putting their heads together

 

Haewon and Jihee say that although there are lots of twists and turns, they rely on each other and work together to create a great culture with their “chemistry at its funniest and finest.” They shared a heartfelt message of gratitude and love for the members, saying that it wouldn’t have been possible to build this cultural history without their help. We ask for your interest and support for Haewon, Jihee, and Culture 3.0.

 

▶ LG AI Research’s unique culture! Want to see the basics? (Link)

▶ “The Story of Creating Culture” by Haewon Son and Jihee Ryu of Culture 3.0 (Link)

▶“How Culture Managers Work” by Haewon Son and Jihee Ryu of Culture 3.0 (Link)