[GPTW] 100 companies selected as best workplaces in Korea

By Sah Dong-suk

The list of the 100 Best Workplaces in Korea for 2025 has been announced, hosted by the Great Place to Work (GPTW) Institute, a global trust management evaluation organization in the United States, and organized by GPTW Korea. Its Best Workplaces in Korea is a system that evaluates and selects companies that create an outstanding corporate culture by practicing trustworthy management with employee satisfaction and happiness as the top management value.

The Best Workplaces in Korea selection system is a global standard evaluation system that evaluates and selects companies in the same way in 180 countries around the world, similar to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For and Best Workplaces in Europe, Japan and Central and South American countries.

Merz Aesthetics Korea was selected as the No. 1 best workplace in Korea in recognition of its commitment to work-life balance for employees and operation of well-being systems supporting this. The company has adopted flexible work arrangements, remote work options and an initiative that allows employees to leave work at 4 p.m. on Fridays. These initiatives foster a more balanced and productive work environment.

Second place went to the Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-water), which opened a new channel for anonymous communication in 2020, specifically for millennials and Gen Z who want contact-free and prompt feedback. Any employee can start an anonymous petition, and the petition is validated if people leave comments and more than 150 show support over two weeks. The relevant department must then give a formal answer within two weeks after the petition is filed, and there must be company-wide feedback. The channel has resulted in more than 300 system improvement cases.

Gowoonsesang Cosmetics, which ranked third, is committed to growing the company and employees together, based on its “protectorship” management philosophy. CEO Lee Joo-ho introduces it as the new spirit of the times that companies and employees must adopt. And the company’s sincerity and value is reflected well in Dr. G, its derma cosmetic brand. Dr. G has been growing as a global brand, inspired by the spirit of healing and sympathy of founder Ahn Geon-young who said, “Let’s make cosmetics that can solve people’s skin problems.”

Fourth place went to Atomy, which won triple crowns — the best company to work in Korea, the Global ESG (environmental, social and corporategovernance) Human Rights Management Certification and the best company to work for parents — for five years in a row. The company has created a free and forward-looking work environment for its employees under the motto of “Cherish the Spirit.” Chairman Park Han-gill says people should not be seen as a “means” but as an “end” themselves.

The evaluation of great workplaces is divided into the first Trust Index and the second Culture Audit. It is the world’s only internal perspective evaluation system in which members directly evaluate the level of trust in the company they work for through the Employee Experience Survey. The evaluation results of this year’s Trust Index show that companies selected as the Best Workplaces in Korea received significantly higher scores in most evaluation items compared to general companies.

The Great Place to Work Institute, headquartered in the United States, has been announcing the “Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For in the U.S.” in Fortune magazine since 1998, and Korea, a member country, has been selecting and announcing the Best Workplaces in Korea since 2002.