We opened a branch office in Seoul, Mapo-gu, in September 2024, with hopes of helping both Korea-based companies and Korea branch operations of multinational companies with rewards challenges. Our headquarters remains in Singapore where the company was founded in 2013. We have served over 100 clients globally, and are excited to support clients operating in Korea.
Some challenges are universal, and some are specific to Korea.
Universal challenges include:
- maximizing value for the compensation & benefits expenditure
- attraction and retention of talent
- global mobility – enabling movement of talent across borders
- merger & acquisition planning and post-merger integration/harmonization
- job architecture, career pathways, pay grades, promotion
- benchmarking, salary ranges, market analysis
- annual salary review
- incentive design and alignment to business & talent objectives
- rewards strategy/philosophy
- linking pay to performance, skills, productivity and other business metrics.
Specific Korean challenges include:
- aligning global mobility practices to local-sensitive dynamics
- respond to shrinking talent pools and attraction/retention challenges
- aligning local job level architectures and title norms with global practices
- attracting and retaining foreign talent in or out of Korea
- remote work challenge for offshore Korean talent, to supplement local Korean talent
- language policy and learning support for both Korean and foreign talent
- global rewards support for business growth
Our business model is to engage associate consultants on a project basis, with the right skills and experience needed by the client. We continuously build our network to gather trusted inputs and resources. Recent project teams include consultants in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines and Germany. We have U.S. based associates as well. We partner with large firms such as Mercer, Aon, KornFerry or WTW, etc. as needed to bring the most complete solutions possible. We use contracts for services (CFS) extensively, to build virtual global teams, including reference to NDAs, etc.
Freelance Total Rewards founder, Tom Farmer, lives in Seoul with his wife since January 2025, and speaks intermediate Korean. His interest in Korea began in 1986 when Tom met Korean students at Eastern Michigan University. His friends helped him learn the language, culture and history. Korean views of this website surged in 2025, ranking 3rd behind only the U.S. and Singapore.
Our client work in Korea has included total rewards/compensation philosophy, job architecture, global mobility policy, job evaluation, competency framework, ad hoc advice and two workshops (job architecture for a German manufacturer, and total rewards public seminar). We remain engaged in regional and global client work as well, with or without Korea within project scope.
Contact Tom Farmer (톰 파머) at +82 (0)10 7304 2844 or at tfarmer@freelancetotalrewards.com.
Our office address is Seoul, Mapo-gu, World Cup Buk-ro 402, unit 1604
