Personnel Orders · Reassignment and Inter-Company Transfer
Personnel Transfer & Assignment
What is a personnel action?
- Internal reassignment is a management right, but courts review it for abuse
- A transfer to another employer generally requires the employee’s consent
- Business need, selection criteria, and consultation records make an order defensible
A personnel order looks like an administrative step that ends with a single notice. In reality, it changes commute time, pay components such as position and regional allowances, the scope of duties, and performance metrics all at once. The company calls it an exercise of management authority, but for the employee it is a rearrangement of life. That is why legitimacy depends less on what the order says than on the process that led to it. Even for the same reassignment, an order issued two months ahead after hearing the employee's circumstances and one announced on a Friday with a Monday start date are judged differently in court.
In practice, you need to distinguish three things. A reassignment changes duties or work location within the same legal entity, so in principle it needs no consent. A secondment keeps the employment relationship with the original company and hands only the authority to direct work to another entity. An inter-company transfer changes the very party to the employment contract. Secondments and inter-company transfers require individual consent as a rule. However, if the employment contract or job posting specifies a work location or job type, a reassignment also becomes a matter of agreement. For a transfer, you should confirm in writing whether continuous service carries over, when severance is settled, and how remaining annual leave is moved. An employee who believes an order is unfair can apply to the Labor Relations Commission for relief within 3 months of the order date.
The most common misstep in practice is treating consultation as a formality. If a meeting took place but it was a five-minute notice after the transfer was already decided, it is hard to count as consultation. Conversely, thinking 'we only need a signed consent form' is also risky. A blanket consent to transfers signed at hiring may not be enough, and the moment a long-distance transfer or standby order is used to push out an underperformer, the improper purpose becomes the first issue. If an employee who refuses a transfer is treated as absent without leave and dismissed through disciplinary action, and the transfer itself is later found invalid, the dismissal becomes invalid too, bringing reinstatement and back pay. For important personnel orders, consult a labor law expert beforehand.
Kyungtae KimHR expert · Organizational culture and HR strategy consultant
Jongmu KimCorporate talent development and job competency specialistUnder Korean case law, personnel orders such as reassignments fall, in principle, within the employer's management authority. Courts decide whether that authority was abused by weighing the business need against the employee's hardship, and by checking whether the employer consulted the employee in good faith. A transfer to another employer generally requires the employee's consent.
Consider a hypothetical case. Company A makes auto parts, with 320 employees and annual revenue of KRW 90 billion (≈ US$67,335,000). It decided to consolidate its Ansan, Gyeonggi plant into a new plant in Eumseong, Chungbuk, which meant relocating 78 production and quality staff within 4 months. At the first briefing, someone protested, "Isn't this basically telling us to leave?" and the issue went to the labor-management council.
- The HR head first calculated the change in commute for all 78 employees: 21 would be within 40 minutes one way, and 34 would be over 90 minutes. The company shared the full table with the labor-management council.
- The labor relations manager held a 40-minute one-on-one interview with each of the 34 employees whose commute exceeded 90 minutes. Twelve cited childcare or caregiving reasons, such as "My child's daycare is in Ansan, so I can't move in March."
- The CEO offered three options — two new commuter buses, a KRW 8 million (≈ US$5,990) relocation allowance per person, or a six-month stay at the Ansan site — and put the deadline for choosing in each employee's written notice.
- The 9 employees with confirmed personal circumstances were reassigned to the A/S center and logistics team that remain in Ansan. The company kept the interview notes, the review of alternatives, and the final notice as a three-document file for each person.
- For the 5 employees moving to a group affiliate, the company noted that this was an inter-company transfer, not a reassignment, and collected new consent forms that spelled out how continuous service and annual leave would carry over.
- In the end, 71 of the 78 completed the move and 4 resigned voluntarily. There were 0 relief applications to the Labor Relations Commission, and voluntary turnover in the 3 months after the move was 5.1%, below the 9.4% of the same period a year earlier.