[Expert Column] Salary Alone Won’t Win Over Top Talent: Korean Organizations in the U.S. Must Re-Architect Compensation and Performance Strategies
- Ji Min Yoo
- Oct 9
- 3 min read
Written by Stella H. Kim, SPHR
Published October 8, 2025
[HRCap 2025 Localization Playbook Series]
④ HR Strategies for Korean Companies in the U.S.
- Building Compensation and Performance Systems that Bridge Global Standards and Localized Strategies
Companies can no longer negotiate in the U.S. hiring market armed with just a salary chart.
Compensation and benefits data are now publicly available by role and location, and candidates compare multiple offers in real time. Pay structures that fall below market standards or lack transparency immediately erode trust and drive talent away. In fact, compensation and benefits consistently rank among the top factors influencing job changes.
As many states now mandate pay transparency and prohibit salary history inquiries, organizations must share their compensation structures transparently and persuasively to both the market and the candidates. Lack of transparency not only undermines competitiveness but also exposes organizations to legal risk.
So then, what must Korean companies do to attract and retain top talent? The answer lies in not just raising salaries, but instead fundamentally redesigning the compensation and performance systems.
Organizations must establish clear global standards, calibrate them with local market premiums, and build a system that continuously leverages AI and data analytics for real-time updates. Global standards clearly define the total rewards philosophy, job architecture, grade levels, and pay bands to ensure alignment between headquarters and regional subsidiaries. Local market premiums reflect regional wage differences and identify skills gaps.
AI-driven updates integrate external market shifts with internal workforce data, automatically recalibrating compensation structures and enabling real-time responses to early employee attrition signals. In the fast-paced U.S. hiring market, such real-time, data-linked systems are essential for retention.
For over 25 years, HRCap, a Global Total HR Solutions Partner, has partnered with global organizations, bridging the United States and Asia. Through our work, we have analyzed market practices and have consistently observed three recurring patterns. First, compensation is often significantly below the local average for the same exact roles. Second, salary, performance, and career paths are not aligned, creating unclear growth trajectories.
Finally, core talent is still viewed as a cost, not a strategic investment, resulting in undifferentiated rewards and stagnant career paths. Turnover costs can range from 50% to 200% of an employee’s annual salary, meaning that low compensation often increases costs rather than reducing them.
To address these challenges, HRCap goes beyond traditional headhunting services by combining job and region-specific data, AI-powered benchmarking, and structured career pathing models to create a virtuous cycle between compensation, performance, and transformational growth. This approach improves retention by 12 to 24 months and drives up internal promotion rates, while also guiding organizations from initial business setup to operational maturity.
To successfully expand into the U.S. market, Korean companies must now implement five compensation and performance strategies:
Build trust through transparent information sharing and regular communication
Establish global compensation standards as the foundation for talent attraction
Integrate localized adjustments by job, region, and career level to ensure internal equity and external competitiveness
Operate dynamic data-driven systems instead of static compensation tables
Institutionalize differentiated investment strategies for critical talent that clearly communicate the message of “Long-term Collaborative Growth”
In the U.S. hiring market, competitiveness begins not with higher salary tables, but with fairness proven through transparent data. Only companies that fundamentally re-architect their compensation and performance systems will attract and retain critical top talent, paving the way for shared growth in the years to come.
Stella H. Kim, SPHR
HRCap – SVP, Head of Americas & Chief Marketing Officer