Messaging app where you can criticise your boss

Want to criticise your boss and possibly get a nicer working environment and a pay rise in return? There’s an app for that.

Workers in South Korea have been flocking to a messaging app called Blind on which they can anonymously air their grievances towards senior management.

The app is proving very popular in the country, which has a top-down work culture, meaning that decisions on company goals, tasks and projects are made by those in charge and usually independently of their teams.

And the gripes and criticism made by employees have helped change management attitudes in some of South Korea’s biggest companies, as bosses have taken note of the app’s popularity – and what workers are saying.

Some have changed course on salary decisions and other issues, marking a departure from the hierarchical management culture that had become synonymous with the country’s “chaebol” – family-owned conglomerates.

Blind launched in 2013 and proved popular in the US, where the company is based, mainly among employees of tech companies including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and PayPal.

The app founded by four South Koreans reached a new level of influence during the coronavirus pandemic when it prompted employees to seek online routes to remain in the loop and corporate executives began paying closer attention.

Users must sign up using company email as proof of employment but the connection between the company email and Blind account is then permanently destroyed to ensure secrecy.

Monthly active users on the app grew to 3.7 million this month from 1.3 million in June 2019, and the number of daily posts has more than doubled, according to the company.

The app is currently only fully accessible for companies with offices in the US and South Korea but the company hopes to widen its availability. “We are working to expand beyond our current geographical scope in the future,” a developer said.

Co-founder Kyum Kim told Reuters the decision to be based outside Korea was deliberate.

He said: “We thought our service would have more value when our HQ is in the United States – where the concept of freedom of speech is well established and valued.”

Blind said about 70 per cent of users come from firms in South Korea, where the app is an outlet in the wider societal backlash of rank-and-file workers against perceived injustice in Korea Inc.

“Blind has played a part in the trend in South Korean society toward greater demand for ‘fairness’ in corporate-employee dynamics, especially among the tech-savvy younger generations,” said Yu Gyu-chang, Dean of the Graduate School of Business at Hanyang University.

Global No. 2 memory chip maker SK Hynix gave its staff the highest salary increase since 2012 this month, after the app helped stoke a backlash by employees against a pay increase decision by the management earlier this year.

“When it comes to office workers, we don’t have a union and I feel that office workers get together on Blind and ‘unite’ to raise our voices together,” said an employee at one of South Korea’s four biggest conglomerates, who declined to be identified.

“Monitoring Blind has become a bigger part of our job than we thought,” said a PR executive at a different conglomerate.

“Grievances and rumours posted there can get a lot of eyeballs, often get leaked to the press, can end up setting agendas. Criticisms can snowball a lot quicker unless steps are taken.”