Hello, I’m Bora Kang, and I oversee Human Resources for the Casual Business Division at E•LAND World Fashion Corporation.
E·LAND Fashion manages a diverse portfolio of brands. From SPA brands like New Balance, SPAO, MIXXO, WHO.A.U, and SHOOPEN to women's fashion brands like ROEM, Clavis, and Evelyn, we are leading the Korean fashion industry by catering to a wide range of consumer demographics.
I started my career at E•LAND 12 years ago, initially as an intern during my university years, and then joined the company full-time. I began working in the Strategy Planning Office and later developed a passion for HR through the Store Manager Onboarding Project. Since then, I’ve been working in the HR field for nearly a decade.
What has allowed me to stay at one company for so long is the opportunity to participate in various projects and challenges. By growing alongside the company and continuously taking on new initiatives, I’ve maintained motivation and interest while expanding my career path.
Our team oversees all aspects of workforce management, from headquarters staff to in-store employees.
We focus on key areas directly tied to productivity, such as employee engagement, organizational culture, recruitment, training, performance evaluation, compensation, and placement. Additionally, we continuously monitor workforce numbers and labor costs, constantly exploring ways to manage a large-scale workforce more efficiently and effectively.
Managing and communicating with such a large workforce always left us pondering: How can we communicate clearly with employees across dispersed stores and work in better alignment?
Previously, each team at headquarters had its own way of communicating with stores. For instance:
In addition, we frequently relied on individual email exchanges. The division of communication channels by team and purpose became a significant issue.
Store schedules, checklists, and various documents were also entirely paper-based. Materials that required centralized storage or management were often photographed or sent by mail from the stores. Non-digitized data frequently led to missing information and an influx of follow-up inquiries.
These limitations were not only cumbersome but also had a noticeable impact on productivity, making it a challenge we were determined to resolve.
The biggest strength of Shopl, in our opinion, is its ability to manage everything from store operations to employee communication and workforce management (attendance, payroll) on a single platform.
Retail staff, unlike office workers, don’t spend their day seated at a desk. We saw that Shopl’s mobile-first solution would be much more practical for our store environments. We also wanted to bypass relying solely on store managers to relay information and instead ensure that it reached every staff member directly—something we achieved with Shopl.
The same goes for paperwork. Previously, our manual, paper-based system involved scanning and sending documents, which often led to inefficiencies in communication. Shopl’s mobile-friendly tools, including report submissions, made it significantly easier to streamline tasks directly from the field.
Given the scale of our operations, integrating with our existing SAP system was essential.
Shopl’s proven experience in integrating with ERP systems like SAP, Douzone Bizon, and Workday, coupled with its ability to handle enterprise-level needs, was a key factor in our decision.
They assigned us a dedicated Project Manager (PM) and development team, ensuring clear communication throughout the process. After multiple meetings, they demonstrated a clear understanding of our requirements and established effective collaboration with our tech team. This confidence in their enterprise capabilities solidified our choice.
In the past, we managed attendance with fingerprint scanners at each store. However, technical issues with the hardware often disrupted tracking, and some employees faced difficulties with fingerprint recognition. Store managers would spend significant time manually recording and updating missed data, adding to their workload.
Since adopting Shopl, we’ve had virtually no system errors in the four years of use, and its reliability has been a standout feature. If an employee forgets to log their clock-out, they can immediately submit a correction request via the app, shifting more control to employees themselves.
Employees can also request leave and view schedules directly in the app, reducing time spent coordinating with other departments. Standardizing attendance categories and integrating this data into our systems has minimized human errors and enabled precise payroll calculations.
As part of our structured store management, we’ve historically spent significant time on tasks like sales reporting, status checks, collecting employee signatures, and processing training program assignments. Shopl’s ‘Report’ feature has dramatically simplified these processes.
By digitizing report templates and sending them to target employees, staff can respond via mobile with text entries, photos, or file uploads. This has significantly reduced paperwork, improved the accuracy of data collection, and streamlined workflows for both stores and head office teams.
The ‘Notice and Survey’ feature has become one of our most valuable tools. Unlike previous methods where information was relayed solely through store managers, Shopl allows us to directly target all employees, including part-time staff, with important updates. Notices can include attachments like photos or videos to enhance understanding.
For critical announcements from HQ, we use the notice feature, while surveys help us gather feedback or assess needs from individual stores. The platform has enhanced real-time communication between HQ and stores, enabling more direct and effective dialogue.
Additionally, the ‘Posting Board’ feature has been instrumental in facilitating internal communication within stores. From handovers to team discussions, Shopl has streamlined communication and collaboration at every level.
“When we kicked things off with the solution, we came up with the name E-Ple (short for E·LAND People) and even designed a smiley logo to represent our amazing team. I truly believe that our success comes from listening to both our ‘customers’ and the ‘employees’ who connect with them every day. With that same spirit we had when we first adopted Shopl, we’ll keep working hard to make sure everyone on our team can show up with a smile—just like our E-Ple logo!”
– Bora Kang, HR Team Leader, E·LAND Fashion Casual Division –
