Hello, I'm Shin So-yoon, the manager responsible for store management and business support at YouthMungan.
We gained a lot of attention through the show "You Quiz on the Block." We’re Youth Dining Spaces, offering kimchi stew for just 3,000 KRW to young people who skip meals.
Youth Dining Spaces was established in 2015, after Father Im Moon-soo heard about a young person who passed away from hunger in a gosiwon. The initiative aims to ensure that no young person dies from hunger. Currently, we operate four branches: Jeongneung, Ewha, Nakseongdae, and Jeju, with plans to open a fifth branch in Hyehwa-dong, Jongno, Seoul.
A unique feature of the Slow Branch is our project for youth with borderline intellectual disabilities. This program is one of only four nationwide, and Youth Dining Spaces' Slow Branch strives to create more opportunities and hope for these individuals.
In addition to Youth Dining Spaces, we run various youth-focused projects like "Green Mungan," an environmental youth supporter activity that reduces waste; the "2030 Youth Film Festival," which supports film production planning and mentoring; and "Generational Connection," where three generations work together to create autobiographies for the elderly.
I’m responsible for overall store management and business support. My tasks mainly include HR, general affairs, and accounting management.
For HR, I handle the attendance, vacation management, and payroll processing for the 20 kitchen staff and part-timers across our four locations nationwide. In terms of general affairs, I oversee the procurement of necessary items for each branch and gather daily accounting reports.
Additionally, I’m involved in planning the space for new branches. For example, I’m in charge of planning and operations for the upcoming YouthMungan (SLOW) branch in Daehangno, which is set to open in March. This includes overseeing the interior design, recruitment, and overall preparation.
Operating multiple locations across different regions posed significant challenges, especially with attendance management.
Since the stores are physically dispersed, keeping track of employees' clock-ins and clock-outs was difficult. We initially used Excel for this, but it didn’t provide real-time insights into actual attendance. We couldn’t reliably monitor whether staff or part-timers were arriving on time or if any absences were occurring.
Vacation management was equally cumbersome. Tracking who took leave was not intuitive with Excel. The process involved multiple steps:
This 3–4-step process made attendance and leave management unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming.
The second major challenge was ensuring smooth communication with each store. We needed to regularly collect various reports from each location, including daily reconciliation forms, purchase requests, and incident reports. However, using KakaoTalk for communication often resulted in frequent document omissions and miscommunications. Additionally, converting chat-based information into proper documentation was both tedious and prone to errors. This created inefficiencies in keeping store operations consistent and organized.
We’ve tried numerous attendance management apps and collaboration tools, including S Corp’s app and the F collaboration tool.
However, having separate tools for attendance tracking and communication created inefficiencies. The headquarters and on-site teams ended up juggling multiple platforms, and communication often had to be handled through different channels.
That’s when we discovered Shopl—a single tool that handles attendance tracking, communication, and more. We implemented it earlier this year and have been using it ever since.
Managing attendance across physically dispersed locations was a challenge. Now, with GPS-based punch-ins and identity verification through Shopl, attendance tracking has become far more accurate and reliable.
Shopl enables not just headquarters staff with fixed schedules but also on-site employees and part-timers to share schedules seamlessly. If an employee is late or misses a shift, managers receive automatic alerts, making follow-ups and adjustments simple.
With Shopl, we no longer need to reach out to individual branches to ensure employees are clocking in and out correctly—everything is tracked centrally and effortlessly.
At YouthMungan, daily settlement reports need to be submitted twice a day—morning and afternoon—but employees often forgot to complete them. With Shopl’s Report feature, employees receive reminders at clock-in and clock-out to ensure timely submissions. Managers can also easily track whether reports have been submitted.
As a nonprofit organization, YouthMungan frequently handles donations in the form of goods or funds through its branches. For these cases, headquarters requires detailed donation reports, including photos and descriptions of the items.
Previously, reports were handwritten, sent via photos, or shared through messaging apps, which led to frequent oversights. Now, branch staff can quickly submit donation reports with photos and details via their mobile devices. Headquarters can instantly review the submissions on their PCs and even download the data in Excel format.
With Shopl, reports are no longer misplaced or delayed, and all records are organized systematically and efficiently.
We run various youth projects, with different initiatives managed across its branches. Some programs require targeted information, while others involve universal announcements. Previously, these updates were communicated through KakaoTalk, making it impossible to track which branches had seen the messages, leading to repeated oversights.
Timely communication is especially critical for us, as its youth support programs often have fixed deadlines. Missing an update could mean missed opportunities for branches to implement projects effectively.
With Shopl’s Notice feature, the team can now confirm exactly who has read an announcement and identify any unread recipients at a glance. This functionality ensures no branch misses important updates. Additionally, files, posters, and other necessary materials can be attached directly to notices, eliminating the need for multiple back-and-forth exchanges. Communication is now seamless, efficient, and thoroughly tracked.
- Shin Seo-yoon, Store Manager, YouthMungan -
