How Growth Experiences Shape Better Employees — Insights from a 25-Year SME Leader
Kim Yong-sik, CEO of Cudo Communications, has maintained an open recruitment system for eight consecutive years.
Cudo Communications is an AI control company specializing in public-sector safety. Each year, it hires about 20 new university graduates.
"The growth of employees becomes the ladder for young people to grow, and ultimately for the company to grow as well."
"Everyone wants to grow. When employees feel that ‘the company is trying to develop me,’ performance naturally follows," CEO Kim said during an interview at the company’s headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province.
Although not widely known to the general public, Cudo Communications is the No. 1 company in Korea’s artificial intelligence (AI) control-system market, protecting major public facilities and cultural assets. The company holds about 70 percent market share.
Founded in 2000 by CEO Kim, who began his career at a Japanese trading company, Cudo Communications has continued to grow for 25 years. With annual revenue of ₩89.7 billion last year, it remains a small-to-medium enterprise. Still, unlike many SMEs, it maintains an open recruitment program for new graduates. Since 2018, the company has hired 15 to 20 entry-level employees every year through public recruitment. This contrasts with large Korean conglomerates, which shifted years ago to occasional hiring due to cost and efficiency concerns.
CEO Kim explained why he insists on open recruitment: “It may be more efficient to hire experienced workers, but where will young people develop their careers?” He added, “Providing a growth ladder for the younger generation is also part of a company’s responsibility.”
His “public recruitment experiment” was not without challenges. About half of the employees from the first three recruitment classes left after gaining three years of experience to join larger or mid-sized companies. Fortunately, turnover has since fallen—now only about three to four of the roughly 20 annual recruits leave.
The key to lowering turnover, he said, lies in fostering a sense of belonging and supporting growth. Cudo Communications operates an in-house learning platform called "Cudo Knowledge Bank" to help new employees learn independently and adapt quickly, regardless of whether they have senior colleagues to guide them. “Performance evaluations are not simply about giving scores—they are run like growth consulting sessions focused on how employees can improve,” Kim said. “I believe our people-centered growth philosophy is what resonates with employees.”
The company also provides welfare benefits uncommon among SMEs. Cudo Communications officially operates from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and designates one Friday every month as “Family Day,” allowing employees to leave at 4 p.m. Employees also receive year-end holidays starting December 24 after the company’s closing ceremony, and they are sent on overseas trips every five years. This year, celebrating its 25th anniversary, all 200 employees traveled together to Japan for three days.
Thanks to these practices, the company received the government’s "Best HRD Certification" this year, which recognizes organizations with outstanding talent-development systems. “No system is meaningful unless the company actually puts it into practice,” Kim noted. “Growth and welfare must be balanced.”
With its core businesses—such as AI-based CCTV—entering a full-scale growth phase, Cudo Communications is expected to move from the SME category into a mid-sized enterprise starting this year. “We expect sales to exceed ₩160 billion this year, surpassing the ₩100-billion threshold that defines small and medium businesses,” CEO Kim said. “We plan to nurture more talent and begin competing in the ‘first division’.”
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