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Busan Metropolitan City to Accelerate Expansion of Family-Friendly Certified Companies in 2026

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that it will actively promote the “2026 Family-Friendly Certification Program” to foster a work–life balance culture in local companies and create a family-friendly management environment.

The Family-Friendly Certification is a system that grants certification, through evaluation, to companies and institutions that exemplary operate family-friendly policies such as childbirth and childcare support and flexible working arrangements.

Certified companies are provided with benefits such as deferment of customs and tax investigations and additional points in government and Busan Metropolitan City bidding processes. In addition, employees of certified companies receive discount benefits (incentives) in cultural, experiential, medical, and lifestyle sectors identified by the city.

The city has continuously identified a variety of incentives, and in particular, last year expanded incentives that can also be used in regions outside Busan, including Daegu and Jeju.

First, the city will host the “2026 Family-Friendly Certification Information Session” in cooperation with the Family-Friendly Certification Secretariat (Korea Management Certification Institute) and recruit participating companies (organizations).

The session will be held on April 15 at 2:00 PM in the City Hall Grand Conference Hall and is designed to provide information such as the evaluation system by company size, changes in certification indicators, required documents, and benefits for companies.

Following the session, companies wishing to obtain certification will be offered free consulting.

Professional consultants will visit companies directly and provide one-on-one (1:1) in-depth consulting tailored to each company’s circumstances, covering everything from document preparation to on-site evaluation.

In addition to certification consulting, companies may also apply for workplace training on work–life balance and consultation on the introduction and support of work–life balance systems.

Interested companies may contact the Busan Work–Life Balance Support Center by phone (051-580-9031~2) or email (hikim@wlb.or.kr).

Companies wishing to obtain Family-Friendly Certification this year must submit their application via the Family-Friendly Support Program website (www.ffsb.kr) by May 31.

After application submission, certification is granted through a first-stage document review and a second-stage on-site evaluation, followed by deliberation by the Family-Friendly Certification Committee. Results will be announced in December.

In addition, the city will promote various initiatives to foster a work–life balance culture, including programs encouraging family-friendly management, online consultation support for work–life balance, operation of Work–Life Balance Week, forums, and campaigns.

The “Family-Friendly Management Encouragement Support Program,” aimed at promoting a family-friendly workplace culture, recruited participating companies through a public announcement in March, and 10 companies were selected through evaluation. Each selected company will receive a designated incentive to support the implementation of family-friendly management.

Furthermore, starting this year, an online consultation service will be operated on the Work–Life Balance Support Center website (wlb.or.kr) to address questions related to the use of work–life balance systems and associated subsidies for both companies and employees.

Park Seol-yeon, Director General of the Women and Family Bureau, stated, “Building on Busan’s achievement of ranking among the top in the work–life balance index last year, we will continue our efforts this year to expand family-friendly certified companies,” adding, “We will do our utmost to establish Busan as a leading city in work–life balance.”