An intersection in Seoul.
The traffic light turned green, but people didn't move.
Because you are looking at your smartphone.
Pedestrians, distracted by text messages, news, and social media, don't even realize that they are on a crosswalk.
To reduce these dangerous situations, the 'floor traffic light' was introduced.
This method involves installing LED lights on the floor to project the color of the traffic light under your feet.
This is designed so that even people walking with their heads down can naturally recognize the change in signal.

This device is not just a piece of technology.
It is a representative example of the psychological design to change human behavior, the behavioral economics term 'nudge'.
The warning sign that says, “Do not use your smartphone while walking” is not easily read.
Because people don't change their habits easily.
Instead, if we adjust the environment to match what people are already doing, we will naturally guide their behavior in a safer direction.

Even though a fair evaluation system was designed, complaints erupted, and even though reasonable compensation plans were put in place, morale fell.
Talented individuals selected through structured interviews sometimes quit after only a few months.
All of these phenomena are determined not by the system itself, but by how it is perceived.
Organizations are not driven by numbers, but by people who interpret the numbers.


This book starts from such a question.
HR is becoming increasingly scientific, and management is being asked to make data-driven decisions.
But most of the problems that occur in organizations arise in the world of psychology, not numbers.
Why? The reason is simple.
Because organizations are made up of people, and people are sensory animals who are driven not only by reason but also by emotions and cognitive biases.


The author focuses on the ten most frequently encountered areas in human resources, including recruitment, placement, evaluation, compensation, culture, communication, change management, and turnover, and uses behavioral economics to interpret the psychological distortions and failures hidden within them, as well as clues to resolving them.

Understanding people means not just looking at their actions, but reading the psychological motivations that lie beneath them.
The 'behavior' we see with our eyes is only the tip of the iceberg, and beneath it are numerous psychological mechanisms at work, such as comparison, avoidance, memory, expectation, and emotion.
Behavioral economics allows us to understand the psychological context structurally.
The ability to operate systems within the flow of emotions is the core competency of human resources managers today.

--- p.40

People may seem rational, but in reality, their judgments vary greatly depending on what they are compared to and how it is presented.
When new products were displayed next to older, more expensive and less attractive products, consumers began to perceive the new products as a "much better value option."
This psychological phenomenon of preferring an option with a relative advantage over another option at the same price is called the 'Context Effect' or 'Choice Reversal' in behavioral economics.
And this strategy hides a more specific psychological design technique, the 'Decoy Effect'.

--- p.72

This survey comprehensively examined the experience of receiving a job recommendation, the source of the recommendation, whether or not the recommendation was accepted, and even the emotional response to the recommendation from an acquaintance.
About two-thirds of respondents said they had been recommended to apply for a job by someone else, and the main source of this recommendation was 'a former colleague or superior.'
This is vivid evidence that recruitment is still driven more by informal networks than formal channels.

--- p.137

The perception of the workforce structure is also interesting.
45.4% of members responded that they were understaffed, and this percentage was higher in organizations with poor performance.
Moreover, it may sound ironic that inefficient organizations have six times more members who feel "overstaffed," but it actually supports the fact that unclear role structures and responsibilities create a psychological sense of redundancy.

--- p.154

In this way, performance evaluation wears the guise of objectivity, but in reality, the core is ‘interpretation of meaning.’
When designing a system, practitioners should not forget that the feedback structure, explanation method, and psychological message are just as important as the scoring criteria.
What helps us understand the evaluation results is not the numbers, but the design of the words that explain why it happened.

--- p.164

Compensation is perceived more in the language of emotion than logic.
It's not the absolute amount, but the relative position, the comparison with rumors rather than official standards, and the feeling of being respected rather than fairness that matters much more.
For example, even if your annual salary increases by 1 million won, the moment it becomes known that you received 500,000 won less than your peers, that 1 million won will turn into disappointment rather than joy.
The question, “I performed better, so why did I get paid less?” isn’t just a complaint; it makes you question how the organization evaluates you.

--- p.181

Members prioritize people over institutions.
In other words, ‘who is saying it’ is more important than ‘what is said.’
This is connected to the theory of 'identity-based persuasion'.
When people evaluate other people's messages, they decide whether to accept them or not based on how close the words are to their own identity and how authentic they perceive the speaker.

--- p.220

The result that 65.2% positively evaluated 'personal exchanges with coworkers' shows that communication is not just a work procedure, but a means of building trust and solidarity.
Even in the subjective responses, opinions such as “collaboration is smoother when we know each other well” and “personal exchanges increase work engagement” were repeated.
This supports the fact that ‘informal conversations’ have a positive effect on formal performance.

--- p.242

The most notable aspect is the satisfaction with company support for educational opportunities.
Overall, the dissatisfaction rate (23.4%) was higher than the satisfaction rate (14.5%), but the results were contrasting: satisfaction was high in companies with rising performance, while dissatisfaction was overwhelming in companies with declining performance.
This can be interpreted as a causal signal that the more an organization invests in growth, the more likely it is that its performance will improve.
Ultimately, education is not a cost, but a preemptive investment in performance.

--- p.281

What this book wanted to emphasize was the perspective of understanding the 'way the mind works'.
If you miss the invisible psychology, you can't move an organization with numbers alone.
Conversely, if we read the flow of emotions and reflect cognitive biases in our designs, institutions become structures that people willingly follow, rather than rules that oppress them.

--- p.290