Coupang drives HR efficiency and data integrity at global scale with WalkMe

Coupang is a US technology company that undertook a large-scale digital transformation to support its global workforce spanning multiple countries, languages, and legal entities. As the business scaled, its HR processes grew in complexity, with employees navigating their HR system for everything from time and attendance to payroll validation and performance management. To improve efficiency, data accuracy, and user experience, Coupang implemented WalkMe within their HR system to ensure every employee could complete critical HR tasks independently, consistently, and with confidence.

Through the use of WalkMe, Coupang was able to deliver real-time, in-the-flow of work guidance and automate key HR tasks across the organization. Processes that once required significant manual effort and frequent support became faster and more consistent, giving managers time back to focus on what mattered most: strategic work and meaningful employee engagement.

As a result of their digital adoption strategy, Coupang achieved measurable impact across its HR operations: timesheet execution time dropped by 85%, employee support tickets fell by 41% during annual review cycles, and payroll send-backs decreased by 15%. Moving forward, the HRIS team plans to continue to scale their digital adoption program while actively evaluating AI to further reduce manual administrative tasks.

As Coupang’s HR system footprint expanded across Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, so did the complexity of supporting the employees within it. With users in each country navigating distinct local policy requirements, compliance steps, and regional processes, a one-size-fits-all approach to employee enablement could no longer serve employees across every country, language, and role. What worked for one region often did not apply to another, and no single approach could address the full scope of employee needs.

Because employees faced different regional rules depending on their location, internal HR teams regularly fielded recurring questions and support ticket volume increased significantly during high-traffic periods like annual review cycles. Traditional training materials and static documentation struggled to keep pace with ongoing system updates or serve a multilingual user base effectively, leaving employees without clear answers at the moments they needed them most.

Additionally, without a way to validate data as it was being entered, formatting errors went undetected until after submission. During critical workflows like time tracking and payroll configuration, this meant users occasionally input incorrect data formats that required manual, retroactive corrections, which increased support inquiries and pulled internal teams away from higher-value strategic projects.

Coupang’s HRIS team saw an opportunity to support users directly in the flow of work, at the exact moment of need. Rather than continuing to address issues after the fact, they wanted to deliver contextual, in-app guidance that could adapt to each user’s role, region, and language, and to flag data validation errors in real time, before submission.

Coupang’s HRIS team takes a structured and strategic approach to building out their digital adoption program, prioritizing the workflows that have the greatest impact on employees and HR operations alike. Their work centers on three pillars: intelligent guidance that meets employees in the moment of need, automation that removes repetitive effort, and validation guardrails that catch errors before they cause downstream rework.

To simplify time entry for employees across the organization, the team built a custom automation using WalkMe. Previously, employees were manually entering their work hours through a repetitive process that led to inconsistent submission rates. Through the use of WalkMe Analytics, the team identified where users were spending unnecessary effort and built an automation that transformed the experience. With a single selection, timesheet fields are automatically populated, turning a multi-step manual process into one that takes seconds. As Hyung Gi Kim, Group Leader at Coupang, reflected: “When we first saw WalkMe work, we realized that this was more than just guidance. It was actually improving productivity in a meaningful way.”

The team applies similar thinking to improve payroll data integrity. When entering bank account information during payroll setup, employees may submit bank details that do not meet formatting requirements, resulting in send-backs and additional rework for HR operations. Rather than waiting until after submission to catch those discrepancies, Coupang deploys real-time validation guardrails that check account numbers and name formatting as employees enter information, flagging issues for correction before they submit. The approach gives employees immediate, clear feedback at the moment of entry, reducing errors before they can impact downstream processes.

Rounding out the program is a focus on segmentation and personalization at scale. Because Coupang operates across multiple countries with distinct policy environments and languages, the team has built a targeting framework that delivers role-, region-, and company-specific guidance in the language each employee works in. Today, that means fully supported guidance in Korean, English, and Japanese, with traditional Chinese for Taiwan currently in development. As Emma Guan, Senior Manager of HRIS at Coupang, explained: “When our business expanded to Taiwan and Japan, WalkMe made it much easier to deliver guidance in the right language. The key is making sure that employees always experience a seamless, consistent system no matter where they are.” That coordination shapes how the team approaches every new country rollout, ensuring a consistent and intuitive experience for employees from day one.

Equally important to the team is ensuring that every digital adoption solution feels like a natural extension of their HR system itself. The team has established design and solution standards that mirror HR system’s look and feel, defining clear principles for how and when guidance appears throughout the system. The result is an experience where employees encounter guidance that feels familiar and builds the kind of trust that drives consistent adoption across the organization.

Across Coupang’s HR operations, the impact of their digital adoption strategy is reflected clearly in the results. Timesheet execution time is down 85%, giving employees a faster, more effortless way to complete a routine task they navigate every week. During annual review cycles, a period that historically generated a high volume of questions and support requests, employee support tickets have fallen by 41%, freeing HR operations teams to focus on higher-value work. And following the introduction of real-time payroll validation guardrails, account-related send-backs have decreased by 15%, improving first-time accuracy and reducing the administrative effort required to resolve errors. The broader effect has been a meaningful shift in how HR teams spend their time. HR administrators are able to step back from reactive support work and focus on what matters most. As Guan noted, “Because of WalkMe, we can spend more time with employees directly, focusing on the conversations and initiatives that make the greatest difference for the people we support.” That shift has allowed the team to bring more focus and intention to the work that benefits employees most.

That evolution is visible in how Coupang’s HRIS team now operates as well. With more time freed up and a clearer view of employee behavior, the team has shifted from responding to requests to proactively identifying process gaps and proposing meaningful solutions. With a global expansion underway across approximately 10 countries and early exploration of AI to further reduce manual administrative work, Coupang’s digital adoption strategy continues to grow in both scope and reach.