Assistant to President Chung Chan-yong Previewing Change in Personnel Management Practice

In an effort to eliminate departmental self-centeredness, Chung Wa Dae is planning to significantly increase personnel exchange among a selected group of 20 to 30 positions at a level similar to that of department heads.

Chung Chan-yong, personnel management assistant to the president, said in a conference related to a series of talks on “The World of Personnel Management” held by Dongailbo on December 10, “In order to enhance exchanges between civil professionals and government management, and between the central government and local governments, we plan to adopt the ‘high government officials’ group system. This will be a human resources pool comprised of high officials in each department. The first step will be to select 20 to 30 positions from each department and exchange those personnel between different departments.”

If this system takes effect, it will greatly affect the world of public office by destroying the practice of awarding promotions mainly based on seniority within each department.

Chung said, “Our intent is that this will allow each department to make correct decisions regarding issues involving their complex interests and relations while keeping in mind the national scope of their decisions apart from their interests.”

Chung added, “Since the system of appointing the heads of self-governing bodies was switched to that of an election, there has been no exchange between the central government and the local ones, thus leading to stagnation in the local governments and hands-off administration in the central one.”

He announced policies that will take effect next year, such as preferential treatment for central government officials with experience working in local government and arranging apartments for a deposit of one million won and a monthly rent of 200 to 300 thousand won for local government officials who have to work in Seoul.

In addition to this, he explained that the government is planning to implement additional policies during this regime’s term such as unifying different public office exams, to reduce the exam costs, diversification of recruiting methods for open positions, public subscription for positions and internships, and the recruiting of foreigners with ethnic Korean backgrounds.

Young-A Soh Jeong-Hun Kim sya@donga.com jnghn@donga.com