“The Republic of Korea will survive only if we rebuild the public service system.”

Former Director of the Personnel Innovation Office and a competent personnel administration expert
A new wave to revive the collapsing public service society
Convey with all your heart!

The author, a distinguished expert in personnel administration, shares specific strategies, prescriptions, and core principles for public service innovation based on his 30 years of experience in public service.
The chronic problems of our public service society are the rigidity and passivity inherent in hierarchical bureaucracy and bureaucracy, as well as seniority-based and vertical decision-making structures.
It proposes a paradigm shift in the public service in Korea by advocating for the establishment of a fair and horizontal public service culture, reform of the civil service pension system, extension of the retirement age for civil servants, a shift to a focus on productivity and performance, and a comprehensive overhaul of evaluation and compensation.
Through this, we hope that the older generation and the MZ generation, who are all in the same public service, will work energetically by making good use of each other's strengths.

As someone who served as the Director and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Personnel Management, I have a historical obligation to ensure that civil servants are no longer frustrated and that the public service is no longer in ruins.
So, based on my 30 years of public service experience, I would like to present a concrete picture of the new public service society in Korea that will be required in the 2030s.
--- From "Prologue 'The Reason for Writing This Book'"

Civil servants are actors who perform their roles in the theater called the Republic of Korea.
The government is a stage, and civil servants are actors.
And the audience is the people of the Republic of Korea.
Every position held by a civil servant becomes a role.
The roles to be performed on stage are fundamentally assigned according to laws and regulations, and one must do one's best to perform the roles assigned to one by the people, rather than by one's personal values ​​or philosophy.
The public, as the audience, can immediately see whether the public officials on stage are performing their roles well and how well or poorly they are performing.
--- From "Part 1: Revive the Collapsing Public Service Society, Chapter 1: Talking to the MZ Generation About True Civil Servants!"

There is a fish called koi.
The yellow koi fish that we commonly see in ponds is Koi.
These fish grow to 5-8 cm in an aquarium and 15-25 cm in a pond.
However, in the river, it grows up to 1m 20cm.
Depending on the water they play in, their growth size can vary by as much as 20 times.
The vessel that holds our country's civil servants is the fishbowl called the class system.
Public and private companies are not much different.
The story goes that the water our office workers play in is a fishbowl.
There is a saying that things change when people with great potential enter public service or the public sector.
They often criticize the loss of competitive spirit, the narrowing of the horizon, and the stagnation without a vision for the future.
But the cause does not lie with individual civil servants.
It is in the vessel that holds the civil servant, that is, the personnel management system.

--- From "Part 1: Revitalizing the Collapsing Public Service Society, Chapter 2: Public Service Innovation for the MZ Generation"

In the class system, ‘person Hong Gil-dong’ disappears and only ‘6th grade officer Hong Gil-dong’ exists.
The qualities, abilities, capabilities, and interests of a person named Hong Gil-dong are only evaluated at the level of a 6th-grade official.
No matter how capable Hong Gil-dong is, no matter how great an expert he is in his field, he cannot surpass a 5th-grade civil servant or a 4th-grade secretary.
Of course, it goes without saying that you cannot go beyond the ranks of higher-ranking civil servants.
Even if Hong Gil-dong's superior, a 4th-grade section chief, is incompetent, unprofessional, and foolish, he is recognized as more competent than Hong Gil-dong, a 6th-grade section chief, and Hong Gil-dong must follow the section chief's instructions.
Many civil servants who worked in the public sector are still living as Manager Kim, Director Lee, and Vice Minister Park after retirement.
This is the very nature and essence of the class system.

--- From "Part 2: The Class System, Which Must Be Addressed First, Chapter 1: The Class System Frustrates All Generations"

Reducing just two steps in the payment process dramatically simplifies the reporting process.
Reporting time is also significantly reduced.
The most important thing is that decisions are made faster and more rationally.
In my experience in public service, the longer the approval and reporting lines, the more authoritarianism there is within the organization.
It also increases the likelihood that decision-making will be distorted.

--- From "Part 2: The Class System That Must Be Addressed First, Chapter 2: The Key to Class System Innovation"

The only occupation that has the word 'occupation' in front of it is civil servant.
Although private companies also set retirement ages, the degree to which they guarantee employment until retirement is much weaker than that of civil servants.
For this reason, we demand higher moral standards and social responsibility from public officials.

--- From "Part 4 Retirement Innovation for the MZ Generation 'Chapter 2 Extending the Retirement Age of Civil Servants'"

Bad greetings include greetings based on affection, greetings based on seniority, and greetings based on past relationships.
During my career in public service, I have seen and experienced countless personnel decisions made by those with the power to appoint, but I have rarely seen anyone with the power to appoint receive praise for making good decisions.
The best evaluation is when there are almost no complaints or gossip about the greeting.
--- From "Part 5: The Last Request to the MZ Generation, Chapter 1: Making Personnel Innovation a Reality"

Managers have the insight that comes from experience, but practitioners have the courage to propose things that are only possible in their imagination.
If we can leverage that as an organizational capability, any organization will have a bright future ahead of it.

--- From "Part 5: The Last Request to the MZ Generation 'Chapter 2: If You Want to Succeed, Fight Cynicism'"