"Do Not Use Abusive Language Toward Administrative Agency Civil Service Staff"

Ministry of the Interior and Safety to Expand Voice Guidance from July to Protect Civil Service Response Staff

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 23rd that it has prepared the ‘Expansion Plan for Voice Guidance on Protective Measures for Civil Service Customer Service Staff’ and will implement it across all administrative agencies starting in July.

With the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic causing a rapid increase in non-face-to-face civil service such as telephone consultations, incidents of verbal abuse and other illegal acts by civil petitioners have continuously increased, raising the need for voice guidance to protect administrative agency telephone civil service staff. Cases of verbal abuse, insults, and sexual harassment during telephone civil service increased by 41%, from 17,952 in 2019 to 25,296 in 2020.

According to a survey by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the adoption rate of protective measure voice guidance in administrative agencies is 24.7%, which is considerably low compared to 97.4% in civil petition call centers. In a public awareness survey, citizens responded that the departments needing protective measure voice guidance were all administrative departments (49.6%), departments with many civil petitions (32.7%), and civil petition-dedicated departments such as civil service offices (17.8%), in that order. Additionally, 86.6% chose less than 15 seconds as the appropriate duration for voice guidance.

According to this expansion plan for voice guidance on protective measures for civil service customer service staff, civil service offices and Eup/Myeon/Dong community service centers, which are dedicated civil petition departments, will be required to apply protective measure voice guidance to their main telephone lines and individual direct lines by the end of this year.

Han Chang-seop, Director of Government Innovation and Organization at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said, “With the expanded implementation of voice guidance on protective measures for civil service customer service staff, we expect to protect civil service staff from verbal abuse and insults by civil petitioners and provide better civil service in a safer civil service environment.”