Continuous Efforts Since Last Year to Diagnose and Improve Organizational Culture
Promoting New Organizational Culture Through Awareness Improvement and Encouraging Participation Based on Institutional Improvement Achievements
Enhancing Effectiveness of Workplace Harassment Reporting Procedures and Supporting Victim Recovery
Nowon-gu, Seoul (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it has established and is operating detailed action guidelines for 'improving organizational culture' and 'preventing and responding to workplace harassment.'
Last year, the district selected 30 tasks through a survey of all employees to diagnose and improve the organizational culture. This year’s self-assessment revealed that tasks requiring action at the individual employee or department level still need improvement.
Accordingly, the district has established four major action plans and 19 detailed tasks to improve unclear responsibilities and issues requiring participation from all departments.
The main contents include ▲abolishing unreasonable practices (such as cost-sharing for excessive expenses, gift-giving customs during personnel transfers and probation period completion) ▲improving work methods (creating a streamlined meeting culture, responsible handovers, etc.) ▲activating communication among members (enhancing the operation of the Mayor’s communication channel) ▲work-life balance (refraining from contacting outside working hours).
The district plans to present detailed action guidelines through campaigns and education to establish a new organizational culture and continuously monitor the implementation status.
In addition, the system for preventing and responding to workplace harassment will be effectively improved, focusing especially on preventing exposure of the reporter’s identity, disadvantages, or criticism. Although institutional grounds such as reporting and handling procedures were already in place, the district identified distrust in confidentiality and concerns about secondary damage as reasons why victims and third parties were reluctant to report.
First, an anonymous reporting center directly under the Mayor was established within the administrative portal, allowing anonymous reports. Only the Mayor and the investigator can access and receive these reports. The mandatory case evaluation procedure before formal investigation has been omitted, enabling the Audit Officer to initiate investigations ex officio.
During the investigation, to prevent identification of the reporter, the investigation scope may be expanded reflecting the victim’s wishes as necessary, and all employees participating in interviews are required to sign a pledge to prevent information leakage and secondary harm.
Furthermore, legal and personnel departments, especially in cases of sexual misconduct, will provide multifaceted support for victim recovery through the department in charge of women’s policies. To prevent recurrence, cases of workplace harassment and measures taken against perpetrators will be disclosed on the internal administrative portal.
Meanwhile, improvements made over the past year include introducing a 'Transfer Criteria Review Committee' involving employee participation to improve opaque personnel operations, disclosure of 'work performance evaluations,' and improvements to the 'heavy workload and undesirable position preferential system.' Welfare systems, opportunities for skill development, guaranteed rest rights, and improvements to on-call duty, which were at lower levels compared to other autonomous districts, have also been dramatically improved and are currently being implemented.
Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, “We are reflecting on our organizational culture, from the so-called ‘Siboddeok’ custom to ‘wringing out a dry towel’ style meetings, to operate a healthy institution based on mutual respect,” adding, “We will create a workplace where people can work energetically and joyfully through organizational culture improvement.”
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