'Nearly Half Female Staff' Sejong City Fully Implements Integrated Duty System

Sejong City will fully implement the ‘Integrated Duty System for Male and Female Public Officials’ starting this month.

Until now, Sejong City operated the duty system with female employees working day shifts from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends and holidays, while male employees worked night shifts from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. the following day.

However, as the proportion of female employees has recently increased, the duty cycle (night shifts for male employees) has accelerated, making it inevitable to improve the duty work system to reflect this change, according to the city.

In fact, the proportion of female employees within the city hall rose from 45.1% in 2020 to 48.8% as of March 2023, approaching half of the total staff.

In this regard, the city conducted a survey last November among all employees to gather opinions on the integrated duty system, and out of 636 respondents, 446 (70% of the total) supported the integrated duty system.

Based on this, the city will fully implement the integrated duty system starting this month to improve the duty work system.

However, female employees who are pregnant, within one year after childbirth, or raising children under the age of five and find night shifts difficult will be allowed to work only day shifts depending on their preference.

Before implementing the integrated duty system, the city established a women-only rest area and completed the maintenance of the duty room environment, including replacing bedding.

Additionally, safety accident prevention measures such as installing closed-circuit television (CCTV) and emergency bells in the duty room have been put in place.

With the implementation of the integrated duty system, female employees will now also work night shifts from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. the following day. Furthermore, duty shifts will be organized with two employees of the same gender, applying a rotation system where men and women alternate shifts.

An Jong-su, head of the City Operations Support Division, said, “We will continuously monitor and improve any shortcomings while implementing the integrated duty system,” and added, “The city will strive to foster a culture of gender equality within the public service community and improve the handling of duty-related civil complaints.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.