'Splitting Annual Leave' Tactic... Bold Public Institution Employees Exploiting Flexible Work System Loopholes

Kim Du-gwan Democratic Party Office Secured
5th Self-Inspection Audit Results on Public Service Discipline
185 Attendance Violations by Employees of Public Institutions under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

Mr. A, who works at a public institution under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, applied for a half-day leave from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. this February. Mr. A, who works under a flexible working system, originally had a scheduled departure time of 8:30 p.m., but submitted this leave plan and left work 30 minutes early. Over the past 28 months, there were 10 instances where Mr. A set the end time of his leave earlier than the designated departure time and left work early.

Even when applying for leave on days he did not come to work, the trick of 'reducing working hours' continued. Sometimes he applied for leave 30 minutes to 1 hour less than the actual time, and in some cases, he delayed the post-processing of absences and did not process the leave at all. There was even a case where he left work 2 hours early but only accounted for 1 hour as leave. The total amount of time he reported as leave less than the actual time taken off, by 30 minutes to 1 hour each time, amounted to 185 hours and 32 minutes.

Mr. A’s insincere work conduct was uncovered through an internal whistleblower report.

According to the '2023 5th Public Service Discipline Self-Inspection Report' obtained by the office of Kim Doo-kwan, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party, the institution’s audit office conducted an audit from January 4, 2021, to May 31 of this year and confirmed that Mr. A violated work regulations over 174 days. This investigation covered 542 days out of 595 total working days where attendance times were verified. This corresponds to 32.1% of the working days, meaning he violated regulations roughly once every three days. In terms of frequency, there were 123 instances of leaving work without permission, 53 instances of tardiness, 6 absences, and 3 cases of leaving the workplace, totaling 185 violations.

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The reason the institution failed to detect Mr. A’s violations in a timely manner and only uncovered them after more than a year is attributed to overlooking the loopholes in the flexible working system. Mr. A did not work fixed hours but rather worked flexibly by distributing his working hours as needed. Because his clock-in and clock-out times were not fixed, monitoring his working hours each time was lax. However, according to the institution’s 'Flexible Working System Operation Rules,' it is clearly stated that "flexible working employees must make efforts to strictly adhere to their working hours."

The audit office of the Korea Land and Transportation Promotion Institute stated regarding Mr. A, "He repeatedly violated regulations over a long period, and the days he violated account for 32.1% of the working days where attendance could be verified, indicating a significant number and duration of violations," and requested severe disciplinary action.

Assemblyman Kim Doo-kwan said, "There are likely countless undetected cases of such tricks by public institution employees. While it is very important for individuals to act conscientiously, each institution must systemically block such tricks from the outset so that they are impossible."

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