Flexible Organizational Culture... Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Implements 'Casual Day and Early Leave by Department'

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is undertaking various initiatives to improve organizational culture, such as 'Casual Day,' where employees come to work in comfortable attire every Friday, and the 'Group Flexible Work System,' which allows early leave at the department or bureau level.

A ministry official stated on the 6th, "To create a vibrant workplace atmosphere, we have expanded flexible working hours since last month and designated every Friday as Casual Day as part of improving organizational culture," adding, "The purpose is to bring a flexible and new wave of change to the public service culture."

Casual Day was selected as the final outstanding idea in the 'Idea Contest for Breaking Practices to Improve the Organizational Culture and Working Methods of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs' and has been implemented every Friday since the 22nd of last month.

The Group Flexible Work System was introduced to encourage the use of flexible working hours. Until now, flexible work arrangements have been carried out individually by employees in various forms, but many employees hesitated to leave early on Fridays compared to their supervisors or colleagues. Accordingly, the Group Flexible Work System allows groups (at the department or bureau level) to leave early on specific days within the scope that does not disrupt public services. The ministry applies a method where the overtime hours worked from Monday to Thursday are utilized on Friday to allow groups to leave two hours early.

Additionally, the ministry has proactively introduced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to improve working methods through digital innovation and enhance work efficiency, currently operating it in 11 tasks. It is applied to tasks that employees repeatedly perform and that consume excessive time, such as civil service assignment, monitoring wholesale prices of agricultural and livestock products, and inspecting eco-friendly certified foods. The ministry plans to expand the application areas to increase efficiency through automation and workload reduction.

Employees of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs are taking certification photos for 'Casual Day'.

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