Songpa-gu Public Officials Welfare Ranked No. 1 Nationwide

Songpa-gu Wins Overall 1st Place in the 'Civil Servant Welfare Best Practices Contest' Hosted by the Ministry of Personnel Management... High Employee Response to Support for Housing Loan Interest for Homeless Civil Servants, Hotel and Wedding Hall Promotions... Aims to Prevent Public Service Attrition and Provide Optimal Administrative Services to Residents, Receiving Positive Evaluations

“I am a grade 7 public official with 4 years of service and have been the head of a household in Seoul for 13 years. With increasing household expenses such as children's academy fees and loan interest, the burden was heavy, but the district office's housing loan interest support has given me some relief.”

“As a dual-income family, I rarely had the chance to cook delicious meals for my children, so I felt sorry as a mother. However, after learning recipes in the cooking class, I was able to prepare warm home-cooked meals, which was very rewarding.”

These are vivid testimonials from employees about the welfare projects promoted by Songpa-gu (District Mayor Seo Gang-seok) over the past year and a half since the start of the 8th local government administration.

The district announced on the 26th that it was selected as the best institution nationwide in the ‘Public Officials Welfare Excellence Contest’ hosted by the Ministry of Personnel Management on the 19th, thanks to the high response from employees regarding the welfare projects.

This contest is held annually by the Ministry of Personnel Management to evaluate welfare projects of central administrative agencies and local governments nationwide. The evaluation focuses on employee response, positive effects, potential for expansion to other institutions, and creativity.

In recent years, as the departure of young generation public officials has increased, many local governments have been striving to improve rigid organizational cultures. In fact, as of 2022, the resignation rate of MZ generation public officials within 5 years of appointment in Seoul was 8.6%, nearly double that of 2019. Songpa-gu's resignation rate under the same conditions was 7.5% last year.

Accordingly, the district actively promoted differentiated welfare projects starting with the 8th local government administration to increase public officials' job satisfaction and ultimately provide the best administrative services to residents.

Representative projects include ▲the nation’s first housing loan interest support for public officials without homes ▲employee cooking class ‘Yoribogo, Joribogo’ (Cooking and Tasting) ▲promotions at hotels, wedding halls, cafes, and gyms.

Additionally, to support the mental health of employees exhausted by frequent emotional labor, heat waves, and emergency duties during floods and typhoons, the district held the ‘Mind Comfort Stationery Contest’ for the first time, offering comfort and quiet joy to employees and visitors to the district office.

The district plans to increase accessibility to the welfare system by distributing a booklet of case studies created for this award submission to all departments. The booklet, titled ‘Songpa-gu Welfare Projects Created Together with Future Generation Public Officials,’ contains 42 project cases across 6 categories.

Seo Gang-seok, Mayor of Songpa-gu, said, “It is meaningful that our efforts, driven by the sole determination to directly care for the welfare of our employees, have been recognized with this award. Next year, we will continue welfare projects comparable to those of large corporations to increase job satisfaction among future generation public officials, the core driving force of the public sector, and strive to provide the best administrative services to our residents.”

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