Government Streamlines Approval Process and Strengthens Accountability... Boosts Work Efficiency with AI Integration

“Innovation Plan for Working Methods” Introduced by the Ministry of Personnel Management
Revamping Traditional Approaches to Deliver Tangible Outcomes for Citizens

The government will significantly improve working methods to boost efficiency and deliver results that citizens can feel. By sharing the entire workflow to reduce the number of approval steps and increase individual accountability, and by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and data into tasks that have traditionally been handled manually, efficiency will be enhanced.

On April 16, the Ministry of Personnel Management announced the launch of the “Innovation Plan for Working Methods,” which includes major changes such as public disclosure of core work and the activation of real-time performance reviews.

This innovation plan focuses on moving away from the rigid culture of the public sector toward a system based on autonomy and responsibility, where employees take ownership of their work, communicate with one another, and collaborate.

First, the Ministry will reflect core work performed by division directors or higher in performance contracts and require evaluation of policy outcomes that affect citizens’ lives. In addition, core work performed at the director level and above will be made public on the ministry's website to improve accountability and transparency. Core work refers to the main responsibilities that each official is in charge of, which can be flexibly adjusted depending on circumstances.

The Ministry also plans to rationally reduce the number of approval steps and revise delegation regulations to clarify the authority and responsibility of each person in charge. The work execution process and the performance management system will also be reformed. To ensure democratic and rational decision-making, the principles of personnel management will be clarified to further guarantee civil servants’ autonomy and responsibility and to strengthen mutual cooperation. Furthermore, all reports must specify the author and co-authors, and record the feedback exchanged between supervisors and colleagues. This will ensure transparency and allow for fair evaluation based on each person’s contribution.

The performance management system will also move away from the traditional model of periodic evaluations. Instead, achievements, efforts, and evaluation feedback will be recorded and managed continuously throughout the work process. The related systems will be upgraded sequentially to ensure fairer evaluations. Through these changes, decision-making will become more horizontal rather than top-down, the entire work process will be naturally shared, and the roles and contributions of each individual will become clearer, enabling a balanced approach to autonomy and responsibility.

The Ministry will also implement AI- and data-driven innovation in work processes. An AI development team, composed of ministry employees, will collaborate with policy and institutional departments to develop in-house AI work support models and address operational challenges through the A-CUBE (A3) Project. Building on last year's pilot projects—such as analyzing the causes of work-related accidents and identifying suspicious real estate acquisitions using AI and data—the Ministry plans to apply AI to various tasks starting this year. Currently, AI is being developed to automate tasks in the Central Disciplinary Committee that were mainly handled manually, and the Ministry plans to expand such automation to other review and deliberation-related work based on accumulated results and experience.

Separately from this innovation plan, the “AI Personnel Assistant Service,” which was selected last year as a Ministry of Science and ICT contest project, will be deployed on site from next year to further increase work efficiency. This service is a chatbot that answers personnel-related questions by learning relevant laws, precedents, and guidelines managed by the Ministry of Personnel Management.

Meanwhile, the government is running the “Seoyugi (A Pleasant Rebellion of Office Managers)” project to drastically reduce unnecessary routine and repetitive work for administrative (general affairs and accounting) staff. To that end, the Ministry developed an “Intelligent Business Trip App (Smart Business Trip App)” that collects travel documentation from department members and eliminates the previous manual process for paying travel expenses through the accounting system. Other tasks, such as registering training records and managing attendance sheets—which were previously processed manually—have also been automated.

Choi Dongseok, Minister of Personnel Management, stated, “This innovation plan is aimed at fundamentally changing the way we work. We will improve organizational culture to be more flexible and transparent based on autonomy and responsibility and expand this as a standard case throughout the entire public sector.”

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