You Can Expect High-Quality Administrative Services in Hanam City This Year

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Eom In-yong] Hanam City is pursuing unique projects this year including strengthening civil servant capabilities, improving organizational culture, and implementing responsible administration to provide Korea's best administrative services.

Last year, the city had employees visit HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan Metropolitan City, putting into practice learning the 'Frontier Leadership' of the late Honorary Chairman Chung Ju-young of the Hyundai Group. The city also began benchmarking advanced administration from developed countries including France, provided just compensation to encourage proactive administration, and implemented various civil servant care programs to reduce work-related stress.

We conducted a focused analysis of Mayor Lee Hyun-jae's excellent administrative management direction last year, who has been making efforts to showcase high-quality administrative services.

■ Learning Chairman Chung Ju-young's "Can-Do" Spirit of Challenge, Benchmarking France's Advanced Culture and Tourism Administration

Mayor Lee Hyun-jae supported city civil servants promoting large-scale development projects such as Camp Colborne, K-Star World, and Kyosan Self-Sufficient Land to learn the creative pioneering spirit of the late Chairman Chung Ju-young, who built the world's best shipbuilding nation. Last year, 210 civil servants of rank 6 and above visited HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan.

The Hanam City delegation visited the Asan Memorial Exhibition Hall spanning approximately 1,900 square meters (about 580 pyeong) and the Yeongbin Guesthouse Hanok, where they learned about the history and excellence of Korean shipbuilding technology by viewing the Geobukson (Turtle Ship) depicted on the 500 won note used for shipyard construction. They listened to an anecdote about successfully borrowing 100 million dollars in loans from the Bank of England, and studied the life and philosophy of Chairman Chung, who achieved various accomplishments with an unwavering determination of "it can be done."

Additionally, the city actively operated overseas benchmarking to explore ways to learn and apply world-renowned advanced urban policies to city administration, creating distinctive projects such as the 'Walking School Bus' and 'Hanam-style School Zone.'

Notably, a benchmarking delegation led by Park Seung-seok, team leader of the K-Star World Team, who was then the Brand Marketing Team Leader, selected southern France, a representative global culture and tourism city, as a benchmarking destination, uncovering various insights into ways to establish brand identity (BI) for Hanam City to develop into a 'K-Culture Hub City.'

In detail, they experienced programs using VR (virtual reality) devices inside the historic buildings of Avignon, home to the Papal Palace famous for the 'Avignon Papacy,' to experience medieval life, gaining ideas for planning historical tourism content that combines cutting-edge technology with vividness.

In Cannes, the venue for the 'Cannes Film Festival,' one of the world's three major film festivals, they derived insights into ways to enhance tourist convenience by composing festival spaces by region so that not just the theater but the entire city becomes a festival space, and producing and distributing free magazines containing festival and tourism information.

■ 'Integrity Talk Show·Healing Workshop' Improving Organizational Culture Based on Employee Communication

Mayor Lee Hyun-jae determined that to improve the quality of administrative services, 'an organizational culture of working joyfully' must be created first, and focused on creating an environment to proactively improve organizational culture by expanding communication.

A prime example was conducting integrity education in the format of an 'Integrity Talk Show' in a pleasant atmosphere where free dialogue was exchanged in August of last year to create an integrity-focused organizational culture.

At the talk show, the mayor communicated with employees about 'ways to overcome generational differences within the organization' and 'ways to respond to malicious complaints,' expressing a policy to eliminate unreasonable organizational culture and take immediate action to prevent employees from suffering from malicious complaints.

Additionally, to provide an opportunity for healing and recharging for complaint-handling civil servants exhausted by handling various complaints, the city held a 'Healing Workshop' at Nami Island from October 30 to November 1 of last year.

Furthermore, believing that just compensation should be provided to encourage proactive administration, the city led the revision of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's Green Belt (GB) Release Guidelines, laying the groundwork for promoting the K-Star World development project. The city provided '2024 First Half Performance Bonus' to a total of 59 people, including civil servants from the Urban Strategy Division.

■ "There Is No 'Ping-Pong Administration' of Buck-Passing"...Implementing Policy Accountability System and Complaint Processing Promotion Team

The city made a full-scale effort to strengthen responsible administration by making 'empathetic administration' that creates policies with citizens and 'trustworthy administration' that transparently communicates policies to citizens its core values.

First, the eighth popular election term activated the policy accountability system to increase policy transparency and responsibility by newly selecting major policy accountability targets in 2022, recording and managing the real names of those involved in major policies and the business promotion process, and disclosing them on the website.

In the first half of last year, the city selected a total of 10 new projects including 5 projects valued at 1 billion won or more, including the (tentative) Wiyeong District Children's Welfare Facility Construction Project, and 5 major service projects of 50 million won or more, including the (tentative) Hanam Children's Hall Construction Project design service. In the second half, it additionally selected a total of 5 new projects including the (tentative) Misa 5 Middle School Establishment Public Facility Installation Project (1 billion won or more) to resolve overcrowded classrooms in Misa Riverside City, and 4 major service projects of 50 million won or more, including the Hanam Iseongsan Fortress Culture Festival event service.

Additionally, to resolve 'ping-pong complaints' that became targets of interdepartmental buck-passing due to ambiguous work boundaries or unclear responsible departments, the city received praise for operating a 'Complaint Processing Promotion Team' in which team leaders from all departments participated, led by the Integrity Investigation Team Leader and Autonomous Administration Team Leader, along with team leaders from fields including △Welfare Culture and Health △Jobs and Economy △Urban Housing △Traffic and Construction △Safety and Environment—a total of 26 people.

The promotion team confirmed the responsible department through interdepartmental coordination and consultation and supported complaint processing. In 2024, the city strengthened responsible administration by effectively processing the complaint regarding 'review of building access road connections at Jojung Gymnasium Intersection.'