[Courtesy of Yeongcheon City]
[Courtesy of Yeongcheon City]

Yeongcheon, a city in North Gyeongsang Province, held an integrity and civil-service innovation talk concert on Wednesday at the city hall's main conference room. About 120 new employees who had joined the city government since 2024 attended the event.

The event was part of the "2026 Integrity and Civil Service Innovation Culture Week," running from Monday to Friday.

Moving away from conventional lecture-style integrity training, the talk concert focused on hearing directly from young employees just starting their careers in public service. It used cross-generational dialogue to spark change in the organization's culture.

The highlight of the event was an impromptu question-and-answer session between Mayor Kim Byung-sam and the new employees. Rather than following a prepared script, questions written by the employees themselves were drawn at random on the spot for the mayor to answer, keeping the exchange informal and unscripted.

Following the talk concert, Bae Jeong-ae, an anti-corruption lecturer with the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, led an integrity training session centered on real-life situations new civil servants may encounter in their day-to-day work.

Rather than simply explaining laws and regulations such as the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, the Conflict of Interest Prevention Act and the code of conduct for public officials, the session focused on scenarios new employees are likely to face on the job. This approach aimed to make the training more practical.

"I want to listen closely to the voices of young employees who will be leading Yeongcheon's city administration five or ten years from now, so that they can freely speak up and take on challenges instead of sticking to old practices, and build an organization that changes together with them," Mayor Kim said.


kbj7653@heraldcorp.com