Wonju launches municipal innovation task force; 29 employees to identify workplace problems firsthand

【Financial News, Wonju = Kim Gi-seop, reporter】A bottom-up innovation task force has gotten off the ground at Wonju City Hall, where employees will identify problems with work practices themselves and propose ways to fix them.
Wonju City said on the 10th that it held the inaugural ceremony for the first-term Wonju City Municipal Administration Innovation Task Force at 10:30 a.m. that day in the multipurpose hall on the first basement level of City Hall. The program included an overview of the operating plan, presentation of appointment letters and a briefing on the direction of each division’s work. A meeting of task force members was also held.
The task force has 29 members in total. Vice Mayor Kim Jeong-nam will serve as its chair, and 10 ex officio members, including the director of the Administration Bureau and heads of relevant departments and teams, will participate. The remaining 19 are employees selected through recommendations from departments and the labor union, as well as open recruitment.
There are three divisions: institutional and work-process innovation (9 members), organizational culture innovation (8 members), and work environment innovation (8 members). The task force will seek ways to eliminate unnecessary administrative procedures and foster an organizational culture centered on fair compensation and communication, while also identifying initiatives to improve employee welfare and office environments and make work more efficient using artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies.
The task force will refine ideas at regular quarterly meetings and ad hoc division meetings, then work with relevant departments to implement feasible initiatives in sequence. It plans to monitor progress on each initiative on an ongoing basis and share the results of its work at a performance report meeting in September next year.
Vice Mayor Kim Jeong-nam said, “Innovation begins not with grand systems but with fixing the small inconveniences employees face every day. We will support initiatives identified firsthand by frontline employees so they lead to actual improvements in the system, and make the task force the first step toward an organizational culture where people work while respecting one another.”

[email protected] Kim Gi-seop Reporter