Underperforming civil servants in Hong Kong to be sacked ‘in a few months’ rather than 2 years under new system
- Civil service chief says authorities hope to signal they will seriously deal with employees whose work is not up to standard
- Civil servants will be required to maintain spirit of political neutrality under a new code of conduct, although wording might be updated
Persistent underperformers in the Hong Kong civil service could be sacked “in a few months” under a proposed streamlined system instead of the present average of more than two years, a minister has said.
Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan also said on Saturday that government employees would be required to maintain a spirit of political neutrality under a new code of conduct, even if the requisite was removed for the proposed update.
Hong Kong’s Civil Service Bureau earlier this month briefed unions about a plan to expedite forced retirement for persistent underperformers among the 174,000 workers on the public payroll.
While civil servant unions have said they feared the move would damage morale, Yeung has defended the proposal.
She insisted that disciplining underperformers would be a boost to hard-working colleagues whose performance had been dragged down.
“Civil servant jobs have never been ‘iron rice bowls’,” Yeung told a radio programme on Saturday, referring to a Chinese expression for guaranteed job security.
The authorities processed 16 cases under the existing system in the last five years. Four civil servants managed to keep their jobs, seven left of their own accord and only two were forced to retire out of the 13 cases listed as closed.