Yongsan-gu Launches 'Integrity Comma' Healing Program for Frontline Civil Servants

Yongsan-gu in Seoul ran a wellness program called "Integrity Comma: Filling the Heart With Fragrance" for 48 civil servants — grade 7 and below — working at neighborhood community centers, from Friday through Saturday.

The program was developed on the basis of an integrity organizational assessment conducted this year and is tailored specifically to staff needs. Yongsan-gu designed it to recognize the efforts of employees who handle resident complaints and fieldwork on the front lines of public service, support their psychological recovery, and foster a workplace culture of care and mutual respect.

Sessions were held at a local perfume workshop in small groups of 12, across four sessions. Under the guidance of a professional perfumer, participants reflected on their personal scent preferences and current emotional states, then selected and blended various fragrances to create their own signature perfume.

The process of choosing and combining scents was designed to embody the values of rest, recovery, care, respect and trust. By experiencing how different fragrances come together in harmony, participants were encouraged to understand and appreciate their colleagues' differences — shifting the focus away from lecture-based integrity education toward a direct, everyday experience of those values.

Participants responded warmly. "Using fragrance as a medium, I was able to talk naturally with my colleagues, and focusing on the scents helped relieve work-related stress," one participant said. Another said the session was "a rare chance to give my body and mind a complete rest," adding, "It was short, but I was glad to be able to recover in a meaningful way."

Through the program, the district aimed to support employees' psychological recovery while creating an opportunity to build a workplace culture of mutual understanding and respect through natural, informal interaction.

Last year, Yongsan-gu ran a healing program for young civil servants in corruption-vulnerable positions. This year, drawing on the organizational assessment results, the district refined the target group and evolved the program into a more participatory, experiential format.

"I hope this program gave our staff a chance to restore their sense of well-being and deepen their understanding of one another," Yongsan-gu District Mayor Kim Kyung-dae said. "Going forward, I will continue to listen to employees' voices so that a culture of mutual respect and trust translates into integrity in public administration that residents can feel."