Busan Urban Development Corporation's 'multi-faceted evaluation hurdle system' ruled invalid... Court “unfair exclusion from promotion”

(Busan = Yonhap News) Reporter Cha Geun-ho = The court ruled that the Busan City Corporation's personnel system, which excludes employees from promotion if their multi-faceted evaluation scores do not meet a certain standard, regardless of other performance evaluation results, is invalid.

The 11th Civil Division of the Busan District Court (Chief Judge Ho-cheol Lee) announced on the 14th that it ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Busan City Corporation employee A against the corporation to confirm the invalidity of the exclusion from promotion.

Mr. A received 6.702 points out of 10 in a multi-faceted evaluation conducted in the second half of last year.

Multi-faceted evaluation is a method in which not only superiors, but also co-workers and subordinates evaluate the work ability, work attitude, interpersonal relationships, and character of employees who have been employed for one year.

Busan City Corporation has been operating the so-called 'multi-faceted evaluation hurdle system' in which employees who received less than 7 points in a multi-faceted evaluation are excluded from promotion regardless of other evaluation results such as work performance evaluation.

Accordingly, Mr. A was excluded from promotion to level 6 in the regular personnel management in the first half of this year.

Mr. A filed a lawsuit claiming that the multi-faceted evaluation hurdle system violated personnel regulations and that the evaluation method lacked objectivity.

The court ruled that the corporation's hurdle system exceeded the scope set by the higher-level regulations.

The court said, “Complete exclusion from the list of promotion candidates based on the multi-faceted evaluation evaluation alone violates the higher-level regulations that only reflect 10% of the multi-faceted evaluation evaluation,” and added, “It is reasonable to view it as invalid due to a significant deviation and abuse of discretion.”

It was also seen that there were problems with the objectivity and fairness of the evaluation method.

Even employees with no work experience can be evaluated and can choose whether or not to participate in the evaluation, and although scores are given from 2 to 10, it appears that no specific evaluation standards have been established.

The court ruled, "In the extreme case, if only one employee participates in the evaluation, the multi-faceted evaluation rating may be determined solely by that employee's evaluation. It is difficult to expect the evaluation process or results to be objective and fair, so completely excluding an employee from promotion based on this cannot be considered a reasonable standard for promotion appointment."