In our system, the promotion path of civil servants often attracts widespread attention. Recently, I shared an article on this topic, which not only resonated with many employees in the system, but also sparked a lot of private message discussions. Among them, there is a piece of news that is particularly eye-catching, which describes the unique situation of a department of an organ: A cadre in his 40s who has been working in the department for five years, but in June this year, the unit suddenly promoted a young "post-95" student to be selected and transferred, directly appointed to a substantive post at the department level, and was assigned to this department.
This kind of situation of having two full-level leaders in the same department at the same time is quite rare in the system, and this may be a special "product" of a specific historical background. At first, the department lacked leadership and the progress of the work was slow, so a cadre at the level of the department was transferred from the subordinate institution to take charge of the day-to-day operation. However, due to the particularity of the civil service unit, this career cadre can only work as a "department head" and cannot officially become a section chief. With the passage of time, a young student with outstanding performance reached the promotion period and was promoted to a cadre at the department level, officially filling the vacancy of the section chief. As a result, the department structure has changed: the cadres at the section level are actually responsible for the work, while the young civil servants become the nominal section chiefs.
This personnel arrangement may not cause obvious problems in the short term. In the initial stage, the newly appointed civil service section chief may listen to the advice of experienced career staff members on some specific work matters. However, as the young section chief becomes familiar with the job, the atmosphere in the department can become complicated. The work styles and strategic goals of the two leaders may be different, and the work direction of the career staff may not always be agreed by the head of the civil service section.
This usually doesn't last long. The unit may make adjustments to the leadership of the department, either by leaving the career staff or by transferring the civil service section chief to another post to resolve possible friction and contradictions.
This situation reveals three major problems faced by the employment of people in the system: it is difficult to break through the solidification of identity, it is difficult for senior employees to accept the management of young leaders, and it is quite difficult to balance the interests of all parties. Within the system, the identities of employees are diverse, and employees with different identities are subject to different management systems and promotion paths. In government departments, more senior employees may appear to follow instructions, but in reality they do not attach much importance to the tasks of young leaders. At the same time, balancing the interests of all parties, especially with limited leadership positions and promotion opportunities, has become a major challenge.
In this particular case, we can see the complexity and flexibility of the employment system within the system. While such arrangements may solve a temporary personnel dilemma, they also raise the problem of underutilizing the leadership potential of older generations and using resources efficiently. How to effectively use human resources and maintain a balance between fairness and efficiency within the system is an ongoing challenge.