The reform of cultural institutions is a complex system project. If done well, it can greatly stimulate the enthusiasm and motivation of staff, thereby promoting the development and prosperity of cultural undertakings and the cultural industry; if done poorly, it will severely dampen the work enthusiasm of a large number of cadres and staff, which will then affect the development of the undertaking. Here are some preliminary views on how to use the scientific outlook on development to guide the reform of cultural institutions.

1. Correctly handle the qualitative issues of reform.

Reform is aimed at better and faster development. The cultural industry covers a wide range, some are purely public welfare, some are semi-public welfare and semi-commercial, and some can be purely commercial. However, from an overall perspective, there is only a distinction between cultural undertakings and the cultural industry, with purely public welfare being referred to as cultural undertakings and commercially viable being referred to as the cultural industry. Therefore, in the reform of the cultural industry, we should adhere to the principle of "doing what should be done and not doing what should not be done, and doing it effectively." For purely public welfare cultural institutions, I believe the focus of reform should be on activating internal mechanisms, rather than conducting comprehensive institutional reforms; for semi-public welfare and semi-commercial cultural units, while ensuring good public services, the focus of reform should be on promoting the prosperity of the cultural industry, implementing partial mechanism reforms and partial institutional reforms; for purely commercial cultural units, the focus of reform should be on how to vigorously develop the cultural industry and boldly implement institutional reforms. The issues discussed below pertain to purely public welfare cultural institutions.

2. Establish the correct value orientation.

The scientific outlook on development is a fundamental guideline proposed by the Party Central Committee based on the basic national conditions of our country's primary stage of socialism and the current stage of development. Reform must be based on the current practical situation and adopt or clarify value orientations suitable for today's development. I believe that the guiding ideology of reform must be based on Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of the "Three Represents," the scientific outlook on development, and the construction of a harmonious society, earnestly implementing the spirit of the 17th National Congress of the Party, adhering to the liberation of thoughts, seeking truth from facts, keeping pace with the times, adapting to the requirements of the development of the socialist market economy and the reform of the cultural system and mechanism, following the laws of talent growth in the cultural industry, streamlining the personnel management system, reforming the employment and distribution system, and providing strong organizational guarantees and talent support for the development and prosperity of cultural institutions. The value orientation must adhere to the following principles: 1. The principle of promoting development. It should focus on the development of the unit itself while also benefiting the continuous improvement of the development of public welfare cultural undertakings. 2. The principle of adhering to the "Four Modernizations" of the cadre team, employing people based on virtue and talent, and ensuring openness, equality, competition, and selection of the best. 3. The principle of implementing comprehensive reform. Reform is a matter that affects the whole body, and comprehensive supporting reforms of internal mechanisms, personnel employment, and distribution systems must be implemented. 4. The principle of putting people first. This means respecting knowledge, respecting talent, respecting labor, and respecting creativity. 5. The principle of acting according to the law. Reform must strictly implement relevant laws, regulations, and policies, ensuring employees' rights to know, participate, choose, and supervise, and ensuring legal procedures. 6. The principle of ensuring stability. It is necessary to correctly handle the relationship between reform, development, and stability, promoting reform actively and steadily with stability as the premise. The wishes of the majority of employees must be respected, ensuring that the vast majority of employees are willing and satisfied.

3. Determine the main goals and tasks of reform based on the actual situation of the unit.

The main problems currently existing in purely public welfare cultural institutions are: the incentive mechanism is not sound, and there is no distinction between good and bad performance; on one hand, the undertaking urgently needs high-quality talents, while on the other hand, outstanding talents find it difficult to stand out. Therefore, the main goals of reform should be set as follows: 1. Establish a personnel management mechanism that allows the unit to independently employ personnel, allows personnel to choose their positions independently, and has complete supporting measures; 2. Improve the competition and incentive mechanisms, invigorate the employment and distribution systems, and form a personnel management mechanism where personnel can enter and exit, positions can be promoted or demoted, and treatment can be increased or decreased, with a reasonable talent structure, allowing outstanding talents to stand out and creating a vibrant personnel management mechanism. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to reform the following nine aspects: 1. Implement a full-staff employment system. In accordance with relevant national laws and regulations, employment contracts should be signed on the basis of equality, voluntariness, and mutual agreement, clarifying the rights and obligations of both parties, and establishing a legally protected personnel contract relationship between the unit and individual employees, safeguarding the legal rights and interests of both the unit and employees. Through the employment system, the employment mechanism should be transformed, changing personnel management from identity management to position management, from purely administrative management to legal management, from administrative dependency to equal personnel subjects, and from state employment to unit employment. 2. Implement a position management system. Set positions scientifically and reasonably, clarify the responsibilities, qualifications, employment duration, rights and obligations, and relevant treatment of each position, and determine personnel through competitive recruitment. For professional and technical positions, a combination of competition and appointment should be implemented, selecting the best according to position requirements, achieving the unity of professional technical position appointment and position employment; deepen the title reform, insisting on separating evaluation and appointment. For management positions, a staff system should be implemented, establishing a grading sequence that meets the abilities, achievements, qualifications, and position needs of various management personnel; for labor positions, a contract system should be implemented, strengthening vocational skills training, standardizing personal technical level assessments, and improving quality, while combining job types and actual abilities, competing for positions and selecting the best. For auxiliary labor positions, socialized services should be gradually implemented. 3. Implement an open recruitment system. When the unit needs to supplement personnel, except for policy placements, all should follow the principles of openness, equality, competition, and selection of the best, using examinations or assessments to break down identity and regional barriers, and openly recruit from society. For professional and technical positions, a vocational qualification system should be gradually promoted. 4. Implement a personnel agency system. For on-duty personnel who are not employed in positions, a personnel management mechanism for training and waiting for employment should be implemented based on voluntary and equal negotiation; for newly recruited personnel, personnel agency should be implemented in principle. A new type of personnel relationship between the unit and the employed personnel should be gradually established. 5. Reform the distribution system. Classify the personnel of the unit into four types: research, management, labor, and service positions, determining salaries based on positions, with salary changes corresponding to position changes, widening the salary gap, and implementing level differences for each position, making distribution tilt towards frontline positions, key positions, and outstanding talents, establishing a distribution policy that emphasizes actual performance, contributions, and benefits, and also allowing for high salaries to attract outstanding talents, truly reflecting first-class talents, first-class performance, and first-class remuneration, fully exerting the incentive guiding role of income distribution, and promoting reasonable talent flow. 6. Reform the social security system. The social security for on-duty personnel can be temporarily deferred; for newly hired personnel, they can participate in unemployment, medical, work injury, maternity, and pension insurance according to relevant regulations, and housing provident fund arrangements, with premiums paid by the unit and individuals in accordance with the prescribed ratio. 7. Properly place personnel who are not employed in positions. According to the principles of "policy guidance, internal digestion, and transfer training," internal digestion should be implemented, and internal adjustment and transfer methods should be used for proper placement. 8. Implement a dismissal and resignation system. For newly recruited personnel, the unit can dismiss staff according to relevant national regulations and contractual agreements, and staff can also resign according to the employment contract. After dismissal or resignation, the unit and staff should promptly handle the transfer of social insurance relationships, organizational relationships, and other procedures according to relevant regulations. 9. Implement a promotion and elimination system. Starting from the first competition, a three-year employment cycle can be considered, and for individuals who are not suitable, they can be transferred at any time according to work needs. A time that is too short is not conducive to talent growth and the stability of the unit's overall work; a time that is too long is also an unreasonable wait for talented individuals. At the end of each year, during performance evaluations, the best performers among employees of the same level should be promoted to a higher position; the worst performers should be demoted to a lower level; those who fail to meet the standards for two consecutive years should be treated as waiting for positions and not enjoy position salaries, thus effectively solving the problem of indistinguishable performance.

4. Develop a complete supporting reform plan.

From the reform tasks mentioned above, reform is a complex system project that must develop a complete supporting plan. For units implementing internal mechanism reforms, first, a reform leadership group with broad representation should be established, bringing in comrades who understand policies, are good at thinking, and are attentive to public opinion, and clarify their respective tasks. Second, a general reform plan should be formulated, achieving 'four clarifications': clarifying the guiding ideology, principles, and goals of the reform; clarifying the main tasks of the reform; clarifying the methods and steps of the reform; clarifying specific work measures. Third, a scientific and reasonable institutional and position setting plan should be developed. Fourth, a plan for the competition conditions and main responsibilities of each position should be established. Fifth, consideration should be given to the placement of newly hired personnel who have not yet started work. Sixth, a plan for the implementation of position competition should be developed. Seventh, a salary structure plan for employed personnel should be established. Eighth, a complete set of employment contract regulations should be formulated. Ninth, detailed rules for the promotion and demotion of positions should be developed. The first two plans are easy to understand; below, I will briefly discuss the third to ninth plans.

Fifth, it is necessary to set up institutions and positions scientifically and reasonably.

Cultural institutions should set up departments and positions scientifically and reasonably based on the nature of work, business scope, work characteristics, and operational laws, starting from the actual needs of career development, adhering to the principles of 'setting positions according to tasks, streamlining for efficiency, matching positions with responsibilities, and optimizing structure.' This is the key to the success or failure of the reform, and a quantitative calculation of the overall work must be conducted to determine how many departments and positions to establish, maximizing the optimization of the organizational structure. First, the direction of institutional adjustment must be determined; some existing institutions may not be suitable for the actual development and needs of the career, requiring reorganization, with the principle of strengthening key departments and priority development departments while reducing secondary departments. Second, it must be ensured that the responsibilities and tasks of each position are relatively full; people tend to be lazy, and failing to achieve this will lead to the failure of the reform, inevitably causing new personnel to be idle. Therefore, for some positions that must be established and are relatively simple, a multi-role approach should be adopted to eliminate idle time during work as much as possible. Third, based on actual work needs, middle-level deputy positions should be set reasonably; departments with few and relatively simple positions should preferably not set deputy positions to improve departmental efficiency.

Sixth, it is necessary to formulate the competition conditions and main responsibilities of positions.

The implementation of the employment system must clearly define the competition conditions and the main responsibilities of each position in advance; only by clarifying these in advance can fair competition be guaranteed. The basic conditions for competing for each position should be specified, and the job requirements and main responsibilities of each position should be detailed. The number of positions and the level of each position should be clarified. Employees can only selectively determine which position to compete for if they are clear about all these.

Seventh, it is necessary to formulate the implementation plan for position competition.

To ensure the smooth implementation of the competition work and truly reflect the principles of openness, fairness, and justice, a competition review committee should be established. The committee members should preferably consist of external experts and democratically recommended employee representatives, while members of the unit's leadership team should preferably not participate in the review committee to avoid giving candidates the impression that their chances are influenced by the leaders' preferences. Of course, the results of the competition organized and implemented by the committee should be submitted to the unit's leadership team for research and appointment, as the leadership team is fully responsible for the unit. The competition process should include the following steps: first, publish the number of positions; second, application and registration; third, qualification review; fourth, speech and response; fifth, democratic evaluation; sixth, investigation and assessment; seventh, organizational decision; eighth, pre-appointment announcement; ninth, appointment and onboarding.

Eighth, it is necessary to formulate placement methods for personnel who have not been appointed.

During the implementation of the employment system, there will inevitably be personnel who are not hired or are laid off. According to the principle of putting people first, the reform of public institutions should not push laid-off personnel into society but should take measures such as job transfer training or direct appointment for proper placement. Consideration can be given to providing a waiting period of six months to one year for targeted training, after which a competition can be organized. Of course, during the waiting period, performance pay cannot be enjoyed.

Ninth, it is necessary to formulate a salary structure plan for the employment system.

To encourage on-the-job employees to achieve first-class performance and truly reflect first-class talent, first-class performance, and first-class remuneration, a scientific and reasonable distribution system should be implemented, with salary levels differentiated by different levels and positions, establishing a salary structure primarily based on position salary. The salary composition should be set as archival salary + position salary, where archival salary consists of grade salary, allowances, and other basic salaries, reflecting the state's recognition of the employee's years of work. This part of the salary should remain unchanged in the reform, and the so-called differentiation of salary levels refers specifically to the differentiation of position salary; position salary (performance salary) should be based on the total funding amount set by the unit each year multiplied by a coefficient, reflecting the principle of performance and responsibility.

Tenth, it is necessary to formulate complete employment contracts and management regulations.

The management of the employment system differs from traditional administrative management, emphasizing legal compliance and adhering to the principles of 'equality, voluntariness, and consensus.' Therefore, the contract must clearly specify the work position, duties, responsibilities, work content and tasks; employment duration; organizational discipline, work discipline; labor protection and working conditions; remuneration; insurance and welfare benefits; conditions for changing, terminating, or ending the employment contract; responsibilities for violating the employment contract; handling of personnel disputes; and other matters agreed upon by both parties. At the same time, specific daily management regulations must also be formulated, which must not contradict the contract, ensuring that there are rules to follow for every matter.

Eleventh, it is necessary to formulate detailed rules for the promotion and demotion of positions.

Position setting and position levels only address some standard issues of competition, but to resolve the issue of equal treatment for good and bad performance, the specific promotion and demotion of position levels must also be clarified to reflect the principle that positions can be promoted or demoted, and treatment can be increased or decreased. Therefore, specific quantitative standards for job performance should be considered; those who do not meet the quantitative indicators will have their position levels lowered; those who are particularly outstanding will have their position levels promoted, thus forming a dynamic position level management system.

Keywords: Scientific Development Concept, Guidance, Reform

References: Ministry of Organization, Ministry of Propaganda, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Culture 'Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Personnel System in Cultural Institutions' (Ren Fa [2003] No. 14)