The officials in Changyuan County in central China's Henan province have now made new rules for employee promotions. Apart from evaluating a worker on the basis of his or her hard work in the office, the employer will also consider how a particular worker treats his parents.

Assessment teams plan to interview officials' family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, subordinates as well as members of the public to judge their character and give them appraisal. Most importantly, they will judge a worker on the bases of his behavior towards his parents.

Xinhua news quotes Su Jingquan, a county official as saying, "The assessment teams will have a lot of work on their plate, but the new measures are an impartial way of appraising officials' image in the eyes of the public."

Chinese officials, who give a lot of importance to filial piety and traditional values, say the measure was introduced as a way to restore the traditional Chinese value in new generation people who are on the verge of losing them.