5.2 DESCRIPCION POR FASES DEL PROCESO
5.2.1 CONSTRUCCIÓN E INSTALACIÓN DEL CENTRO DE SECCIONAMIENTO
Regional Peculiarities of the Human Resource. The region where the human resources strategy is imple-mented is directly related to the methods, principles, objects and subjects of the program impleimple-mented there. The regional factor applies to both the concentration and specialization of industries. By extension, the regional factor impacts both HR peculiarities and existence of/access to subjects of the implemented program.
49Concept for Long-Term Socio-Economic Development of Russian Federation until 2020
50Material was prepared by Michael Vasiliev (Lomonosov MSU)
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The program essentially places the focus on development of primarily the regions and periphery since they are the areas which need modernization most. Yet the specifi cs of the process means that the more remote from large cities and regional centers, the lower concentration of all types of infrastructure, par-ticularly that of education that was destroyed with greatest intensity during the recent decades.
Absence of teachers as subjects of the Program’s implementation will become a harsh problem in nearly all areas beyond large cities or local centers. Although some areas can do with merely recruiting, training or retraining the existing teachers and trainers, most regions will be confronted with the need to train their teachers from scratch.
In addition, depending on the region, the motivation of employees ready to join the process of moderni-zation will also vary. Here, the trend described above is true. Namely that the further from a local center, the worse the situation with motivation and readiness to change. All active human resources prepared to change have now left for cities and are more or less settled. So in some cases that are the rule rather than exception, implementation will be confronted with the problem that people must be rescued before modernization can even begin, and they need to be raised to a level adequate for modernization. In such areas, modernization is unthinkable as long as we do not get rid of such basic problems as upbringing for kids (with even kindergartens out of reach quite often), alcohol abuse by parents, or no social welfare infra-structure existing whatsoever.
As we can read in par. 15.4 of the Program, the region of implementation is going to impose some ethnic HR diff erences. The key to the process is the ever-growing advent of migrants from year to year who re-place local and native groups in Russia. If issues of ethnic confl icts must be addressed in some regions (as we can well see even now in most regions with high migrant presence), in some areas the program will run into the trivial incompetence in the Russian language and general close-community attitudes of illegal migrant groups. Besides, ‘modernization’ of illegal migrants is a open question, although they account for a sizable share of employment in entire industries.
Another important issue that, unless resolved, can compromise the very idea of national modernization of the whole country rather than its individual parts, is the corruption component. At this time, corruption grows in proportion to the distance to a large city or local center – particularly in education. This process is well illus-trated by such an indicator as the Unifi ed State Examinations were the trend once shown quite obviously as
‘the further from Moscow, the better the results’. This situation exists even though the USE system, when in-troduced, assumed maximum anonymity, protection and comparability of results. The authors of the Strategy fear that the process of modernization in the periphery can smoothly evolve to sales of documents confi rming
‘accomplishment’ of modernization. In addition, another problem exists that can jeopardize the process of modernization locally: the absence of local educational institutions, from a lack of secondary schools to a lack of access to a local college education. This circumstance strengthens internal migration fl ows and increases the infl ux of migrants from the periphery who eventually settle down where they were schooled.
At the time when implementation of the strategy begins, all regions start from diff erent positions and have at least diff erent chances of success. Therefore, to launch implementation in the regions, we have to ad-dress the following tasks:
Divide the territory of the Russian Federation into more or less uniform areas – zones.
1.
Create a coordination center for strategic implementation. Besides its coordinating function, the center 2.
is to furnish all necessary information and programs that local centers need to implement the strategy.
In addition, the center’s function will be to organize lifelong education with no restriction by age or otherwise. To realize the ideology of lifelong education locally, a nationwide network is proposed that would unite all centers, including those of zones, involved in the process of workforce training and education.
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Establish zone centers to coordinate strategic implementation and teach trainers and coaches. Their 3.
function is to coordinate and organize strategic implementation in their respective regions, and to supply faculty to support the process of education. Besides, zone centers will adapt to the strategy the specifi cs of the regional environment.
Create a system to monitor strategic implementation, using both existing control agencies and struc-4.
tures and newly created control systems.
Research interdependence between the new strategy for manpower modernization and the existing 5.
law that regulates education and training, anticorruption laws, migration laws, etc., to accordingly modify the applicable legislation and the Strategy. Interaction of the strategy with the ‘HR – National Professional Workforce’ project must be organized to ensure supply of professionals to implement the Strategy.
Amend existing legislation for better responsibility (including criminal liability) of the subjects of mod-6.
ernization.
Ensure equal and equitable access to the market locally, and remove existing obstacles of red tape and 7.
corruption in Russia’s regions.
Industrial Specifi cs of the Human Resource. Along with the respected region, the prevailing industry will also vary, which in turn will have an impact on the forms and methods of the program’s implementation.
From the standpoint of the industrial sector aspect, we can identify the following key problems to confront the modernization process:
Job creation.
1.
Supply of adequate workforce for existing and newly created jobs.
2.
Supply of stable jobs for ‘non-modernized’ employable population.
3.
Ensuring a stable demand for products of strategic industries in the making.
4.
Building inter-industry product supply chains independent of imports.
5.
It is obvious now that regardless the industry, a key role in addressing the fi rst problem will belong to medium and small businesses, and private enterprise generally as an institution.
Both local and federal governments delegate the job creation function to small business51. The cornerstone of the assumption is refl ected in the HR strategy for small business, now known as downsizing. In brief, both in Russia and all over the world, small business seeks to minimize the number of its full-time employ-ees. There seem to exist two ways out of the situation.
First, we may take the path to increase the number of small businesses. Second, we can create incentives for small businesses to hire more employees. Regardless of the scenario – and the combination of the two seems to be a more viable option – its implementation depends on correctly built package of practicable privileges for small business. It is not quite clear at this time how medium and small businesses can create new jobs in the environment of growing tax loads, no access to loans, strengthening competition was im-ported goods (even if of poor quality), and perplexingly intricate tax law. It is doubtless however that un-less serious support is provided by government, businesses can hardly deliver on their own. The Skolkovo experience that created innovative zones with tax benefi ts must be extended nationwide to all small busi-nesses. Only this can make small business actually benefi cial economic zone in all respects, and only then it can be regarded as an important subject of modernization.
Generally, even today we see inadequate supply of human resources in virtually all industries, with a pal-pable unemployment level at the same time. For example, the sports industry has 59% of the required
51http://www.businessjunior.ru/NewsAM/NewsAMShow.asp?ID=8875
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human resources52, while the fi gure for agriculture is 30%; oil production fares even worse, with 50 unfi lled jobs for each skilled specialist53. Meanwhile, the manpower shortage in one industry occurs along with oversupply in others: we all know that colleges steadily produce large numbers of economists, lawyers and accountants. Such a situation is mainly caused by the existing structure of education and the society’s value system. Today, students prefer humanities and general-purpose professions, while few are tempted by the the career of an industrial worker. The existing system of education in fact works to satisfy the de-mand in such training and must be readjusted to redistribute the priorities and entry gates. Adoption of the Unifi ed State Examinations destroyed all barriers to college and devastated the colleges themselves. If we rethink the USE system in such a way that only highly gifted students can enter universities while the main fl ow of students is redirected to technical colleges, we would seriously improve the current situation with manpower for individual industries.
As mentioned above, schools themselves must also be modernized through an organized system for real and tuition-free retraining of faculty, to exchange experience with their foreign colleagues.
Five-fold reduction in the number of Russia’s strategically important companies54, in conformity with the Presidential decree of June 18, 2010, and the federal government’s decision to discontinue sponsorship and patronage of obsolete and irrelevant industries is going to further aggravate the issue of jobs for the employable population. The problem will impact ‘modernized’ citizens too: the issue of modernized jobs for modernized personnel will become critical. Sad as it is, the problem is inherent in the nature of mod-ernization. Higher labor effi ciency (where Russia is 3 or 4 times behind more developed nations)55, and higher outputs that the government intends to raise in the same proportion56 will result in at least on par job cuts57, with unemployment rocketing. To prevent a social collapse, new jobs have to be created.
However, small business needs an ‘engine’ to drive Russian economy. In many nations, such economic en-gines are the defense industry, machine building and mining. Regardless the economic backbone industry, key development factors include government support, government contracts, and occasionally govern-ment managegovern-ment of the strategic industry. An important condition to build the economy around a single industry or array of industrial sectors is a high enough degree of the industry’s openness for domestic small businesses, and keeping low entry barriers to enter and work in the industry. The lucky companies that join the list of national strategic businesses must receive real institutional support for their activities, not limited to fi nancing alone, but including a custom-made system to supply human resources, sales op-portunities, equipment, and up-to-date technologies.
The above clearly suggests the most important decision that is the cornerstone of the entire program:
modernization is unthinkable without the government’s purposeful, systemic and orderly eff orts to de-velop specifi c industries in any specifi c region. The Russian government has made a good example of such work when it embarked on the Skolkovo project. Yet, the main industry-based diff erence of the Program will be that Skolkovos have to be created literally everywhere, in each industry, each region, in order to a) provide modernized employees with jobs; b) create a mechanism for further continuous HR modernization in Russia – in fact, self-upgrading; c) build a new pillar for Russian economy.
The problem of supplying domestically manufactured components, technologies and materials for pro-duction cannot be resolved without the government’s systemic policy in the fi eld. Indeed, this is a matter
52http://gorodlip.ru/events/e10130110/
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of national economic security. If competently solved, this issue will help address one of the above obsta-cles on the way to modernization: ensuring stable demand for the national product. This problem cannot be removed with protection barriers – ineffi ciency of the approach in the B2C sector was proved with time and practice. For example, the automotive industry in Russia, though expected to realize its unique competitive edge on the future market, now regards the barriers proper as its own competitive advantage.
Therefore, fi rst and foremost, domestic demand must be secured for the domestic manufacturer, and this appears to be easier in the B2B sector.
Thus, from the standpoint of industry-based specifi cs of manpower modernization, the following range of relevant activities can be identifi ed:
Build a nationwide compulsory system of government contract-based manpower training, with the 1.
purpose to supply industries with workforce grown for a specifi c purpose from their infancy.
Create truly benefi cial conditions for operation of medium and small business, in terms of both tax leg-2.
islation and government support and aid in each specifi c issue.
Create conditions under which it would pay small businesses to hire more people.
3.
Develop an employment program for citizens whose training, age, etc. prevent their full integration in 4.
Russia's new economy.
Create a united industry-based coordination agency with functions, among other things, to coordinate 5.
and arrange exchange of technologies and results of innovative activities between domestic business-es and industribusiness-es, prepare government contracts to train specialists, interact with educational institu-tions, etc.
Develop a series of measures for immediate modernization of national law, based on the requirements 6.
of modernization and innovation processes in Russia.
Precise tuning of national education system, to produce more specialists with vocational education 7.
(including college level).
Develop and implement a series of measures to raise the prestige of low status occupations and trades.
8.
Organize interaction between departments and industries to ensure smooth communication in the 9.
Russian manufacturing community.
Specifi cs of Public Employee Training. As mentioned above, the very role of public employees on all levels is to be modernized in the modernized Russia, regardless of their infl uence and involvement in the modernization process. Two problems exist that generate a whole range of lower-level problems: on is in-adequate skills – or incompetence to put it bluntly – of public offi cers in the medium and lower echelons;
the other is corruption. According to the authors of the Strategy, one of the key principles of strategic implementation must be the one that persons placed in charge of human resource modernization both locally and centrally may not be people with experience serving in public offi ce. This disagreeable conclu-sion and unpopular deciconclu-sion were caused directly by low outputs of all eff orts to raise the public sector’s effi ciency during the recent years. The main problem that cannot be resolved without total change of hu-man resources is corruption. This is a disease that requires systemic and radical treatment.
In addition, a serious shortage of public offi cer training programs exists nationwide. If the situation is not so poor in Moscow (where besides the Russian Academy of Public Administration, a whole range of schools exists to train public offi cers, including Moscow State University), Russia’s regions have almost no such institutes and programs. As a consequence, public offi ces are occupied by unprepared specialists (in terms of both morality and vocation). The problem unfortunately needs no series opposition in this coun-try. According to these writers, government management is a particular domain of managerial activities for which would-be offi cials must be prepared even before they are born. This statement is not an exaggera-tion, since it is practically impossible to overcome corruption in a single generation. Thus, the fi rst priority
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is to prepare methodological support for training of public offi cials of every rank and level. Generally, the following objectives can be identifi ed as regards training of public offi cials:
Preparation and enforcement of a rigorous anticorruption policy. In fact, we speak of a new
1. repressive
campaign against public feeds. In 1930s, nobody could pay to escape government repressions and sanctions, and this is the experience of that age that we need to adopt now.
Develop new programs to train public offi cials, and institutes to implement them.
2.
Create serious barriers on entry to public offi cials to select specialists of true skills and merits.
3.
Remote all exit barriers from public offi cials to prevent immunity of public servants.
4.
Build a system of government contracts to train public offi cials. Today, our situation is the same as in 5.
1961, when the best among the best were trained and selected for space exploration. Our modern system of training for public offi cers must rest on the same principles as the system that trained cos-monauts.
Particularities of Business Management Training. The principle described above under which the Skolkovo project is to be implemented nationwide primarily applies to the training of professional manag-ers who are able to control both the modernization process, and the already modernized economy as a whole and its industries and businesses in particular. In addition, the objective of training business people is closely related to the objective to increase the number of small businesses in Russia. A business owner is primarily practically minded, not being a theorist; therefore, the most important task for preparation of future business owners is to create training programs for practical purposes. Since this task is impossible to achieve through any of the existing educational formats, we propose:
Creating all conditions and developing the network for lifelong education institutions.
1.
Providing a regulatory and legal basis to adopt the practical component in the process of multilevel 2.
education.
Creating conditions for real apprenticeship in real companies as an integral part of the training process.
3.
Creating a business training center in Russia, the function of which is to coordinate such educational 4.
activities nationwide. The center must also organize exchange of knowledge, information, technolo-gies etc. between businesses and education institutions.
Develop a system and standards to prepare business trainers at diff erent levels.
5.
Particularities of Engineering Manpower Training. At this time, except for production manpower, it is diffi cult to fi nd any HR area in Russia where the issue of supply would be as acute as with engineering manpower. The 1990s began, among other things, with a slogan that the nation no longer needed as many chicken-feed engineers as it had. 20 years ago. We are left with not a single engineer who would not shame his nation internationally. This is a serious systemic problem with the training of professional engineering human resources. And as long as it is not resolved, it is impossible to have any progress with modernization and an innovation economy. Our problems with ballistic missiles will exist until we resolve the problem of quality training of engineers. Therefore, we need to:
Particularities of Engineering Manpower Training. At this time, except for production manpower, it is diffi cult to fi nd any HR area in Russia where the issue of supply would be as acute as with engineering manpower. The 1990s began, among other things, with a slogan that the nation no longer needed as many chicken-feed engineers as it had. 20 years ago. We are left with not a single engineer who would not shame his nation internationally. This is a serious systemic problem with the training of professional engineering human resources. And as long as it is not resolved, it is impossible to have any progress with modernization and an innovation economy. Our problems with ballistic missiles will exist until we resolve the problem of quality training of engineers. Therefore, we need to: