Sergey Ushakov, Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom, made a report today at the XIII Annual International Conference “New high technologies in gas and oil industry, power production and communications” (CITOGIC’2003) in St.-Petersburg. The subject of the report: “Social technologies of personnel management at the current stage of the labor forces development”.

Sergey Ushakov started his speech with a remark that one of the key factors shaping the competitive power of any company is the employment of highly qualified specialists capable of addressing the challenges.

Over the last years, Gazprom has pursued a consistent and targeted work aimed at upgrading its personal management policy and implementing new social technologies, taking into account the corporate development strategy. This work resulted in the development of the corporate personnel policy aimed at increasing production efficiency of each employee and strengthening the role of personality.

The most important aspect of Gazprom’s personnel policy is the development of the staff vocational competence. Gazprom was one of the first companies in Russia to create and to constantly improve the system of targeted professional development of employees based on continuous advanced training. The system includes the following stages:

• primary training of persons employed by Gazprom;
• second year training when an employee is supposed to get detailed knowledge of the organization where he or she works, of the equipment and technologies;
• training and development over entire professional activity of an employee in order to maintain the skills;
• personnel throughout the career ladder.

To provide on-going training of employees, Gazprom has established about 30 specialized professional training centers. About 3,000 employees are annually trained at Gazprom’s training centers, and some 40,000 specialists undergo advanced training courses in Gazprom’s specialized centers, and another 44,000 – at centers arranged directly at enterprises.

In the frames of cooperation with the European gas companies BASF, Wintershall and Ruhrgas, the program of seminars and practical training has been elaborated for managers.

Special attention is paid to the development of vocational competence of managers and preparation of personnel’s reserve. The main objective of this program is to prepare a new type manager armed with deep and complete knowledge required for successful and efficient work in market economy, and, at the same time, to retain and augment positive traditions in the gas industry management training. The Company has established the Managers’ School for implementation of the program.

Sergey Uchakov stressed the importance of forming personnel’s reserve for the top positions in Gazprom. A 2-year program of top-managers training was developed in cooperation with the St.-Petersburg International Management Institute (IMISP) and in compliance with the MBA standards. 22 persons from the top-managers reserve were trained according to the program in 2001 and 2002; 8 of them have already been appointed directors of Gazprom’s subsidiaries.

A 3-stage training program known as the Young Specialist School intended for purposeful selection, efficient training and use of promising young specialists was arranged in Gazprom. The first stage is intended for professional adaptation of young specialists in the gas industry and selection of the most talented of them. The most promising young specialists with inclination to leadership are admitted to the second stage of training. The objective of the third stage is preparation for training abroad.

“The personnel policy of Gazprom means a system of social technologies aimed at the staff management, intended to provide a secure, responsible and highly professional employee”, - concluded his report Sergey Ushakov.

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