During the forum "Everything for Victory!" in Tula, much was said about the achievements of domestic defense industry enterprises in strengthening the country's defense capability and solving strategic tasks of the state. The tone of the discussion was set by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who expressed confidence that the defense industry will be provided with solid orders for many years to come, its contribution to the development of the country will grow, which means that the demand for young talented specialists and, in general, for qualified personnel will grow.
Guarantees for years to come
The Head of State stressed the merit of industrial workers, highly qualified personnel, scientists, engineers in ensuring the country's defense capability and the stability of the Russian economy as a whole: "The entire economy has demonstrated stability, withstood unprecedented external pressure and continues to develop confidently. All our industrial enterprises, manufacturing industries, and the construction sector contributed to this result. Our engineers, scientists, who offered original technological solutions in a short time."
The President expressed confidence that enterprises and design bureaus will be guaranteed to be provided with orders for years to come. "The contribution of the defense industry to the development of the country as a whole, to the development of our cities and regions, to the implementation of strategic tasks for the renewal of the economy, transport, industry, fuel and energy sector, social sphere, healthcare, and to increase high-tech exports will grow. Production and assembly lines will be loaded, updated, expanded, and modernized. Qualified personnel and young talented specialists will be in demand," Vladimir Putin said.
School of Professionals
Rostec, the largest Corporation in the field of defense industry and the leader of the domestic engineering industry, uniting over 800 scientific and industrial organizations, plays an important role in the training of specialists necessary for the country.
"The corporation and the country need engineers capable of developing and mass-producing the latest models of aviation and helicopter technology, promising models of engines, medical equipment, radioelectronic technology, information optoelectronic complexes using modern computer design and modeling tools. Such tasks are solved by highly professional engineers working at the intersection of various sciences and disciplines and able to work in teams. Such specialists have been formed since school. Experts from the Corporation's enterprises become mentors of the guys and their guides to current production projects," said Nikolai Volobuev, Deputy General Director of Rostec State Corporation, member of the Bureau of the Union of Machine Builders of Russia.
Rostec's contour implements a seamless approach to advanced training of highly qualified specialists within the framework of the end–to–end system "school – colleges/universities - PISH - enterprise/KB" with guaranteed employment at enterprises. Employers – Corporate organizations – form a list of necessary knowledge, skills and abilities of a graduate of a school and university within the framework of urgent tasks of mastering advanced technologies, promote the transformation of curricula, introduce additional disciplines and career guidance measures.
Engineering classes have been opened in 111 schools across Russia, providing training with an engineering and technical bias, including the Corporation's classes in aviation, IT and biotechmed areas. Educational and methodological materials are being developed jointly with MAI, MIREA, SFU and Bauman Moscow State Technical University. Classes are the recommended entry point for admission to such engineering training programs as "Wings of Rostec" (specialists for aircraft engineering), "Rostec Code" (specialists for IT and radio electronics), "Rostec Biotechmed" (specialists for medical instrumentation), "Rostec Quality" (specialists in quality management). At all stages of education, both high school students and university students undergo in-depth training in specialized subjects, master working specialties. From the first year, students are immersed in real production tasks under the guidance of mentors. Thanks to this, industrial enterprises receive specialists at the exit who are as ready to work as possible. According to the results of the training, employment is guaranteed.
"The professional trajectory of graduates of our tracks at enterprises can be different, as the programs are aimed at training integrator engineers who are able to design the entire product lifecycle at a given cost. Systems thinking is needed both in mass production, at the development stage, and in marketing. The best graduates have the opportunity to enroll in advanced engineering schools programs, within which they are involved in conducting real scientific and development work in the interests of industry," said Yulia Tsvetkova, Director of Personnel Management at the Corporation.
With the participation of Rostec State Corporation, advanced engineering schools have been opened on the basis of 15 specialized universities. At the same time, the volume of investments in schools, in their equipment and the implementation of research programs is growing: if in 2023 the State Corporation allocated more than 730 million rubles for the development of engineering schools, then in 2024 it is planned to have more than 1 billion rubles.
Growth conditions
Nikolay Volobuev, Deputy General Director of Rostec State Corporation, member of the Bureau of the Union of Machine Builders of Russia, raised issues of corporate support for specialists in his speech at the forum.
"The first in the list of factors affecting the socio-psychological state of employees is material well–being," he noted. – Rostec is the largest socially responsible employer. The Corporation has developed and implemented comprehensive social support measures for employees and their families, and every effort is being made to ensure that employees are focused only on production tasks. The employer strives to close all issues related to ensuring a decent standard of living."
Support for employees is conducted in several areas: healthcare, housing program, non-governmental pension provision, etc. Expenses for these purposes are growing: if in 2022 14 billion rubles were allocated to finance social support measures, then in 2023 – 18 billion rubles.
The Corporation's housing program offers partial compensation or subsidization of interest and down payment on mortgages, rent and utility payments. The Rostec Square Meters program is also available to employees of industrial enterprises, which allows to reduce the cost of housing by up to 40% in comparison with market conditions.
Rostec's corporate support system includes not only social programs, but also professional support and personal growth opportunities. For example, a motivation system has been introduced in which an employee can receive additional remuneration depending on the personal and team-wide results of the project in which he is involved.
The "vector" of new ideas
The most important element of the corporate employee support system is also the mentoring institute. "We are actively developing a mentor training program and tools for the ideological work of mentors. The tasks of such specialists are not only to transfer key knowledge and adapt young people in the team, but also to form state thinking and broadcast corporate values," Nikolay Volobuyev said.
In addition, a good opportunity for professional growth is participation in corporate championships of professional excellence, for example, in the Rostec championship "Time of the First". The best employees of the Corporation's organizations, students and schoolchildren of sponsored educational institutions participate in these competitions. The winners become members of the personnel reserve and can move up the career ladder faster.
Finally, in the contour of the State Corporation, since 2018, the Vector program has been implemented on the basis of the Rostec Academy, whose task is to find and develop promising specialists, as well as new product ideas for the civilian market. Within the framework of this program, over four years, more than 15 thousand employees applied for participation, more than 3 thousand new product ideas were created, 36 projects were selected and received funding totaling over 730 million rubles.
On a serial scale
In his speech at the Tula forum, Vladimir Putin recalled that Russian defense industry enterprises are continuously working in three shifts, mastering the production of fundamentally new military equipment. "Since the beginning of the special operation, the supply of drones of various types and artillery ammunition to the troops has increased significantly. There was a tenfold increase in personal protective equipment, a seven–fold increase in automotive equipment, and a five–fold increase in tanks – this is a decent indicator. For infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers – more than 3.5 times," the president noted, adding that the fulfillment of the state defense order is now at the level of 100%.
At the same time, civil production at defense industry enterprises increased by 27%, the president noted. "The greatly increased potential of our enterprises allows us to successfully solve this task. And it is also important, if not the most important. The branches of our economy now need new domestic machines, devices, equipment, promising materials, and the defense industry is able to provide all this on a serial scale," Vladimir Putin said.
By the end of 2023, Rostec has significantly increased the production of military products. At the same time, despite the significantly increased workload, the Corporation maintains high volumes of civil production. To solve the strategic tasks of the state, the Corporation's enterprises additionally attracted almost 40 thousand specialists in 2023.