PJSC "T Plus" and "CASE-IN": educating personnel for the country

PJSC T Plus is not just the largest Russian company operating in the field of electric power and heat supply. Today, it is one of the leaders in the fuel and energy complex in organizing youth personnel policy, where they know how to work with promising specialists and open new horizons for them. According to statistics, about 500 students of specialized universities undergo internship at the branches of the energy giant every year, 100 of whom are subsequently employed at the enterprise. In today's reality, this is a very significant indicator.

The company managed to organize work with young personnel largely due to its participation in one of the projects of the presidential platform "Russia – the land of opportunities" — the International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN". For 9 years in a row, schoolchildren, students and current industry specialists have been solving cases – real production tasks developed by the country's leading companies – mastering new competencies and gaining unique opportunities for personal and career growth. About the "love story" of T Plus and the championship, as well as about the great opportunities that participation in a prestigious project gives to the company's employees – in our material.

How it all started

For the first time, young T Plus employees got acquainted with the championship four years ago, when the Sverdlovsk and Saratov branches became pilot sites for testing the CASE-IN methodology. As he remembers Oksana Kritikova, Head of Corporate Culture and Brand at the employer of PJSC T Plus This experience was recognized as successful, after which it was decided to include the project in the annual corporate youth work program.

"We have built a system of participation in the championship by analogy with professional skills competitions — the winners of the corporate league reached the level of the main industry competition. Since 2019, youth teams from all 16 regions of the company's business representative office have started participating in the championship.", — Oksana Kritikova told.

From the first medals to your own league

Not so long ago engagement PJSC "T Plus" in the "CASE-IN" was limited to the participation of teams of employees in the League of Young Professionals. Moreover, the power engineers did not shy away from their colleagues from other companies and demonstrated decent results. In the 2018 season, they managed to win two medals at once: at the Cup within the framework of the conference "Electric Power Industry through the eyes of Youth", the team of the Sverdlovsk Branch of PJSC T Plus took the second place, and the team of the Saratov branch took the third. The following year, luck smiled on their colleagues from Udmurtia, who took second place in the Autumn Cup.

However, three years ago, the company acquired its own competition within the framework of the CASE-IN championship, the Special League of PJSC T Plus, which opened up new horizons for young employees.

The main objectives of the league, according to the organizers, are the development of professional and leadership skills, moral and intellectual qualities of employees, attracting young people to actively participate in solving scientific and production activities and economic challenges facing the company and the industry as a whole, and transferring experience from leading employees to young employees.

The Special League is an effective system with a clear strategy and tangible opportunities for participants. To begin with, young power engineers demonstrate their solutions on a topic pre-determined by the company's experts at the qualifying stages that take place at PJSC T Plus. The best participants receive tickets to the decisive stage of the competition, which, by the way, is organized as part of the general final of the "CASE-IN" championship. This allows energy companies to showcase their projects to the general public and learn from the experience of the best industry experts.

Pavel Nuzhdin, Deputy Head of the Department and Head of the Strategy Controlling Department at PJSC T Plus: "Everything happens very fast in the modern world. To keep your finger on the pulse, you need to think strategically and think through your decisions one step ahead. The league allows industry professionals to look at themselves and their company in the future, to think about the development of personal qualities and the company. She helps the active and brave to keep up with the times, to develop the industry and the country with their ideas."

"The main reward for each of the league's participants is the application of their ideas and projects in practice in one form or another.,  "I'm convinced Chairman of the Expert Commission, Head of the Department for the Development of Thermal Units of PJSC T Plus   Anna Fedoseeva. –  If the ideas contained in the cases are continued in the future, specialists will be able to reach a qualitatively new level and receive an impetus for career and personal development."

 What has the season brought?

In 2021, 50 young specialists from 11 regions of the company's presence participated in the Special League of PJSC T Plus. Young specialists put forward ideas for the modernization of production and the energy industry in the post-crisis period. They had to identify and analyze the key factors of the pandemic that had the greatest impact on the company's work, then propose changes to its strategy based on new conditions and priorities. At the same time, it was necessary to take into account the overcoming of negative factors.

6 teams of young specialists took part in the decisive test. In the final of the main season, which took place from May 31 to June 2 in Moscow, they determined the winners and prize-winners of the league.

The Gorky S Team was recognized as the winner.  It consisted of employees of the Nizhny Novgorod branch Dmitry Molev (team captain), Evgeny Grishchenko, Roman Popov, Dmitry Tsygorov, Victoria Fedorchatenko.

"We are participating in the CASE-IN championship for the third time, last year we took second place, and now we are the first. Our victory is the result of the well–coordinated work of the team, long-term training, the help of a mentor and the support of the branch management.", " He told me Dmitry Molev.

In the case study, as the captain recalls, the winners were asked to consider changing the company's strategy in the event of a possible continuation of the coronavirus pandemic in the next 5 years.

"Taking into account the restrictions imposed, the decline in industrial production and the drop in heat and electricity consumption, we needed to develop measures to compensate for the negative impact and create the most effective work model., – says Dmitry. – In our team decision, we proposed to implement a list of measures aimed at developing sales markets, expanding the list of services provided and reducing the negative impact on the environment. The most difficult, but at the same time interesting part is the diversification of the service package. The difficulty in the development lies in the fact that in an already established industry with an established sales market, we find opportunities to occupy additional niches, such as the production of carbon dioxide from the flue gases of thermal power plants or the construction of our own data center with the provision of its capacities to IT companies. But we were able to overcome all the difficulties and achieve the desired result."

The winner also shared the secret of his team's success. According to him, to protect the case, it is necessary to carefully work out all the details from technical solutions to the presentation style and the text of the speech.

The result of the team was highly appreciated by the employer.

"The victory in the championship confirms the high professional level of our young specialists. The team members demonstrated excellent preparation and team spirit. I am sure that they will adequately represent the company in the future.", – noted Alexander Frolov, Director of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of T Plus.

The silver medals were won by power engineers from the Mordovian branch Artem Samarin (captain), Alexander Korotkov, Sergey Shumilkin Evgeny Buralkin and Irina Shtyrova (Live S team).

In their project, the Saransk team analyzed four factors that had an impact on T Plus's operations due to the pandemic: switching to remote operation, reducing electricity consumption, reducing new customer connections, and collecting heat payments. As alternative ways to develop T Plus power plants in modern conditions, the guys proposed a number of solutions for digital business transformation.

The top three were rounded out by employees of the Orenburg branch Andrey Bikbaev (captain), Alexey Belyaev, Konstantin Kryukov, Nikolai Starodubtsev and Sergey Tenyakov, united in the "Always in the Black" team.

Team Captain Andrey Bikbaev He has been working for the company for about nine years. The main thing for a young specialist, in his opinion, is to learn as much as possible about the areas of activity of the enterprise and the industry as a whole in order to choose the most suitable one for themselves. That's exactly what the championship helps with.

"Our team's decision consisted of several main criteria: reducing the risks of staff health loss, preventing production shutdowns in the current time period, and identifying factors that negatively affect the economy of the Orenburg branch during the pandemic., — says Andrey. —  We also proposed measures to curb the negative growth of the Orenburg branch's margin income, worked out in detail the unique proposals needed for the branch's future strategy, and evaluated the economic efficiency."

Presenting the awards to the contestants, Anna Fedoseeva noted that 25% of the participants in the Special League of PJSC "T Plus" receive a new appointment in the company during the year.: "We have been going toe—to-toe with CASE-IN for three years now. Many of the specialists who participated in the championship now hold senior positions in the company, in their branches and even in the corporate center. The topics of the cases that the guys are working on as part of the project are extremely relevant for the industry and the company.  This year was definitely no exception. The solutions that the past season has provided are interesting for us. And today, updating the company's strategy, we have seen quite a lot of ideas that can be refined and then applied in production."

The company and its specialists at the "CASE—IN": advantages for everyone

One of the projects of the presidential platform is important both for young professionals and for their employer. Through solving the case, young power engineers improve their skills, gain new knowledge and practical experience, which sometimes cannot be found at the enterprise. Moreover, the authors of the most promising solutions get new career opportunities and can enter the management personnel reserve their companies.

Pavel Nuzhdin: "The championship takes participants out of their comfort zone. Here they undergo a good external training course, which makes them more experienced and better at solving problems, presenting themselves and their projects. I think it's important for the guys to get acquainted with the ideas of their colleagues from other teams, gain new knowledge and broaden their horizons, and look at everyday things from a different angle. Thanks to the project, they will be able to reach a new level and learn how to think strategically. It is easier to work with such specialists and communicate the general objectives of the company."

"For us, the championship is not just an HR project, — Oksana Kritikova explains. = This is a business activity that supports the full-fledged functioning and development of the company in all branches. By immersing themselves in solving cases, our employees solve the strategic tasks of PJSC T Plus, which we have outlined at the highest level. And, undoubtedly, participation in the "CASE—IN" has a positive effect on the results demonstrated by specialists in production in the future."

Andrey Bikbaev, the bronze medalist of the Special League of PJSC "T Plus" in 2021: "The competition has taught us how to coordinate into an effective team, able to work in a limited time frame, not to succumb to stress during the development and protection of cases. As part of the case solution, the team learns a huge amount of information in a short time, which greatly enhances competencies and is an invaluable advantage for the company."

PJSC "T Plus" is considering the championship to update the personnel reserve and search for new ideas that can be put into practice in the future.  Also, do not forget about the increasing level of loyalty to the company and prestige among the youth of the industry due to the engineering competition.

Dmitry Molev, the captain of the winners of the Special League: "The championship allows the company to formulate the tasks that need to be solved and get an outside view of the solution. The view will be much broader than the one that can be obtained in a normal work environment."

"This platform provides an opportunity to see its young employees from a completely different perspective, helps them identify new talents and introduce fundamentally "fresh" solutions to their work. The Championship, as well as the projects that we receive as a result, open up new opportunities for all parties to solve existing problems in the industry and overcome the consequences of the pandemic. "CASE—IN" is an effective key to the development of personnel policy", — Anna Fedoseeva summed up.

In general, the involvement of the country's largest heat generating company and its employees in the CASE-IN engineering competition system is a vivid example of the education and development of reliable personnel who, with their extraordinary solutions, are able to stimulate the development of the fuel and energy sector.

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