Corporate University of the ALROSA Championship partner: educational technologies for professional growth

You can get a high-quality education and in-demand skills at the ALROSA Corporate University, which is a partner of the Reliable Shift Foundation and its flagship project, the International Engineering Championship CASE-IN. The main task of the university, established at the beginning of 2022 on the basis of the Personnel Training Center, is to develop the potential of the company's employees, but more recently, not only current employees, but also those who are not yet affiliated with ALROSA, can become students of the university's educational programs.

The university teaches not only working professions, but also conducts career guidance in schools, and develops programs focused on strategic business development. The geography of education is Mirny, Aikhal, Udachny, Lensk, Yakutsk, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Smolensk and Arkhangelsk.

Local personnel — to the industry

The ALROSA Corporate University plays an important role in the implementation of the "Local Personnel to Industry" program. This work is carried out within the framework of the agreement between ALROSA and its subsidiary Almazy Anabara JSC on mutual cooperation with the RS(Ya) State Committee on Employment, signed in 2018.

ALROSA is willing to hire young people and rural residents, giving them the opportunity to develop their professional skills. They work in different professions, both as workers and engineers. Those who lack qualifications study at the ALROSA Corporate University. There is a mentoring program and an institute of internal trainers for new employees.

The university's work is designed so that the company's employees have the opportunity to constantly develop themselves by participating in various educational corporate programs. The largest of them are ALROSA's Potential, a program designed to give an impetus to innovation and innovation activities, and to form an engineering and scientific youth talent pool in the company. ALROSA Leaders is a corporate program for the company's management team that helps develop corporate competencies and managerial skills. Argys (Sputnik, yak.) is a program to adapt new workers from remote parts of the country, including representatives of indigenous peoples of the North, to work at ALROSA industrial sites.

Career guidance work

The Corporate University consistently implements a comprehensive career guidance program. The tasks include popularizing the ALROSA brand as a responsible employer among schoolchildren and students of institutions of higher and secondary vocational education, implementing a corporate youth policy, and forming a pool of talented young people.

Today, ALROSA's corporate classes are operating — grades 10 and 11 at the Polytechnic Lyceum in Mirny. This year, the geography of the project has expanded significantly due to online learning. The application campaign for the 10th ALROSA Class is starting the other day, where all interested schoolchildren of the republic can become students.

To improve the level of teaching, an agreement was signed with the educational company FluentRussia, thanks to which classes in ALROSA classes are taught by teachers of the Physical and Technical Lyceum of Chelyabinsk, authors and experts of the Unified State Exam assignments. The students of the corporate classes also study technical English, the program includes a career guidance block and a meeting with the company's leaders on the "TOP Class" project.

The annual career guidance game "My Choice" has become for all students in grades 8-10 in the Mirninsky district. Corporate classes also take part in the School League of the International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN". Since 2019, ALROSA has been a strategic partner of the Student League of the Championship in two directions.: "Mining" and "Geological exploration". And in 2022, a new direction appeared — "Mining machinery and equipment".

Other areas of work

The corporate University is open to new partners and educational technologies. Other areas of work include compulsory and professional training, training and development of internal coaches, development of professional communities, career guidance and youth work, conducting team and strategic sessions in a variety of developmental and educational areas, development and implementation of personnel development programs, and much more.

Currently, the Corporate University's portfolio includes 273 industrial training programs, 60 online courses, and 49 trainings. University specialists conduct webinars and trainings, some students independently take asynchronous online courses, and in some cases a hybrid learning format is used.

More than eight thousand ALROSA employees are trained in industrial safety and labor protection programs. More than nine thousand annually undergo training in professional training and advanced training programs.

"Staff training and development is an important component of our company's corporate strategy. There is probably no one at ALROSA who would not participate in the educational programs of our university one way or another.", — says Alla Popova, head of the ALROSA Corporate University, and adds that in parallel with the current programs, new trainings are being developed and new forms of group interaction are being tested.

One of the main and priority tasks of the Corporate University remains the development of a practice-oriented approach in the preparation of working specialties.

The theoretical part of the programs related to general technical courses and legislation is being transferred to an online format. This allows students to study at any time convenient for them. After passing the theory, they can devote the remaining time to developing skills, taking into account the specifics of production. This makes it possible not only to improve and work with the equipment in practice, but also reduces the likelihood of accidents at work.

Mikhail Prysyazhny, First Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Yakutia:

"In the modern period, Russia has faced several challenges related to the shortage of qualified personnel due to a long break in equipping vocational education institutions, a decline in production, and demographic problems. A number of companies are trying to address issues comprehensively, not just through training. They form teams that will work together for a long period of time. One of the most striking examples of the past year is the opening of the ALROSA Corporate University Training Center.

We are positive about its creation and the fact that a large company pays attention to it. Its programs focus on courses that are based on modern technologies and teaching methods, using trainings, team building and strategic sessions. The corporate university is focused not only on professional growth, but also on personal growth and career development within the company."

Consider trends

Alla Popova, Head of ALROSA Corporate University:

"It is important to understand that the Corporate University, as before the Personnel Training Center, retains its main purpose — the creation of educational products for business needs. The approach to education formation has changed dramatically. Guided by its new role as an educational center, the Corporate University is the first to go to business and offer new forms and new content of education in order to anticipate the goals and tasks that businesses will face in the future. Advanced training is an important difference between a university and a Training center. The Corporate University has filled the company's education policy with new meanings. Today's changeable world dictates its own laws. In the new world, changes should come from the person himself, his development should become his own initiative, which the university should support.

The HR function is undergoing a transformation, and, of course, the learning and development processes cannot remain on the sidelines. Automation is going on everywhere, from HR records management to human capital development. And this is a chance to make fewer mistakes and focus more on the person and their needs, including learning.

Until recently, no one measured staff engagement, motivation was considered only material, the feedback culture was insufficiently developed, and the learning culture was not interpreted correctly.

But we are changing: we are turning from the organizers of training into its creators, from evaluating quantity to evaluating quality. The focus is shifting from external training to in-house expertise, which, by the way, is unique and incomparable with other companies. We must go into business and offer new training formats, becoming a business partner, transforming ourselves from application executors to equal participants in the process."

Natalia Petukhova, Head of Personnel Recruitment and Development Department:

"Training in our company fulfills several key tasks. This is not just the transfer of knowledge from one employee to another, but also, in many ways, the formation of a corporate attitude to knowledge, the formation of a corporate culture. This is not only about improving the efficiency of our employees, but also about supporting complex transformation processes in the company. This is, of course, the development of corporate and professional competencies.

A corporate university is not only and not so much a fashion statement, it is the formation of a culture of knowledge transfer from employee to employee. This is a proactive approach to learning, when we build the learning process on anticipating the future in the development of production and management, as opposed to the usual, but not quite effective, reactive approach.

The University is a team of professionals (trainers, methodologists, teachers, administrators) who approach the knowledge management process from a systematic perspective. Our company occupies a unique place in both the Russian and global markets, so often we cannot take the knowledge, skills, and abilities that we need "from the outside." There are simply no people on the foreign market with the necessary experience and expertise for us. That's why the Corporate University will become a place where knowledge lives."

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