Theory and practice of personnel management - Shchekin GV

7.2. Education and business

In the West, large firms have, as a rule, their own system of training, retraining and advanced training of personnel [2]. This is a network of special educational institutions that have a strong material and technical base, staff of qualified teachers. In high-tech industries, 75-85% of all categories of personnel are retrained annually. Companies have the right to award their employees with academic degrees. In business circles, it is rightly said in this connection about the transformation of corporations into "institutes of continuous education". One of the Carnegie Foundation's reports is entitled "Classes of Corporations: Learning Business." According to the authors of the report, US corporations spend at least $ 60 billion a year on education and training of their personnel. The total US expenditures in this area are comparable only with the costs of the defense industry [1; 2].

In modern conditions, an extremely important task comes to the fore: to provide training for a new type of worker (worker, farmer, manager, etc.). Its most important qualities are professional flexibility and mobility, that is, the ability to quickly retrain or even change their profession if necessary. Mandatory elements of qualification - a solid general education, extensive vocational training and high cultural and technical level, the ability to quickly update and replenish knowledge. A modern worker in practically any field of activity must have the ability to economically think, work in creative teams, have training in marketing, and also clearly understand the economic, social and cultural aspects of the introduction of new technologies. In addition, he needs discipline, initiative, sense of responsibility, communication, devotion and a creative attitude to the case - the so-called extra-functional (beyond the professional qualities) characteristics, which in the West are united by the new concept of "social qualification".

Thus, the content of qualifications changes radically: the subjective side is strengthened, and the role of socio-psychological factors is increasing. The very concept of education is also changing; It is more determined not by the amount of specific knowledge, but by methodological training plus computer literacy and a certain level of information culture. At the same time, a completely new concept is being formed: "third literacy": a culture of communication, aesthetic education, broad intellectual activity, which characterizes the general culture of man [1; 2].

The educational systems of the USA , Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France, Sweden have a sufficiently high degree of structural differentiation and flexibility, the ability to adapt quickly to the changes taking place.

The requirements for modern production can be met only by constantly raising the level of education and qualification of engineering and technical workers, accelerated training of research specialists, developers of new technology. Qualified personnel is a factor without which the necessary level of labor productivity can not be ensured. "People - the highest technology" - this is the current motto.

Particularly interesting is the experience of Japan. According to researchers, one of the secrets of the "Japanese miracle" lurks in understanding the new role of education in society, in that business has made a major stake on a person. The Japanese entrepreneur acts, if one may so express it, for "Taylorism on the contrary," for maximizing the creative potential of each worker. Continuous training of all categories of personnel (workers, engineering and management personnel), continuous retraining and advanced training - these are the basic strategy and the goal of personnel policy. The result of this was a new form of labor - the work of a well-trained disciplined worker with a new feeling, the ability to think outside the box, without regard for "authority", and also a high motivation for creativity and invention.

For the retraining of personnel, Japanese enterprises spend annually 10-12% of the wage fund. Training is seen as an important part of the worker's work activity. In parallel with the modernization of production, specialists are trained on new technology. Both processes are planned in such a way that by the time the new equipment is installed, a required number of specialists needed to qualify, who were familiar with this equipment during installation and debugging.

In order to involve all personnel in the process of reconstruction and training, each of its categories is preliminarily explained the goals and objectives of technological transformations, as well as the benefits expected from them. Leading specialists of the company and universities are involved in teaching. They are given complete freedom in solving professional problems, provided that the final goal is achieved-the training of highly qualified personnel. Passing courses increases the prestige of the employee, contributes to his professional and career growth. At present, the overall qualification level of the Japanese workforce is considered to be the highest in the world.

The need to intensify the training of highly qualified personnel, in particular engineers, is universally recognized for strengthening the economic potential. In the FRG, France, Great Britain and a number of other countries, special centers for training, retraining and advanced training have been set up, formed by several similar enterprises cooperatively, and, with significant savings, bring the content of curricula closer to the specific needs of enterprises and solve personnel problems more quickly.

In the US, training programs of various kinds for engineers are implemented directly in firms and training and counseling centers. For these purposes considerable funds are spent, many firms create their own educational institutions. Along with this, large firms have special educational institutions, where engineers with financial support of their enterprises can carry out dissertation research. One of the forms of advanced training is specialized scientific and practical seminars, where during a week the students get acquainted with specific scientific achievements and technical innovations with a break from production. As managers of the seminars, specialists of the firm and teachers of higher education are involved.

In all countries video equipment and other modern technical means of instruction are widely used. Attention, in particular, is the form of training, such as the organization of video classes at enterprises where the administration buys equipment, acquires training courses in video recordings. An extremely effective means of training are laser compact discs that allow you to reproduce on a computer very large volumes of recorded audio and video information [1; 2].

Never before has the factor of creativity in the renewal of production played such a significant role as now. To withstand competition, companies need specialists with high creative potential. We are talking about developers of new equipment and technologies, professional users of electronic data processing systems, specialists in computer science, programmers ("golden collars" of enterprises). In addition to high professional training, they require a qualitatively new dynamics of thinking: creativity and ingenuity; Knowledge of professional characteristics and patterns of related units; Application of an integrated approach and its implementation in original technical solutions; The ability to work in a team and manage based on the interests of the company. In other words, specialists with high creative potential should have their own position, be able to make decisions in non-standard situations and take the initiative [1; 2].

The ingenuity of Japanese companies in the activation of the creative principle and its stimulation is of great interest to researchers around the world. There are well-known circles of quality in Japan, groups of interesting ideas, the so-called system of proposals. The essence of these forms of organization of labor is the granting of the right and the opportunity to intervene in the affairs of the firm, to make proposals on the technological process, to participate in the rationalization of production. According to statistics, in Japan, each private sector worker raises an average of 19 proposals per year related to new ideas and projects, 76% of them are used in practice.

Modern business relies on creativity and improvement of cadres, because (according to the experience of American firms) every 35 thousand dollars invested in education bring profit to 1 million dollars.

At the same time, if special knowledge can be best transferred in the process of training in the workplace, then the so-called extrafunctional qualities must be vaccinated to students in the process of schooling. Therefore, companies seek to expand contacts with schools and universities.

The interest of firms and companies in professionally trained graduates of schools and universities is so great that one can talk about the formation of an alliance of education and business. In what forms is this union implemented? Large high-tech firms in the United States are constantly implementing programs for the professional orientation of students in the upper grades. Schoolchildren with a penchant for exact sciences are invited to the laboratory and experienced shops of firms. They learn to work in research groups, thus gaining the opportunity to more accurately make a choice of profession. Such educational programs as "exchange game", various kinds of "economic games" financed by business are organized. Their goal is to familiarize students with the economic mechanism of the enterprise, to teach them to analyze the budget, lending, and conjuncture. This goal is pursued by special seminars on investment, summer business camps.

In the struggle to improve the quality of training, corporations offer different ways. One of them is the introduction of the principle of competition in school education with the help of the so-called voucher system (from the English voucher - check). What it is? Suppose that the cost of teaching one child in a public school is 2.5 thousand dollars. The Ministry of Education issues a check to parents for this amount, and parents choose their own school. In the struggle for "vouchers" from which the budget is formed, there is a natural competition between schools. Those that can not form the necessary budget are closed. This question was widely debated in the United States. If earlier the majority of Americans opposed such a system, recently, according to the results of a poll conducted by the Galla Institute, 51% favored it, 38% opposed it. This problem is dealt with by a specially created institute, and in some states there are already "school-vouchers".

The urgent need for big business has been the intensification of cooperation with universities, which is largely facilitated by joint research projects. A new training course "Creativity in business" was introduced. If earlier graduates of higher educational institutions were used at enterprises mostly in the role of consultants, now they conduct research directly on the orders of corporations, often occupy high administrative posts, and sometimes become co-owners of firms.

Significant assistance from companies to technical universities. They are provided with equipment for joint research on the subject of interest to the company. Students get the opportunity to work on real problems, which for them is both a good school and additional earnings.

There is also the practice of attracting undergraduates to work during the summer holidays in order to familiarize themselves with the specifics of production, the content and nature of labor, and the acquisition of production experience. Wages are set as a percentage of the initial rates of university graduates (usually 12.5% ​​lower). Selection of students is carried out by personnel of the HR department and managers of the company's functional divisions, which saves it from additional costs associated with acquiring the necessary experience by young specialists.

To study the problems associated with giftedness, considerable funds are allocated. In the United States, for example, talent is regarded as a national asset. There is a constant process of searching for young talents. There is a Council for gifted and talented children. Special conditions for their development are created: the accelerated course is encouraged, extended training programs are applied. Schools for "child prodigies" and "supersads" are open, where children under the age of five are enrolled in school curricula. To gifted students special funds pay for their studies and allocate scholarships [1; 2].

The search for talents does not stop in ordinary, mass schools, which is greatly facilitated by the individualization of teaching, which has long been widely accepted and applied in practice. Individual approach is based on the objective factor of children's differences in abilities and interests. But if differentiation involves the separation of students in fundamentally different profiles, with different learning objectives and terms, then the individualization of learning, on the contrary, is based on educational objectives common to the given profile, for the achievement of which different paths are offered. An important role is played by the principle of "free choice of subjects" and the rejection of compulsory curricula as not conforming to modern requirements. According to sociologists, this approach provides equal chances for education.

Great opportunities for the individualization of training opens up the introduction of computers into the educational process, as they, along with other newest technical means, allow maximum intensification and individualization of the pace of mastering knowledge.

In the mid-80s of the twentieth century. Companies of the USA, Japan, Germany, Great Britain began an unprecedented experiment, connected with the idea of ​​universal computerization of education, with the aim of mastering all students "second literacy", including practical skills in working with electronic computers. The skills of "communication" with the computer have now become a necessary condition for mastering many academic subjects. There is a massive introduction of computers in educational institutions of all levels.

The use of computer technology in the educational process makes it possible to significantly improve the quality of training (in particular, through the rational distribution of the study material, control over the independent activity of students), significantly broadens the possibilities for individualizing learning, stimulates the craving for knowledge, and makes the learning process effective and engaging. All this significantly saves material resources, the time of listeners and teachers. Such interest in modern technical means of education is explained not only by the needs of production. An important role here is played by the direction of development of the whole society - its informatization, ie, the dissemination and introduction of new data and knowledge into all spheres of life. "Production" of information becomes one of the most profitable industries.

The best minds of mankind have for centuries associated great hopes with the enlightenment of the people. In our time, this humanistic idea has acquired special significance. With the change in the content of professions, the restructuring of the occupational structure of employment requires new knowledge and abilities, a completely different general and special training of the workforce, a different type of qualification. A country that does not have an education system capable of timely training highly qualified personnel is doomed to lag [1; 2].