Energy engineers named the main trends in the development of human resources in Russia

On Thursday, October 12, as part of the Russian Energy Week, a session “Integration of knowledge and technology as a factor in the development of the Russian fuel and energy complex” was held. During the event, top managers of the largest energy companies discussed the prospects for cooperation with representatives of the country’s best industry universities. According to the participants, such cooperation is critical to maintaining the country’s leadership in the fuel and energy sector and the further development of the industry.

The moderator of the session, General Director of the Russian Energy Agency Alexey Kulapin, gave the floor to representatives of Rosatom, PJSC RusHydro and En+. Leaders of the largest energy companies spoke about their approach to working with talented young people and forming a talent pool. The session participants focused on the importance of training teaching staff in the regions.

How to attract young people to the energy sector

En+ Operations Director Mikhail Hardikov touched upon the important topic of involving future specialists in fuel and energy companies. “Today it is quite difficult to convince young people to go into engineering and the energy sector. If earlier there was distribution, now for many it is already a vocation and family tradition. But there is not much awareness. What is the key motivator? Surveys show that wages and other benefits are secondary. Nowadays the main motivators of young people are interesting tasks, prospects, and careers. Everyone is used to thinking about the future,” Mikhail Khardikov is convinced.

The energy and metallurgical holding En+, founded by Oleg Deripaska, educates young personnel from school. Talented Siberian children actively participate in career guidance programs in order to begin immersion in the profession from childhood.

“The second topic is secondary vocational education. We have two professions. We have had an energy college in Irkutsk for more than 10 years. There’s no shame in coming and seeing what he looks like. We have expanded our multilab project. Laboratories, robotics, skills of the future – all this is very important,” Khardikov continued.

The holding also actively interacts with universities. Today, in addition to standard training in specialized engineering schools, the company is actively developing the IT Academy project. This program allows all students, not just energy workers, to improve digital literacy. Another important motivational project of the company is the scholarship program. “We have 800 scholarship recipients this year who will receive personalized scholarships from En+ and Rusal. These are not only power engineers and metallurgists, but also future teachers and doctors,” Khardikov added.

You need to learn all your life

As the rector of the National Research University “MPEI” Nikolai Rogalev noted, theory without practice is dead, and practice without theory is blind. According to the speaker, a real specialist must learn to absorb knowledge and acquire new skills throughout his life.

“If the work gets done, all universities will tweak their programs to make them more employer-oriented. We need to look at this interaction more broadly. We try to push everything onto the children at school, and then at the university. Project management, statehood, specialists are desperately trying not to lose their engineering training. A person must learn throughout his life. And this is worth thinking about,” emphasized the rector of MPEI.

Time to train teachers

The session participants paid special attention to the training of teaching staff in the regions where the energy business operates.

“We understand that the next stage, which we now need to discuss, is who will train these personnel. Who are these university teachers? We have a project with the Irkutsk Polytechnic University, where we help train teachers for the Institute of Energy,” continued Mikhail Khardikov.

At the end of the speech, the top manager of the holding proposed to open a personnel training center in Krasnoyarsk, so as not to transport teachers for future Siberian and Far Eastern power engineers from central Russia.