Russian corporate universities are faced with a staff shortage

The shortage of specialists in the Russian labor market has forced businesses to more actively develop their own corporate universities – but as a result of this, companies are now complaining about the emerging shortage of teachers themselves. The most in demand at such universities are methodologists, teachers and coaches. There are no specialized institutions for training specifically in the field of corporate education, so companies are often forced to create training programs themselves to train such specialists.

Corporate universities of large Russian companies that have intensified their work are experiencing a shortage of employees due to a general shortage of personnel in the labor market. Participants of the conference of the Kommersant Publishing House came to this conclusion. “Trends and innovations in corporate education-2023”.

“Gathering a team for a corporate university now is a daunting task. We need people who know how to write training programs, people who know how to think about it,” Natalia Shishlakova, Deputy General Director for Corporate Development and Project Activities of Transmashholding JSC, said during the discussion. The head of the Alfa Bank Academy, Maria Mikhailyuk, noted that the problem of finding methodologists to prepare training programs also exists in the financial sector. In addition, she said, it is difficult to find specialists who could research the needs of employees – which is necessary for creating suitable training programs.

According to a Kommersant source at one of the corporate universities, the most popular specialties, in addition to methodologists, also include teachers and coaches (specialists who help students achieve certain professional and personal goals). According to Denis Konanchuk, director of the corporate training department at the Skolkovo School of Management, the task of finding suitable teachers, especially for training managers, is also complicated by changes in demand from the latter.

“The difficulties that Russian business faces in 2022 are so unique that it is almost impossible to find a speaker with relevant cases for top management,” notes Mr. Konanchuk.

It should be noted that earlier experts from the recruiting company Get Experts calculated that, despite negative expectations regarding corporate investments in human capital, companies maintained and often even increased the amount of spending on educational programs (more details see “Kommersant” dated May 29). In 2022, according to the Higher School of Business of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, the volume of such expenses averaged 1.2% of the wage fund. At the end of 2023, this figure will most likely remain the same.

The number of corporate universities themselves is also growing in Russia – for example, one appeared at the Inter RAO company (a monopoly operator of energy exports), several such structures were opened by regional governments. The increased desire of companies to spend money on training their employees can be explained by the high level of competition for job seekers emerging in the Russian labor market – we recall that at the end of September, the unemployment rate, according to Rosstat, remained at a historical minimum of 3%.

The main sources of personnel for corporate universities are now the companies themselves or employees of the education system.

There are no specialized educational institutions for such specialists, so businesses often have to train this category of employees themselves. “We had to launch our own faculty of methodologists – and the competition for admission was 30 people per place,” Maria Mikhailyuk told Kommersant at the conference. “A number of state corporations and large companies have tried to launch a joint educational project for employees of corporate universities – the problem with personnel is so great that even eternal competitors are forced to cooperate with each other to solve it,” notes a Kommersant source in this area.

Anastasia Manuilova