Kazakhtelecom: We appreciate your staff and do everything for its development

Modern business is considered successful, if it is effective and competitive. For in orderto meet this criteria, the leading players of the industry should not justfollow the current trends of the market, but themselves ask them.

Two years ago, the JSC "Kazakhtelecom" launched a modernization program of the "Orleu" aimed at transforming and preserving the leadership of the company in the market of infocommunication services on the strategic challenges, key of which was improving the quality of services and the development of new services. Implementation of the program resulted in transformation of almost all areas of the company. About changes in the HR departments of JSC "Kazakhtelecom" told "Kursiv" managing Director for staff Berwick of Metabaron.

— Berik Abdumajidovich, please tell us about the main global trends in the sphere of personnel management. What has changed in connection with the General situation in the economy, what changes were the most relevant for Kazakhstan sector of information and communication in General, and "Kazakhtelecom" in particular?

— Currently, many companies are changing traditional approaches to business management and the new realities of top management of companies seeking to move to more efficient business model, which also implies a revision and change of approaches to personnel management system. If earlier the HR Department was engaged in talent acquisition, retention, building corporate culture, etc., on the date of the company's management puts in front of HR strategic goals to improve organizational performance, change organizational design of the company and increasing personnel efficiency.

In large companies, like ours, multi-heavy organizational structure is becoming an obstacle to development, there is a need to move towards a more decentralized and segment vertically-oriented structure. The centralization of support functions, the outsourcing of auxiliary units also help to relieve the organizational structure and allow the company to focus on their core business. Due to the fact that these plan changes primarily affect people, the HR Department has a key role.

A transparent system of personnel evaluation and talent management, employee engagement in the transformation process, the construction of incentive systems and the introduction of more flexible reward system is a small part of the tasks to increase the efficiency of the staff that we have to solve in the near future.

— Today, digital technologies are increasingly part of our lives that many areas simply do not have time to adapt to new realities. As far as opportunities and prospects of development of IT are used in HR?

In my opinion, the task of HR is to help business leaders to transform thinking and use of new technologies in the organization of its work. We must adapt and change their processes based on new digital platforms, including use of the possibilities of mobile applications. By the way, currently we are developing a mobile application that will allow to build system of communications with employees, provide feedback, evaluate employee conduct surveys, make recommendations, etc. Through the app, users will have access to a library of training materials, online courses. All the information about the training will be in the database, and HR specialists will understand what the field is improving each employee. This is just one example.

One of the trends in the sphere of personnel management experts call a bet to work with the team. Whether justified in your opinion that in this case the individuality is in the background? How resolved the contradiction between the General and the individual in the development of new HR strategy "Kazakhtelecom"?

The time has come when you need to attract and develop leaders who can rally people to the team. Whereas previously each unit of work in a kind of expert — technicians, staff of commercial services, now we need to develop cross-functional interaction, it is important to work in a team, which also gives a competitive advantage in the market. At the same time we must understand that the time to invest in nurturing their reserves, as in the past, not now. Therefore, we need a hybrid model with the development of their talents and the involvement of leaders of the market, we need fresh ideas that can provide sustainable growth for the company.

— Personnel reform in Kazakhtelecom JSC became one of the most important items sold in the company's transformation program "Orleu", and you recently presented a draft of the joint service centre HR SSC. The essence of the project how successful was the pilot, what are the lessons learned from the first experience?

— In order that the company can focus on core business, we need to centralize subsidiary business processes performed in each branch. In our case, in the United service center (SSC). Using a single service approaches, unified IT systems and setting goals for speed and quality of the executed processes, the company has significantly reduced operating costs, business processes become more efficient and transparent.

At the moment all the issues associated with the human resources administration of almost all branches are solved remotely from a single point.

— At what stage is this project?

International practice has proved the efficiency of creation of SSC. by the way, this issue is also actively studied in the Fund "Samruk-Kazyna". A project on introduction of HR SSC is almost complete, and today is the preparatory work to centralize functions related to current accounting. That is, in the long term the payroll for the entire company will also be carried out centrally.

— What are the advantages from the point of view of personnel policy and what economic effect gave the Union branches Almatytelecom MTC with the Almaty regional Directorate of telecommunications and similar transformation in the capital region?

— The Union branches and the conversion to RDT Almatytelecom and Astanatelecom MTC are of great importance for the company. The estimated effect of merger of the directorates for the year is in the hundreds of millions tenge. From the point of view of the HR policy the company obtained the elimination of duplicate functions, mainly at a leadership level from the first head region and his Deputy and ending with heads of departments. In addition, before the staff of the joint according to the regional principle of the subsidiaries opened additional opportunities for staff rotation, exchange of experience and best practices, career building within the framework of the significantly increased scale of the branch.

— In the framework of the transformation program "Orleu" "Kazakhtelecom" introduces a new remuneration system. Will it stimulate interest of the staff in the career growth of productivity?

— Indeed, in 2017, the company's planned implementation of a new remuneration system which will be developed on the basis of job evaluation methodology, hay Group. The system is based on two main principles: first — to ensure internal equity. This means that positions with different levels of knowledge and complexity of work should be rewarded appropriately, and our task is to build a company grading system. The second point is the provision of external competitiveness, it is necessary to ensure that staff salaries competitive in the market. In the Central office we have already evaluated positions and are now carrying out similar work in the branches. Since the company employs over 25 thousand people, the process takes time, but from next year it is planned that the grading system will be introduced.

If we talk about individual units, a single piece wage system has already been introduced in the Centre of active sales, fully focused on work with individuals. This system allows you to maximally stimulate the growth of labour productivity, as wages of employees directly depends on the amount of sold services. In the near future on a piece-rate form of remuneration will be transferred to staff contact centers and centers of corporate services.

— Won't change customers "Kazakhtelecom"?

— It is necessary to understand that all these initiatives eventually reduced to enhance our competitive advantage and focus on the issues of customer focus, improving service, increasing customer loyalty. We understand the special role is played by individual and team motivation of our staff, and to this end the company has developed incentive programs to increase the level of income and at the same time provide an opportunity to obtain remuneration for the attraction and quality customer service. Statistics show a direct correlation of income growth with wage growth.

— Did the idea of HR transformation understanding from the staff? Probably, it was difficult to explain the need for change to the people, many of them decades worked in the usual quiet mode?

— Any changes in the work with personnel should be carried out very deliberately. Before implementing any changes regarding personnel, work with people. It took a few years to the transformation program "Orleu" was adopted by the staff and came to realize that in order to be successful in this market, company and we all need to change. At this stage all staff understand and are actively involved in the transformation process.

Also when optimizing staff applied soft methods: reduced vacant jobs, provided support to workers who have retired. Besides, "Kazakhtelecom", a program of assistance of employment of redundant staff, which provides training and retraining of redundant personnel. Employees who for various reasons had to leave my previous workplace, can choose the suitable variant of the 65 full-time programs and distance learning. By the way, the specialists of "Kazakhtelecom" in demand in the market, but we value our staff and do everything possible to save him.