“Personnel decides everything” - who said this phrase? Agree, he is not a stupid person. Because this is the absolute truth, since the word “personnel” meant professionals in their field. They are the ones who move our lives forward, create, create the material benefits that you and I enjoy. Everything that is in this world (not meant primordial) was created by them: scientists, engineers, craftsmen, workers.
What are frames?
Many people are interested in who said: “Personnel decides everything.” But does everyone know what kind of word this is - “cadres”. Who is meant by it? This word has a double meaning:
- Military. In Ozhegov’s dictionary you can find the definition that personnel are the composition of regular military units. In Soviet times, a clarification was made; military personnel meant the listed rank and file and the commanding staff of military units.
- Civil. This understanding came in Soviet times, when this word denoted the payroll of qualified employees of enterprises and institutions. Each of them had personnel departments that had certain responsibilities for accounting and making entries in work books. Personnel can be different: workers, engineers (engineering and technical workers), AHP (administrative and economic personnel), managerial, scientific, executive, and so on.
Currently, personnel is the staff of an institution, company, or firm. But, as in the Soviet Union, it is the color of the nation.
The role of personnel in the development of the country
For the first time, this phrase of Stalin, “Personnel decides everything,” was heard in May 1935 at the graduation of military academies, in his speech addressed to graduates. It is not surprising that it immediately became a slogan. Now this would be called a brand, but not in the sense of a product or service, but in the sense of a goal. At that distant time, this was a slogan that had to be put into practice. That is, the whole people were given the task of learning.
What is surprising about it that haunts many opponents of everything Soviet? A real, working call to action. He outlined the goal towards which it was necessary to move. It was its implementation that gave the Soviet Union the opportunity for an amazing leap in economic development, lasting from the 50s to the 80s of the twentieth century, which brought the country among the world leaders.
Stalin's speech in May 1935
Some argue that the phrase “Personnel decides everything” was first said by Bismarck, while others are looking for other pioneers, naming other names. Maybe so, it's not that important. The main thing is that even if Bismarck said it, he was also a great Chancellor of Germany who knew what he was talking about.
Stalin emphasized in his speech that through many hardships, huge amounts of money were saved in the country. They could have been used to buy consumer goods and manufactures, as Stalin’s opponents in the party proposed, but a decision was made to use this money to develop mechanical engineering, metallurgy and all heavy industry in general. Machines, mechanisms, machine tools, tractors, everything that was needed for the development of the country were purchased. All efforts are being devoted to industrialization. To manage them, specialists are needed, that is, skilled workers and engineers.
Stalin emphasized that one cannot expect quick results in this matter; successes will appear after a certain time. But you need to wait for them, not stopping, but moving forward. You need to be patient, not giving up after the first failures, but move on without hesitation or self-doubt. Having overcome the hunger in technology, the country faced a hunger in the field of people, personnel, workers capable of moving this technology, squeezing everything possible out of it.
Without people, it is safe to say that technology is dead. Technology with qualified personnel works wonders. Stalin devoted most of his speech to the issue of caring for people. He called the inability to appreciate people a relic of the past. It is the personnel that decides everything. Whoever said that socialism can be built without them is mistaken.
Stalin also touched upon disagreements on this issue within the party, from which one can assume that the discussion on it was quite heated, and it came to threats to split the party. Time has shown that Stalin and his followers were right, since it was the industrialization carried out and the personnel that allowed the country to withstand the years of the Patriotic War and brought it the glory of a Great Power.
A little history
What preceded the proclamation of this slogan and what does the phrase “Personnel decide everything” mean? In his speech, Stalin gave an explanation for this. The Soviet Republic inherited a country in complete ruin. Russia in the early years of the twentieth century was still essentially in feudal relations. Capitalism was just beginning its development. The beginning of the century was marked for Russia by a shameful defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The reason for this was economic backwardness. 70% of the potential was made up of small backward peasant farms scattered throughout the country.
The 1905 revolution revealed the brutal exploitation of workers, who were treated worse than American blacks on the plantations. Before it could gain strength, Russia entered the First World War, which claimed the lives of millions of Russian citizens and devastated the west of Russia. The February Bourgeois Revolution of 1917 brought to power the Provisional Government, which consisted of the most mediocre and corrupt representatives of the liberal intelligentsia, who brought the country to the brink of disaster.
The October Revolution of 1917, three years of civil war, intervention against Soviet Russia - all this sadly affected the economic state of the country. By 1920 she looked like a mortally wounded giant. It needed to be revived again. The country's leaders understood perfectly well that while Europe was at war, America was rapidly developing and had moved forward much.
The goal is the industrialization of the country
Strange talk that Tsarist Russia was a country with a developed economy is without any basis. Yes, there were a handful of super-rich and simply rich people in the country, close to the royal family, large capitalists, gold miners, and grain traders. The people of a prosperous country cannot live in such depressing conditions as the Russian workers and peasants experienced before the revolution.
Russia was a technically backward country with a nascent industry. Therefore, in Soviet Russia the goal was set for industrialization and the slogan was put forward: “Technology decides everything.” As a result of the most severe savings, funds were raised and tractors, machine tools, machines and mechanisms were purchased. But then an even more pressing question arose: where to find specialists? “Personnel decides everything” - who was the first to say this phrase? The country heard it for the first time from the lips of Stalin. A policy towards universal literacy was adopted.
Elimination of illiteracy
How was it possible to obtain a sufficient number of specialists if more than half of the population was simply illiterate?! This is a sad legacy of Tsarist Russia. The second revolution began - a cultural one. The whole country sat down at their desks. Educational programs, workers' schools, schools for working youth. It was their graduates who were destined to become the elite, the pride of Soviet and world science, technology, and literature.
Soviet generals and marshals, together with the people, led our army to the great Victory in World War II. Who said “Personnel decides everything”? Stalin. At the same time, he emphasized that if we don’t have them, the country will begin to limp on two legs. If they are, then the country will be prosperous and it will become impossible to defeat it.
Attitude towards personnel during perestroika
“Personnel decide everything” - it doesn’t matter who said the phrase. It's a shame that not all the leaders of our country understood this. Gorbachev's policy in the mid-80s was aimed at fighting the most valuable thing that was cherished and nurtured in the Soviet Union - qualified personnel. Little is said about this, but the entire perestroika began with a struggle against the leadership of enterprises, factories, factories, and institutions. The cleaning was done by professionals who had worked their way up from the bottom and knew production inside and out. They were accused of authoritarianism.
Instead of them, random people came, chosen at meetings, who did not correspond either in experience or knowledge to the positions they held. Only those leaders who enjoyed authority and took responsibility for the decisions made were removed. It was easier to destroy and seize decapitated enterprises already in the early 90s.
Remember the attitude towards the profession of “engineer”. It was at this time that they, the most qualified personnel, were treated with ridicule. It was a kind of mark of failure. History does not forgive such mistakes. In our time, we are reaping the fruits of this policy. There are not enough qualified workers, mid-level specialists, and engineering and technical workers. Without them, it is simply impossible to develop the economy.
Attitude towards personnel in Western countries
Any capitalist or enterprise owner knows the value of specialists. He will not specify who said “Personnel decides everything”; he treats them with respect. He thinks so. Therefore, leading companies spend a lot of money on training their specialists. Will the owner allow the employees of his enterprise to choose their own leader? No, in this world everything is built on authoritarian relations, and there is no democracy. Knowledge, experience, authority have not been canceled. Their price in the West, in America for example, is very high. Therefore, the economic situation of these countries is much higher than in our country.
In the end, it's all about people, not strategies.
Larry Bossidy
Personnel decide everything” is a well-known saying that is always relevant, especially now in our country.
Management is always about actions with people - personnel. If you are a manager, then, contrary to newfangled statements, you do not manage processes, resources, technologies, etc., you manage personnel and only personnel. Your executive subordinates can manage processes if they do not have their own subordinates. And you have to manage the staff. Either you are a manager, then you manage your subordinates, or you are a specialist, then you manage processes. Make up your mind - there is no third option!
So what do personnel “solve”? Good employees do what their boss asks them to do. It is the leader who determines the tasks that subordinates must solve and monitors their implementation. It is the manager who selects these same personnel based on the intended goals, and, if their qualifications are not enough, he trains his employees himself, or organizes their training on the side. Therefore, it is the leader who bears full and sole responsibility for everything that happens in the team he leads. And there is no point in complaining about bad subordinates - they are what they were recruited and what they were made to be.
So, the well-being of the enterprise depends entirely on the manager, and he can improve this condition only through his employees. And in this sense, indeed, “personnel decide everything.”
Now the issue of personnel, or rather the lack thereof, is constantly being discussed by everyone, from the president to modest businessmen. It is very convenient to blame the entire failure of the Russian economy on the collapse of education and the lack of qualified personnel. There are no insoluble personnel problems in Russia!
Of course, it is foolish to deny that secondary specialized (vocational) education has been almost completely eliminated, and higher education, for the most part, churns out poorly educated “specialists” in numbers several times greater than the needs of the economy. But why should you and I think for the whole country, even though we are patriots? The problems of Russian education are the concern of the president, the government, the Duma, and education officials. But if the country’s leadership cannot or does not want to decide anything, there is no need to give up. It is enough for every businessman to solve this small problem for himself in his own place. Moreover, it is not as difficult as it seems at first glance.
For a small or medium-sized business, only a few dozen or hundreds of people are needed. In any town, even a small one, you can always find a dozen sane people with a good specialized, not necessarily higher, education. To create a management team for a small or medium-sized enterprise, they must be intelligent, ambitious, responsible and capable of learning. With workers who drink in moderation, things are not so catastrophically bad either. This, of course, is not easy, but it is always possible. You just need to organize the selection wisely. Practice shows that 4-6 months are enough to form the main personnel backbone of an enterprise.
If there are no highly specialized workers in your area, this also happens, then you will have to either send several of your employees for training or assign specialists to you. In any case, in order to minimize personnel risks and not depend on labor market conditions, it is necessary to organize in the company a process of training employees, improving their skills, and exchanging experience.
“Growing” its own specialists gives the company a number of additional advantages. Firstly, you get employees who are loyal to the company. Secondly, in the process of studying, employees receive the skills and specialization that they really need to most effectively solve the tasks assigned to them. Thirdly, the opportunity to advance up the career ladder, thanks to continuous improvement, greatly increases the motivation of employees, “forcing” them to work with full dedication.
But it is not enough to recruit qualified personnel; it is necessary to create comfortable working conditions for them. And this is an ergonomic workplace, equipped with everything necessary at arm’s length. And a favorable socio-psychological climate in the team. And a flexible system of fair motivation.
Comfortable conditions are not a luxury, nor a whim of an overbearing employee. The less an employee is distracted by issues not related to his immediate work, the higher the level of his potential effectiveness. Of course, the ideal conditions for organizing the workplace and a good socio-psychological climate in the team in themselves do not guarantee high intensity of employee work. But the lack of normal conditions, quite obviously, can significantly affect both the efficiency and quality of work.
The importance of motivation cannot be overestimated. This is one of the most important conditions for the development of an enterprise. Motivation should not only stimulate the employee to satisfy his material physiological needs, but also create conditions for the formation and implementation of his social, status and personal needs and motivations. It is especially important that the motivation is fair, that is, there should be equal remuneration for equal work. Failure to comply with this principle leads to unnecessary tension in the team, generates distrust of employees towards each other, strengthens the tendency for employees to have a formal attitude towards their duties, and deprives them of initiative and the desire for healthy career growth.
To effectively manage and create a self-governing system, it is necessary to shift decision-making centers as close as possible to the places where failures and errors occur. One important component of this process is delegation of leadership. But there are always questions that the leader must resolve himself. In order for these issues to be resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible, the manager must teach his subordinates to correctly prepare and submit decisions. Option from the series: “Chief, everything is gone! The plaster is removed, the client leaves...” does not work.
When a problem arises, the solution of which is beyond the competence of the employee, he must prepare several possible solutions and analyze the consequences of each of them. It is the employee who must find a solution to the problem, since he is the best versed in his area and knows everything that is happening there. All decisions are reported to the manager, all consequences are described in detail, and the optimal solution option, from the employee’s point of view, is proposed.
This approach contributes to the development in subordinates of qualities important for the organization of a self-governing system, such as analysis, independence, and responsibility. This “pushes” employees to independently find and, over time, make decisions, and expands their level of competence.
And, finally, most importantly, for the boss-subordinate tandem to work effectively, their complete mutual understanding is necessary. The employee must understand exactly what is required of him and have the appropriate authority to complete the assigned tasks. The manager must be sure that the subordinate understood everything correctly, and he has enough qualifications to do what the manager needs.
In any case, responsibility for failure lies with the manager. Either the manager explained it poorly or did not make sure that he was understood correctly, or gave the assignment to the wrong employee.
In the relationship between a manager and subordinates, it is important not only to understand, but also, as in any human relationship, to adapt to each other. When giving a task, the manager must take into account the individual characteristics of the employee, perceive and rethink the information received. Therefore, it is important not only “what” to say, but also “how”. The manager must be able to correctly determine for each employee the form and structure of information, its quantity, and have feedback to check that he was understood correctly. The subordinate, in turn, must provide reports, reports, other documents and proposals in a form convenient for the manager. This is a general rule: to be understood, you need to speak the language of the interlocutor.
And one more note.
A paradoxical situation has developed in our country: on the one hand, managers complain about the lack of qualified personnel, on the other hand, an entire generation that received a real education in Soviet times and, having managed to work at Soviet enterprises with, unlike today, strict production discipline, is almost completely thrown out from the economic life of the country. Experienced, highly qualified specialists, for the most part, are forced to engage in low-paid, unskilled work due to their age. From a psychological point of view, the most socially active and productive period of human life is maturity, which occurs at the age of 40-50 years. In the US, the highest paid professionals are between 50 and 60 years old. And only in our country there are strict age restrictions.
Many managers are looking for job candidates no older than 25 years old, but at the same time they want them to have a good education, or preferably two, and 10 years of work experience in large companies in high positions, and the successful launch of several projects from scratch, and great life experience. Maybe stop believing in fairy tales and engaging in self-deception? You can't combine incompatible things. It's time to turn our attention to a completely unclaimed segment of the labor market. Moreover, “mature” specialists, as a rule, have higher qualifications, are able to make decisions independently and share responsibility, are more flexible, more experienced, and wiser than their “young” colleagues. With the right motivation from management, they are willing and able to learn. You can rely on them. Plus, they are often much cheaper.
Finally.
A tree growing in a forest, coal, oil, gas located deep in the bowels of the Earth, a fish swimming in the depths of the ocean - all this has no material value, namely material (issues of beauty and spirituality are not considered in this context). It doesn't cost anything from an economic point of view. All items we pay for are made by human hands. When we buy a shelf made from that same tree, or pour gasoline into a car tank obtained from that same oil, we are not paying for the product itself - wood and oil, as we have already found out, are worth nothing in themselves. We pay for the work of a colossal number of people of completely different professions who extracted all these natural resources, processed them into the form we are familiar with and delivered them to us. Only human labor has value. Because only the labor of those very “cadres”, “staff”, “workers” creates all the values. And in this sense, personnel not only “decide everything,” but also create everything. Personnel are the main and only value in the economy.
Conversation during webinar No. 124 “Personnel decides everything! That’s all,” held on November 29, 2017.
FRAME #1 AND STABILITY OF THE CEMETERY GRADE
“Personnel decide everything” is a famous historical quote from Stalin, just like his other quotes: “If there is a person, there is a problem. No person, no problem.” I would rephrase one of these quotes: “As a person, so are his problems.”
There is a small funny anecdote. Death knocks on the man's door, the man opens:
I am death.
Same with personnel. And that's all...
The conversation is therefore relevant because our data on an objective indicator of Russia’s viability over the 26-year post-Soviet period, and especially over the last years of the Putin period, show that Russia is losing its viability. A country is a living organism, it is born in deep history, can get sick, be in crisis conditions, and can die, as the Russian Empire died in 1917, the Soviet Union in 1991. And according to this indicator, Russia is now approaching the threshold of its viability, that is, the threshold of its demise.
Many questions are asked about the reasons for the total degradation of the country. One of the pressing issues is the issue of personnel. Sometimes one single personnel can decide a lot, and today we, of course, will talk about personnel, not so much about professionally specialized mechanics, repairmen, adjusters, apparatchiks, but about personnel in the public administration system, in the public policy system , about that very single frame on which history, as if in focus, then places a significant share of responsibility. For example, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, whose efforts led to the destruction of the Soviet Union. The phrase is simplified, of course, but no one will argue about the contribution he made to preparing the collapse of a large country. Just like the guy named Yeltsin.
We understand that the first person, the head of state, is a special cadre who, firstly, personally makes a huge contribution to the state and dynamics of the country, but in addition, he also generates a personnel pyramid, because with the arrival of a new political teams with a new political leader may implement completely different principles. Why is this especially relevant now? Last week our President, popularly elected, broke a record. In terms of the length of his reign, he has already surpassed Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. And this very stability that the country’s leadership is now proud of, the so-called “stability”, the stability of the cemetery variety and nature, is that for the next six years they plan not to change anything in the country, that is, both personnel policy and personnel no. 1 according to these plans in the country will not change. An analysis in this area of state management of the country's development can provide a very important understanding of the causes of today's degradation and a forecast of what to expect for responsible people, people who love their country, people who understand the threat it faces.
Therefore, the topic of personnel, which decides everything, is incredibly relevant.
HOW WILL THE CHANGE OF AUTHORITY TAKE PLACE IN RUSSIA IF IT IS NOT PUTIN, BUT HIS POLITICAL OPPONENT, who wins the election?
In 1999, when the personnel department, not only and not so much the Kremlin as overseas, was deciding who would inherit Yeltsin, it first settled on personnel No. 1 in the person of Nikolai Emelyanovich Aksenenko. I know this for certain, as a historical witness. He was a very strong figure, capable and professional in terms of his attitude towards the country, towards the ideology in the triangle “socialism-liberalism-fascism”. This was a man who could give our country a chance. But the Dyachenkos, Berezovskys, Voloshins, the “regional committee” of personnel, the “department” of personnel of a certain kind intervened, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was elected. 18 years have passed. And what has the country become? What she is aiming for now is completely clear.
A simple question: “Did this 18-year fate of the country depend on frame No. 1, the collapse of those hopes and aspirations that were connected in the first years, I admit, in my mind, with the chances that the new President, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, seemed to bring? " What's happened? The theory says that when the first person of the state changes in democratic countries, the political team is replaced. In the United States of America, the figure is about 120 people who come to the White House, government and executive power infrastructures along with the new president. This is true. The changeover procedure has been streamlined. When the elections are completed, the winner of the presidential election is determined, in the latter case - Trump, two teams are created: the outgoing President and the incoming one, which transfer affairs, including sensitive and secret institutions, documents and processes, a nuclear briefcase, and the like.
Let's ask a simple question: “How will a change of power take place in Russia if it is not Putin who wins the elections (well, let’s dream, fantasize, more precisely) but his political opponent?” How will this procedure work? What personnel will the new President bring with him? Which personnel from the old team, according to what principles and procedures, will leave their offices? And the first, simplest question is this: “If the current political regime can absolutely, in all honesty, violate the Constitution and laws (I mean the processes of formation of power at the federal level, which we, in fact, have already observed in the form of global all-Russian ones, at the organizational level state system, at times rigged elections), if the current political authorities in the country treat political propriety, laws, which seem somehow not as detailed as in the USA, but describe the transition procedure, treat with such disdain, then how will they transfer power The President, the opposition Putin and Putinism? To the new political regime, which in its presidential election program announced in advance how, what, to what extent, in what direction it and the new political team will change in the country?”
I'll simplify this picture completely. The future President was elected (I don’t think about this in the abstract, but specifically in connection with his own well-known intentions), finds out in the morning at the Central Election Commission that yes, he won and goes, like, knock on the door of the Spasskaya Tower: “Please let the new President through " And there is the Russian Guard. And there all this guard, who for 17 years have already settled down, settled down, already feel like lifers. What are they? This is how they will open the gates and say: “You are welcome! Here is bread and salt. Here are the offices. Here are the rest rooms. Here are the secret orders. Here's a hotline with Trump"?
This means that the first very serious question that I raise in this topic: “What are the guarantees that in Russia it will become a reality and possible to change not only the first person, personnel No. 1, but also the change of hundreds at the upper levels of high-ranking officials to the team of the incoming President under incoming policies, under incoming plans and programs that will turn the country around largely from what is now called Putinism in political science, that is, the model of the country, which for 18 years has in some ways succeeded the Yeltsin model, reproduced it, and in some ways developed to a completely extreme, even absurd quality, which, in fact, is responsible for the movement towards the threshold of the collapse of the state?
AS IS THE POST, SO IS THE POST, OR THE FISH ROTS FROM THE HEAD
The second problem, which I think is very serious and needs to be discussed: “What kind of team? Where can the new President get it from for new goals, a new political course, a new Constitution, a new program for the country?” Who are these people? Where will they come from? I'll start with something a little different. And who are the people who are now sitting in the Kremlin offices, the White House offices, many very sensitive federal organizations and services, including special services, and law enforcement agencies? Who are these people? Where did they come from? They are the country's high-ranking personnel corps. It was formed over 18 years. But in 18 years, people, having been born, grow up, become adults, and can even come to the same government bodies for some feasible positions. What kind of personnel process was going on during Putinism? Who are these people? What is their education? What are their ideological and moral imperatives? Where did they come from? What are they doing? At what quality level? What were the general principles of this Putin personnel policy?
We can recall historical examples when the first person actually laid down the principles of personnel policy, and carried out the selection and selection of personnel, and established the policy and culture of the personnel process, the measure, degree and levels of responsibility of these appointees, the system of monitoring their activities and those sanctions that It was used in case something was left unfinished. Many quite striking, even exotic, examples were given by such powerful figures as the first leaders, such as Peter I. He had a very specific personnel policy: “A subordinate in the face of his superiors must look dashing and silly, so that his superiors can recognize that he is from there.” introduces himself." Not verbatim, but a quote.
Stalin’s is probably also a very bright history of personnel, in which even young people were surprisingly selected, sort of like in the Putin period, but those people became outstanding statesmen, leaders who solved the most complex problems of state building, defense problems, and development problems of the country. What are these secrets? What are the ways to recognize such people? What are the risks and ways to predict that a certain young person can grow up and solve the problems that face him? Many questions are not classified; you won’t find answers in books. But analysis and a special look at top-level personnel policy provide some lessons and also suggest some recipes and a vision of the future.
Where do we start? Let's start, of course, with the well-known. As is the pop, so is the arrival. Where does the fish rot? Also known. The fish rots from the head. The role of the first person in the system of state power and management, the system of public policy is decisive. What did we see during the years of the same quoted Stalin? This man had incredible intuition, incredible toughness and cruelty, he was a man of ideas, a man of function. His whole life, all his management, all his decisions, both breakthrough and criminal, were aimed at the goal, the goal of building a state, developing a new model of a socialist state, to fight geopolitical, geo-economic and military-political, military pressure, threats and aggressions. And during this period the country turned from an agrarian one, collapsed after the Civil War, into the first or second country in the world, on the first or second step of the pedestal of world development. This man solved, first of all, the task of developing the country, moving towards the goal. He had his own intellect, natural, in order to formulate a goal, see it, project it onto the levels of operational goal setting and, based on this, select people who could organize goal achievement. That is, the impulses organizing personnel development in the country largely depended on the qualities of this person, and it is unlikely that anyone will be able to challenge this.
But let’s look at the current example, in which it is impossible to discern the value-ideological position, platform, understanding and knowledge of the first person. This simply doesn't exist. There are no values, no goals. This follows from the analysis of direct speech, from the analysis of state administrative documents signed and generated by the first person of the state and his team. There are no goals. The goals are sometimes strange, somewhat painful, such as: “Entering the world”, “Discovering Russia”, “We are Europe!” We are Europe! Partners, partners. In fact, this means, translated into open language, the desovereignization of the country. This is actually what happens. Desovereignization has reached such a level that today the country is in the status of a pariah, under financial and political sanctions, in isolation, which is accelerating its downward movement. There is hardly any need to prove that the current chief cadre No. 1 and the main leader of the state personnel policy in the country simply does not have any goal-setting in managing the country’s development.
FROM THE SHOULDER
And hence the selection of personnel, which is carried out in a certain methodological fork, and this is also a theoretical message. First: the manager needs personnel he trusts. Well, how could it be otherwise? The possibilities of sabotage, conspiracy, palace coup and so on - these classic attributes of the life of the supreme power - have not disappeared anywhere, especially today they are beginning to gain strength and increase the likelihood of implementation. Erdogan recently encountered this. Putinism will inevitably face this.
Fork in the road: a subordinate must be trustworthy, or a subordinate must be professional and capable - this is a challenge. How to combine these two requirements: trustworthy, professional, capable? It is clear that this criterion sharply narrows the field of choice, because your friends at school, on Leningradskaya street, at the gym, at Sobchak’s mayor’s office, in all sorts of interesting affairs - this is a rather limited circle of people who, while certainly trustworthy, have professional competence at the highest level of public administration, they cannot take and receive from anywhere: neither by education, nor by inclusion, nor by any tradition, nor even by life, the most fantasy plans, strategies for future life in acquiring the necessary knowledge, professions, and so on. None of this has happened and will not happen. There is no trace of the principle of selecting personnel “to suit the purpose.” Why? So there are no goals!
That is, we can now say quite confidently that the personnel process in Putinism was built on the principle of trust. It is difficult to talk about professionalism when people who do not have any professional background became and become ministers or deputy prime ministers: they did not serve in the relevant professional fields, they did not grow up in the professional pyramid, ladder, they did not gain professional knowledge in this field. The most striking and equally wild example is the appointment as Minister of Defense of a man who did not serve in the army, who had never touched this in his life, was engaged in trade, was involved in finance, whatever. Experts understand well how this ultimately affected the country’s defense capability. Despite the television picture, despite the demonstrations staged quite a bit in Syria, and some other pictures, despite all this, experts know well how much the country’s national security and its defense capability have now been reduced.
An example when a journalist who graduated in philosophy becomes responsible for the military-industrial complex, creating his own expert institutions. True, the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences immediately appeared in a person who had never held a soldering iron in his hands. Well, such miracles happen, but there are no miracles of reliable launches from philosophy from the Vostochny cosmodrome. A candidate of philosophical sciences is appointed head of the expert council in the field of the military-industrial complex - this is another example. And is it any wonder that rockets from Vostochny either do not take off or fall. But I will not list these examples. They are well known. They are well known. But the frame is confidential! All trades. Destroy the patriotic opposition party, please. Bark at NATO, please. Drive pigeons from Tuzla Spit - please.
Is it any wonder that the gubernatorial corps, which in this personnel pyramid also serves one super task - to be trustworthy, does not have professional personnel decisions in mind at all. A person finds himself in a region where, relatively speaking, he has never been in his life, elections are supposedly being held, elections that should choose the best, professionally most prepared for this role, are replaced by an administrative filter - as they command, so all this will happen. There are no elections, of course, no mechanism for legitimizing trust, as well as demands on the part of the population for the so-called governors today. There is no conversation about this. A surrogate, not a personnel policy. Governors can be picked up and removed in batches, removed (they are not removed for success) and immediately awarded orders in the Kremlin. Marasmus.
This personnel policy, it seems to us, is described by the formula “From the Shoulder”. If a leader is weak, professionally unsuccessful, then he is afraid of his subordinates; they may turn out to be more professional than him. The subordinate, of course, will hide his eyes when he reports to his superiors about some difficult things, but he sees and understands, and it is written in his eyes that the superiors do not understand anything about this. The boss reads pieces of paper written by someone, sometimes stumbling, sometimes skillfully memorizing these pieces of paper, fussing his eyebrows, making appropriate pauses, even inserting anecdotes, enlivening these same notes. But this is absolutely far from the qualifications of professionalism and responsibility for the state entrusted to someone, the ministry to someone, the human sphere to someone.
Lack of professionalism according to this scheme - “From the shoulder” - is replicated. On each subsequent floor of appointments - again from the shoulder of the previous boss. This is how it turns out to be a country of managerial gnomes. Is it possible, again theoretically, that is, as if in principle, to combine trust and professionalism in this fork in personnel choice? Yes, it's possible. First, trust is determined by working together. So start this work! Put a person on probation and check him! Place him first on the fourth level, then transfer him to the third, to the second, and you will make sure that he fits into your team, he professes your ideology, he is in your value space, or he is random, or he plays a role, playing along, looking into eyes and so on.
But attention! What is the main thing in this technological technique? The ability of this person to test in the field of a single value worldview, a single ideology, which is projected onto the value, goal-oriented, problem and then management field. If a person is concerned with different values than you, the first leader, how can he be trusted? Professional selection is absolutely necessary. This is not a place for improvisation. These places are for people who know the subject of management, know management methods, and have a methodology for online approaches to emerging problems. But there must be an ideology and goal setting. Without them, with just the desire for a career and enrichment, nothing will work out.
What if this person is forced to call a friend, ask the audience for help, or what other phantasmagoric scenes are we watching? What if the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government, who is responsible for the most complex sphere of the country’s life, has never gone through this pyramid in his life? He came as an assistant, an adviser, and in these offices he became deputy prime minister. He did not manage a single institute, not a single enterprise, not a single region, or anything.
We also see this personnel policy, this technique, and we understand that it is this part of the personnel corps that forms the basis of the fifth column, because the files on these outstanding leaders include well-known open data about how they studied abroad in school, how they studied at universities abroad, what internships they had there. Wonderful photographs are visible in a certain series: Shokhin, Gaidar, Chubais, Aven, Gref (who else is with them) at Yale University, and then this is the personnel corps in Yeltsin times, and even today these gentlemen-comrades occupy key positions.
In other words, this part of the reflection shows, using an unkind, untenable example, how destructive, poor-quality personnel policy, which, in fact, I again assert, is derived from the quality of the first leader, his political team, is dangerous. So the political team that should come with each new leader should not be formed.
DO NO HARM!
Naturally, the second part of today’s conversation is where and how new personnel will come from, and what will happen to the old personnel if, let’s imagine, a political change occurs in the country. Putin and his Putinism in the form of ideology, practices, and personnel will go down in history, and a new leader, team, ideology, and new management technologies will be suitable. How can all this happen? Where will these people come from? What to do with the old ones?
A simple principle from medicine is “Do no harm.” There must, of course, be continuity in the personnel corps, because at least the accumulation of managerial experience, paperwork flows, those documents and archives that have been accumulated now, over decades, should not disappear. This is an experience. It is well known that even negative experience is also experience.
What did I observe in the State Duma when it was re-elected? In fact, the management apparatus and the apparatus of committees also changed, and those developments that accumulated in the committees were simply taken out and thrown away. Neophytes came and looked with round, joyful eyes: “Where is what?” How can you move a piece of paper from the left table to the right? But as? What?". Not a kindergarten. Therefore, of course, the level of vertical cutoff - a replaceable political team and a successive personnel corps - is the most important principle.
At what height will this cutoff line be? Will it be completely horizontal? Most likely, it will be selective. And, most likely, the concept of a transition period will be mandatory. Moreover, the transition period will be in different senses of the word. These are changes in the constitutional and legal space, these are changes in the country’s course in external space and in domestic politics. This will be a very intense transitional period of communication with our own people openly, honestly, explaining to them what was happening, what kind of dizziness from success it was, and where the country is turning its course. This will be the most intense political communication with the world, explaining to it the same issues. Openness, professional understanding of where, where and how to move from, programmatic that will be announced and announced in a commitment mode.
But the transitional personnel process, of course, should take place according to the “Do no harm” principle. Those officials, those leaders in the authorities, the presidency, the presidential echelon, the executive branch, which, of course, are very closely related, and are also combined in terms of their derivativeness from the presidential set of powers of the corps in the judicial law enforcement system, in the legislative system, in mass media institutions information, in external missions of Russia - all this, of course, will also enter into a transition period.
It will be created, it is advisable to create a temporary personnel rotation body that will test, filter and carry out decisive, but at the same time smooth, personnel changes that are respectful of people and tasks. It is almost obvious that there will be informal re-certification. The fact that it should be based on the principle of professionalism and compatibility with the new ideological, political content of the entire public administration, new goal setting - this will also, of course, coincide with innovations from the point of view of the presence of an ideological and party value component. Not only in the corps of managers of all branches of government, including the presidential one, but also in various institutions of social life. We will also talk about this separately. The new law on parties, the new law on elections will include all these elements. Value-based goal-setting will have to come to the country at all levels, and this principle will seriously affect the new personnel policy.
THERE IS A CHANCE THAT PERSONNEL INCREASE CAN COME QUICKLY AND DECISIVELY
Will there be cleaning? Yes. Absolutely yes. We retrospectively obtained a very interesting effect through special methods of distributed expert assessment at the time of the transition from Yeltsinism to Putinism. Yeltsin left, Putin came, and the topic of state corruption then looked surprisingly interesting. The level of corruption rose to its local maximum under Yeltsin. Putin comes - he fell sharply. Why? The officials sat down. They began to wait, to figure out how the new broom of revenge would be assembled. Broom is a professional from the State Security Committee, the FSB. He, Vladimir Vladimirovich, worked as director of the FSB for some time. Corruption has settled down. The bureaucrats were opportunistic and waited for an answer. The answer was... Corruption grew to a historically maximum level during the times of developed Putinism. But the answer could have been different. But what did I lead to this example? And to the fact that the new culture of responsibility, control, sanctions in the corps of political leaders can change the style of behavior and activities of even those who, let’s say, have become spoiled. Those who are incorrigible, those who have caused significant harm to the Russian state, those who have been recorded in violation of Russian legislation, will, of course, fall under lustration.
Lustration is a loss of rights. This must be done according to the law. Nowadays there is no such law. He will have to appear among the first, and will exclude a certain contingent of officials from the opportunity to occupy public administrative positions. For some compositions and qualifications, this will be a lifelong deprivation of such rights.
Of course, abuses and all sorts of unpleasant things can happen. Accordingly, of course, temporary bodies will arise not only for personnel changes, but also for control and supervision of transition procedures. The concept of “new centurions” comes to mind, bringing a new chance to the country. Analogues of the guards of the Islamic revolution come to mind, whose corps is ideologically and value-motivated. Someone, of course, will say: “Oh! Again Stepan Stepanovich is thinking about a new totalitarianism!” Utter nonsense.
The fact is that the classical state, unlike the thieves' raspberries, has its own laws, not concepts, but laws of construction, efficiency, ensuring purity of thoughts, providing mechanisms for protecting the interests of people who find themselves in the highest government positions from mutation. There are very important mutation mechanisms at work there. I quote how experienced people taught me, then a young statesman: “We are the power! We can do everything. We can adopt a law for ourselves (Rotenberg’s law), and a Constitution for ourselves, the winners, and a Constitution for Yeltsin’s super-super-super-duper presidential republic! Yes, we can break laws, because we ourselves are judges! Yes, we can leave the jurisdiction of courts, for example, the ECHR, if we don’t like its decisions!”
There is such a temptation in power - to be above the rule of law, above morality, above sociality, above responsibility to the majority of the population, to one’s own people. We see this problem, I don’t want to compare and draw historical parallels, but in our political echelon there is no task of getting rich, filling our foreign bags in offshore areas. It is enough for me and those people who will come to power, or, let’s say, not for me and those people, but for the principles that are theoretically possible for the new Russia, to provide for myself and my family on a healthy, normal, non-acquisitive level. Do not claim anything else, cutting off temptations, temptations and claims with special institutions of control, supervision, including special anti-corruption institutions and not in the mode of chatterboxes, chatter (“A thief should be in prison!”, “We are against corruption!”), and knowing exactly how to fight this disease, this bubonic plague that has struck the country (corruption), with numerous know-how solutions. This means that there is a chance that personnel improvement can come quickly and decisively.
WE KNOW THE CAUSES OF THE DISEASE, WE KNOW THE MEDICINES, WE INTEND TO APPLY THEM
Who are the new candidates? Where will they come from in the offices that will be vacated for the natural reasons I talked about? What kind of people are these? Where are they from? There is evidence from our many years of research that the personnel corps of the Moscow flood, seemingly even with the experience of the Kremlin and other White House and State Duma offices, is inferior in quality to the personnel corps of the regions. Despite the fact that degradation is happening everywhere, it is losing. Fresh blood will flow to Moscow in terms of personnel.
The second most important consideration. The post-Soviet period, Putinism in particular, has very far-reaching plans, which they implement and which were translated from English and implemented in 1991, and in subsequent Yeltsin years, and in the 2000s, and subsequent Putin years. After all, the system of education and training of highly qualified personnel has actually been destroyed. Not only has corruption led to the substitution of a high-quality dissertation process, the Unified State Exam has led to processes reducing the quality of education of young people, the Bologna system has led to a sharp, noticeable, absolutely significant decrease in the quality of university education, post-university graduate school has turned into absolute bullshit, and this has reduced the overall level of quality training of highly qualified personnel.
What can you do here? First, filtering, testing and casting in these temporary bodies will and should be the strictest and most effective. Secondly, of course, this system itself grows from secondary education. There will no longer be any Unified State Examination, there should be no testing system, which not only changed the methods of examination, it changed the entire system of school training. She has created a monkey farm, which throws creative people to the sidelines, and has bred opportunistic people, cramming people who are capable of using any means, including illegal ones, instead of knowledge.
This system will have to change and intensively so that in a short number of years a new personnel corps will come as a potential for renewal in public administration. Headhunting, special institutes will look for the most talented and capable people throughout the country. What is called nepotism, nepotism, heirs in key and critical personnel appointments will be eradicated publicly and demonstratively. And not exemplary examples of the fight against corruption, which in the current period look like anti-exemplary, using the examples of Serdyukov, Vasilyeva and other strange cases, but the people like in China will be shown approximately how decisively and instructively for all other government personnel the fight against corruption.
I am practically convinced that a temporary unfreezing of the moratorium on the death penalty is inevitable for the most serious offenses - violence against women, against children, high treason and grave corruption. This will be an inevitable measure. Europe will suffer, and, as they say there now, all civilized countries will suffer, since for Russia the period of geopolitical survival is approaching, the country is moving away from the brink of state collapse. Nothing. They will suffer, because Russia, a disintegrating Russia, aggressive Russia, Putin’s Russia, absurd Russia, immoral Russia, asocial Russia poses a much greater threat to the world than Russia, which will restore its health, become an open, transparent, respectable participant in world affairs and processes. And after some time, the national leader, and the new state value ideology, and target programming, public administration, and the personnel corps that will be configured for this will allow the country to become leaders of the world with its own new world project.
You can now say: “Stepan Stepanovich! Well, how can you talk about the personnel who decide...?”. Friends! A state, a country is a system in which everything is connected to everything. I really talked about the personnel problem, about personnel development and about personnel policy in the country for a strategic perspective. But look how everything is connected to the general improvement of the country, which begins, like everything in the life of a person and society, from the most important thing - from the values that drive a person, his friends, his team, his political team. The values that drive the current leader and his political team today have turned public administration into what it has become, into what has become a deadly disease for Russia. This is what we see. Based on this, we say that personnel purge, personnel renewal, personnel technology, personnel policy will be different, like this, like this and like this.
Today’s topic, of course, is not exhausted, but it is optimistic, because when you know the diagnosis of a terrible disease, it is optimistic that you get a chance to find a cure and recover from this disease. The optimistic thing is that, knowing why the body got sick, we can prescribe a healthy lifestyle for this body, including in such a key sensitive link as government personnel policy.
Who is the first leader of the country? And who is next to him? Who is his political team? And what are the principles that reach the most earthly level, which we will call “people's self-government” (the next level is local government, subject of the federation, and so on)?
Absolutely hopeless are those promised people who say: “I will solve this problem by unscrewing this screw here, this nut,” and not to mention how it is connected with everything else in the state, which is all interconnected and requires a complex (not complex, but integrated) approach. Keeping in mind also that this is not a static task, but a dynamic task, a task that must be solved in development. This kind of integrated management will definitely come to the country.
Everything is connected to everything and will be solved in a single paradigm, on a single platform, with a single approach, which does not exist today. Why not? Because, I repeat, we need a state ideology as a collection of the highest values of the people, country and state; everything will be derivative and dependent on them.
Therefore, I want to reassure you. I want to convey to you a bit of optimism. We know the causes of the disease, we know what the cure is, we intend to use them. And since all this is connected with the word “health,” everything will be great with us.
Mistakes in HR policies can be very costly, so taking care of people should be the top priority of any print shop manager.
Surely readers have heard about my misadventures at Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. Then we managed to quickly revive and bring to the Moscow market a self-supporting printing house with a staff of 120 people, mastering many technologies: color offset, digital, silk-screen printing, embossing, UV varnishing, cutting, lamination; binding with paper clip, glue and spiral; integrated and hardcover. People have learned to quickly and efficiently produce a wide range of printed products on an industrial scale - from business cards and leaflets to calendars, paper bags, envelopes, DVD packaging, magazines and books.
We almost doubled the equipment park, equipped the printing house with furniture and office equipment, renovated the premises using our own funds and did not receive a penny from the state. budget... And 2.5 years after my appointment, I was fired from the position of director, and after another 2 years (when the printing house practically collapsed), at the instigation of my “successors” S. Yu. Egorov and I. V. Popov, I ended up behind bars .
While objecting to the absurd accusations of self-interest when using a commercial p/c printing house and paying salaries to employees in the wrong way, I still admit my mistakes in the personnel policy of the enterprise.
Having promised the rector of Moscow State University V.A. Sadovnichy to retain the employees of the old printing house, I “put on the neck” of the growing enterprise dozens of people who did not know how and did not want to work. I consider my main mistake to be the choice of the chief accountant - N.V. Pavlova turned out to be not only an amateur, but also simply a dishonest person. Having failed all financial reporting, she escaped from the printing house during the inspection, destroying the documentation, and later “agreed” with the investigators of the Nikulinsky MSO to evade responsibility.
I will not write about the unprofessionalism and corruption of personnel in the Investigative Committee and the entire justice system of Russia, as well as the history of my arrest (those interested can see the information on the website www..
Personnel issue
The diligence of management, the best organization of production, the latest equipment, competent pricing and behavior of the company in the market cannot bring success if the manager does not pay attention to the selection, placement, training and motivation of employees.
According to the famous American business expert Brian Tracy, who has helped many people become millionaires: “95% of a leader’s success is determined by the specialists he attracts to work. The most successful companies tend to employ the best of the best.”
One highly paid professional is more useful than several mid-level workers with lower salaries. For example, after leaving Moscow State University, I managed to reform the printing house of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, expand the range and triple the volume of products by reducing the staff by one and a half times, training the remaining employees and recruiting experienced specialists. What’s surprising is that people began to earn more, but the department’s payroll remained the same.
Constantly think about the people working in the printing house and helping it develop from the outside. The ability to select and retain specialists is invaluable, because any decisions must be implemented by certain people in a certain way. Be aware of personal problems of employees and, if possible, help solve them.
Even if everything is fine with personnel in the printing house, monitor the workforce. There is a shortage of professional personnel in our industry, so it is almost impossible to find a competent specialist through recruitment agencies, newspapers and general sources of information on the Internet. I advise you to use industry websites, printing forums and portals, and the word of mouth method through friends, communication at exhibitions and seminars. Even one smart specialist can increase the efficiency of a printing house and organize new profitable projects from scratch.
Hiring employees
Personally make decisions about hiring, relocating, or firing key employees, management personnel, and unique blue-collar professionals. Properly delegate authority to trusted subordinates to resolve personnel issues with the printing house staff in order to always be in the know.
Avoid hiring relatives and close friends for responsible positions - this may lead to their unwanted alliances against the interests of the enterprise. Do not repeat my mistakes, as a result of which Natalya Pavlova was able to secretly from me, through accountants and a personnel officer under her control, place her entire family (sister, son and daughter) in the Moscow State University printing house.
 |
When interviewing, pay attention not only to professional skills, but also to the person’s abilities. For example, it is useful to check the color perception of a printer, the artistic taste of an artist, the mathematical abilities of an accountant and the communication abilities of a manager. The human qualities of the applicant are often more important than the professional ones; an amateur can be taught to work, but his character can never be changed. Often the first intuitive impression of a person turns out to be the most correct.
Don’t be shy about asking candidates for recommendations, and contact their previous employers yourself. The circle of printers is small, and we are all connected to each other. We are united by our favorite profession, common seminars, exhibitions and other events, industry publications (for example, Publish magazine), websites, forums and blogs on social networks. Any head of a printing house will always share with a colleague his opinion and information about the departed employee.
Personnel training and career growth
We all know about the shortage of personnel in our industry, the lack of printing educational institutions and the level of education of their graduates. Just don’t become hostage to the “crusts” when searching for personnel. An intelligent person can be trained in an active production facility. Moreover, in order to maintain people's interest in work and increase their productivity, training must be continuous.
Use the institute of mentoring, pay extra bonuses to experienced workers for mentoring students and, of course, hold them accountable for the mistakes of their students.
For managers, accountants, IT specialists, external courses and trainings. You shouldn’t believe the advertising about their high efficiency, but you will still get more benefits from such employee training than you pay for it. Printing specialists can “pull up their skills” through seminars held at Moscow State Unitary Enterprise and at exhibitions, and by communicating with colleagues at industry events.
Try to get more information from engineers and technologists when installing equipment or becoming familiar with new consumables. The printing house pays a lot of money for equipment or materials, so it has the right to train its employees using specialists from supplier companies. Usually they have seen a lot of production and can tell not only about a specific machine, but also about the effective organization of labor in the best printing houses in Russia. The director of the printing house can receive from them an unspoken assessment of his employees. I also know this as an engineer who has installed hundreds of units of printing equipment in printing houses in Russia and the former CIS.
Use rotation of specialists. In the printing house of Moscow State University, for example, each worker in the post-press shop had at least three specialties, such as cutting, folding, laminating, punching on different types of machines, stitching on a horizontal line and a vertical sheet collating machine, working on a wire sewing machine and KBS machines. The printers of the b/w workshop knew how to handle Romayor, Dominant and Ryobi machines. And half of the employees, including accountants, couriers and security guards, were trained in simple operations (selection of book notebooks, assembly of book blocks, packaging of products).
In addition to the above horizontal rotation, create conditions for vertical promotion of employees. Typical career progression for printing house employees: printer's assistant - printer - foreman - shop manager - production manager. Or another: assistant manager - manager - head of the sales department - commercial director.
Although the printing house does not practice a closed personnel policy (when only low-level specialists are invited from outside), most often the best and most useful personnel are obtained from those who “grew up” and went through the personnel ranks at your enterprise. Such specialists can remain faithful to their native printing house for 10-20 years.
Control and information of employees
Subordinates need to set specific, understandable tasks and be sure to monitor the progress of their implementation and check the results. Unfortunately, having worked only in efficient commercial companies before Moscow State University, I did not pay enough attention to monitoring government employees. enterprises. Increases in wages by an order of magnitude for former employees and a constantly maintained level of wages above the industry average in Moscow did not automatically lead to corresponding returns and increased productivity. In addition to the “carrot”, the “stick” should also be used.
You should carefully prepare a list of employee job responsibilities, standards, internal regulations, printing house orders and other documents that allow you to monitor and evaluate people’s work. These “rules of the game” must be communicated to every employee and understood by them.
 |
Encourage leaders emotionally (at meetings, information stands) and financially, and punish, up to and including dismissal, violators of labor discipline and defectors. Praise people in public at the first opportunity, but scold people in private. Investigate each case of defects, identify specific culprits and fine them in the amount of the cost of damaged materials.
Regularly inform employees about the results of their work, about the successes and failures of the printing house. People need to know what is happening around them. This develops a sense of belonging and helps create a team spirit. The clearer and more honest the situation in the printing house is explained, the more efficiently people work and make personal sacrifices for the sake of the common cause.
Hold weekly meetings of responsible employees and meetings of the entire printing house team once every 1-2 months. After communicating current affairs and news, be sure to ask people for their thoughts and suggestions. You will be amazed at the number and quality of ideas for improving the state of the printing house and the prospects that have opened up. The most active ones can be financially rewarded for their innovations.
Staff motivation
Introduce a piecework or bonus wage system. This is the best motivator, allowing people to count on remuneration in accordance with their professional level and personal contribution to the development and profit of the printing house. I will give an example of the transfer of MSU printers to piecework at the end of 2009.
The printers of the Roland 204 and 305 half-format presses completed an average of 10-15 orders per shift, and no amount of exhortation and requests from managers, technicians and craftsmen could make them work more. People were satisfied with salaries of 40,000 rubles, and some saved their energy for part-time work in other printing houses. When I suggested switching to payment depending on the results of work, the advanced workers received more than 50,000 rubles in the first month, and the next month everyone wanted to work on piecework. The average output of printers increased to 25 adjustments per shift, and the leaders made 35 orders without any coercion from their superiors. The calculations at MSU were based on the number of sheet passes (l/p) through the machine; they assessed all printer operations.
For example, the cost of making adjustments with ink 1+0 or 2+0 was 3000 l/p, with ink 3+0 or 4+0 - 5000 l/p, changing offset canvas or Pantone paint - 3000 l/p, an hour of downtime not due to the fault of the printer - 2500 l/p, preventive work - 5000 l/p per hour, etc. I may be wrong in the exact figures (in prison I do not have access to my records), but I think the principle is clear. At the end of the month, all l/p were summed up and converted into rubles by multiplying by the price of one l/p. If the result was less than the salary, the person received his 40,000 rubles, but had to compensate for the difference in wages starting from the next month if he wanted to stay on piecework. After 2 months, the average salary of printers reached 60,000 rubles, and output increased by 150-200%.
Unfortunately, before my dismissal, I did not have time to transfer to piecework the operators of post-printing machines - cutters, folders, cutters, etc., although the necessary schemes for recording the results of their work were prepared. I think it is impossible to transfer the workers of the bookbinding shop to piecework, they have to do many different operations during the day - several standard setters will be needed to record them and draw up reports. Therefore, they remained on salary with bonuses for overworked hours and the results of the work of the entire workshop. The automatic production control system (APS) Print Expert, introduced at MSU, brought significant benefits when calculating piecework wages.
Motivation of sales managers
An important point is the remuneration of sales department managers as the main “earners” of the printing house. All employees must understand that they work for clients and do everything to make customers happy, but its success depends primarily on the managers who directly represent the printing house. It is necessary to create such a remuneration system so that managers are interested, without being forced by management, to find more orders at higher prices.
At Moscow State University, managers were entitled to a small salary (about 15,000 rubles) and a bonus of 5% of the conditional profit, calculated using a simple formula: the order price minus the cost of paper, printed forms and outsourcing work. Two points are important here: firstly, simplicity of calculation (as in the case of printers), so that people do not think that they are being deceived. Secondly, the basis for calculation should be profit, and not the selling price of orders, otherwise the printing house may get bogged down in a mass of low-profit work. In order to interest managers in selling printing services at higher prices, we additionally paid them 25% of the difference between the sales price and the price list (calculated automatically in the automated control system). And in order to motivate people to work permanently, all bonuses were paid only if the monthly sales quota was met. The value of such a norm should be at the level of the break-even point (i.e., the amount that covers all costs of the printing house, including staff salaries). In the printing house of Moscow State University, experienced managers had to sell orders worth 1 million rubles per month, and beginners - half that.
The head of the sales department did not receive a percentage of his own sales, but had a bonus from the total profit from all orders of the printing house. This kept him from pulling the blanket in his direction and stimulated him to learn and help his subordinates.
To increase efficiency, assistants were assigned to MSU managers (one for every 2-3 managers); at their disposal were couriers, drivers with their own cars and automated control systems, which I will discuss later. Assistants were the closest talent pool for managers.
Automation
Many printers underestimate the role of automated control systems in increasing the efficiency of a printing house. And in vain! I will outline her contribution to the personnel issue using the example of my experience in different companies.
The automated control system calculates the price of orders, sums up the cost of consumables actually spent on their implementation and calculates bonuses for managers; calculates piecework wages to employees depending on the results of their work; allows managers and department heads to work remotely from the office, connecting to their workplace via the Internet; stores information about clients, their individual discounts and helps managers effectively replace sick or resigned colleagues; plans the passage of orders through the workstations of the printing house and thereby allows you to schedule the working day of each employee in advance; takes into account defects and other personnel errors, helps in determining those responsible and the scale of losses.
In Print Expert, it was also planned to keep track of employees’ working hours, their tardiness, absenteeism, overtime, vacations and time off (the developer made such modules on other proprietary systems.) For convenience, it was planned to connect the automatic control system with the system used at Moscow State University for employees to enter the printing house using magnetic cards. In a word, automation is the future of printing houses in all aspects, including personnel.
By personal example
In conclusion, I will mention the factor of the leader’s personal example to employees. People look at you, and the mood, team spirit, and microclimate in the team depend on your behavior. Treat all employees equally well, regardless of their position, nationality, religion, gender or age. Don't forget to congratulate people on holidays and birthdays, give them gifts. Create a friendly atmosphere between people, be honest with them, and then they will answer you a hundredfold - they will help in the development of your common enterprise.
Best regards, your Marcel.
| Ways to automate printing houses | Secrets of production efficiency |
In May 1935, the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, gave a remarkable speech to military graduates. He dwelled on the successes that Soviet society has achieved in recent years, pointing to the merits of the leaders of the country and individual enterprises. And yet, Stalin noted, there is no need to attribute all achievements to the wisdom of the leaders or the introduction of technical innovations.
Having overcome devastation and gone through the stage of restoration of the national economy, the country entered a new period. Now, as Stalin emphasized, society needs personnel, that is, workers who can master technology and move established production forward. By the mid-30s, the Country of Soviets had a significant number of factories and factories, state farms and collective farms, but there was an extreme shortage of people with experience in managing teams and modern technology.
Previously, managers at all levels relied on the slogan “Technology is everything.” This formulation of the question helped to eliminate the country's backwardness in the field of technology and create a powerful material basis for socialism. But in the changed conditions, technical equipment alone was no longer enough for a decisive breakthrough forward. It is for this reason that I.V. Stalin launched a new slogan among the masses, declaring: “Cadres decide everything!”
The role of personnel policy in the modern world
Stalin's words also have meaning for modern Russia. The economic transformations in the country that took place two decades ago are placing increased demands on the personnel of enterprises and organizations. The country still urgently needs qualified specialists who can form the core of industry, science, army and government structures.
The basis of working with personnel in modern conditions is the creation of a human resources management system. Only those managers who carefully select personnel, take measures to educate and train them, and do not forget to stimulate the work of subordinates can increase the profits of enterprises and achieve a useful social effect. At the same time, the strongest motivation is often not material reward, but moral stimulation.
Modern personnel are people with broad knowledge, valuable skills and work experience. This potential is gradually turning into the main factor of production, pushing aside technological innovations and fashionable methods of organizing production. When planning activities for the long term, a competent manager pays primary attention to working with personnel, creating the so-called long-term personnel potential.