Professionals in civil service. Meeting new standards

On November 24th, the Russian city of Surgut hosted a scientific and practical conference called "Professionalism of Civil Servants: Today’s Challenges and Realities." The conference goal was to summarize relevant experience and work out recommendations for developing and improving officials’ professional qualities at all levels of civil government in terms of new conditions.

Igor Kholmanskikh, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Ural Federal District, and Natalia Komarova, Governor of Ugra, delivered a welcoming speech at the conference.

Igor Kholmanskikh noted that today there was a lack of professional and competent civil servants in Russian regions who understand their degree of responsibility to the Russian society. Above all, this concerns heads of state authorities, municipalities, and officials at all levels.

"The matter of professionalism of the personnel pool is extremely important now. According to the results of a sociological research, the personnel pool is still an imperfect system. It is necessary to work out a unified continuous system in order to employees could receive education in the field of civil service," Igor Kholmanskikh pointed out.

Governor of Yugra Natalia Komarova stated that the concept of HR development in state and municipal management was adopted in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in 2017 in order to improve the process of personnel training.

"The document contains new approaches to the search and selection of managerial personnel for the state authorities of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. It was introduded new forms and methods for assessing managers.

The assessment of managerial competencies and leadership qualities of applicants are taken into account when appointing for the highest position," she added.

Aleksey Shipov, Director of the Change Management Center of the Higher School of Public Management RANEPA, Alliance Consulting partner, underlined that the management system is becoming the main competitive advantage of any region now, adding that a lot depends on how well the system works.

"Today, managers have a demand for HR technologies. There is an understanding that the development of personnel systems can significantly simplify working processes. You just need to tell them how to do this," he noted.

According to Aleksey Shipov, work with personnel should be on a systematic basis, and this system should correlate with strategic priorities.

"Competencies are methodological basis. I do not believe in the universalism of competencies for the whole civil service. We propose to start using a strategic constructor of competencies. At present, we are testing this technology in a number of Russian regions. In this case, the system of work with personnel is becoming proactive and corresponds to the current tasks of the state administration," the expert pointed out.

Sergey Kosenok, Rector of Surgut State University, shared his opinion at the conference about problems of training personnel for public service. According to him, revolutionary changes in the system of higher education and in the modern information society will require a new look at the interaction between universities and officials.