Who is responsible for personnel shortages of the defense industry?
Only a decent payment will return and retain qualified OPK specialists.
At a press conference on the implementation of the 2013 state defense order, Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov, noting the positive trends in the implementation of the rearmament program, acknowledged that the Defense Ministry and the military-industrial complex had significant difficulties that, despite the significance of the resources allocated, jeopardize the effectiveness of spent efforts, and the problem of "defense" and the poor quality of products.
To resolve this issue, they switch to long-term contracts for the full life cycle of ordered products and new algorithms for financing work. Military acceptance is being restored and pressure on the defense in terms of time and quality is increasing.
Undoubtedly, such measures can affect the situation. However, it is unlikely to be sufficient if one imagines that the quality of weapons is not only reliability, but also the conformity of its functionality with promising ways of conducting combat. And this should be achieved not according to the scenario of well-known long-term construction projects - we work, as it turns out, but as it should and within the required time frame.
Key motive for the professional
Without qualified personnel this cannot be achieved. But for the time being, their deficit in the DIC remains, despite the efforts of educational institutions. This trend can be reversed only by creating conditions where qualified personnel do not see another place for their self-realization, except in the military-industrial complex. And they value this place.
The directors of the defense enterprises in the Soviet Union understood this perfectly well, but they are underestimated by the majority of their successors today - by modern top-managers. Although not only the directors have changed, but also the modern specialist.
Such a highly qualified specialist, on the one hand, according to sociologists, becoming the owner of their knowledge and skills, is more mobile and free. Unlike the workers of the old, the Soviet formation is independent of the employer and in a different way builds relations with him. He sells him not only his work, skills and knowledge, but also his attitude - trust and loyalty in a competitive environment.
On the other hand, a qualified specialist is currently affected by the atmosphere of a consumer society - the result of reforms. When the measure of success for some becomes wealth, and for others who are not allowed to be wealth, the ability of their labor to ensure a decent life for their family. To achieve this, he is ready to earn anywhere he will pay more.
To gain trust and loyalty from a qualified specialist for the long term is possible only by an effective system of motivation that can not only retain, but also achieve quality from it.
In pre-reform times, patriotism was the key motive in this system. This intangible motive has been preserved today. At least for those who could leave the country, but remain and work in the defense industry.
To rely only on this is delusion or deceit. Especially under the conditions existing in the “defense industry” realities, when the interests of top managers and other employees are unbalanced and there are conditions for social tensions.
Guest workers pay more
The average monthly salary of an employee in the defense industry, according to statistics, slightly exceeds 30 thousand rubles. If we keep in mind that for “average wages” there is a spread, when only 20 percent of workers can receive wages above the average, and less than 60, then a considerable part of the workers of the defense industry, creating high-tech products, is in a position close to to disastrous. Let's compare this with the situation of cleaners, plumbers and painters, whose salaries in the capital are going to be brought in 2014 to 25 – 30 thousand rubles.
And the matter is not only in the limited funding and the lack of workload of defense industry enterprises. According to the data given in the newspaper “Military Industrial Complex”, in a fairly successful and funded space industry, only three and a half thousand came to the Moscow region’s enterprises in 2012 only in the Moscow region instead of the five thousand left. Is this the reason for the recent failures with the "Protons", for all their ambiguity?
Another situation with the salary of top management. His average monthly salary is two to three times the salary of other workers. For production workers, this ratio is even greater. And this is despite the fact that the management personnel in the organization of the defense industrial complex can be up to 25 percent of the total number of employees.
Maybe that is why, in terms of material motivation and flexibility of its use for skilled workers in the defense industry, modern top management sometimes shows surprising inefficiency for his salary? The fact that the methods of obtaining this salary, if they are not corruption, then have its individual characteristics, few people think.
On the one hand, receiving a salary, as under capitalism, the top management manages, as under socialism, when the state took over most of the concerns about the state of qualified specialists in the defense industry. On the other hand, paying for the hard work of qualified specialists, as under socialism, he expects productivity and quality from them, as under capitalism.
The price of such imbalance is high. Only the Russian business due to the lack of an effective system of motivation among the staff, according to AXES Management agency, annually loses more than 200 billions of dollars. Even if this is an overestimated number, the missed opportunities should still be alarming.
There are no such data on the defense industry, but it can be assumed that there are considerable losses here too. The efficiency of its management is inferior to domestic business, including in terms of personnel motivation.
This is even explained: Russian defense enterprises, unlike the military-industrial complex in other countries, are not focused on economic efficiency, but solely on solving state defense tasks with all available capacities, when price is not the main criterion. The fact that foreign "defense" for unjustified cost overruns lose their position (and at other times lost not only her), is silent.
Significant improvement in management efficiency in the coming years is not expected. The level of the average monthly salary in the defense industry over 50 thousand rubles in the case of the implementation of existing plans for its development will be achieved only in 2020 year. Whereas Russian private companies, successfully invading the sphere of the state defense order, have already reached it in 2012, which, of course, is not an example for opponents of defense industry diversification.
Measures taken in the military-industrial complex - scholarships and additional payments to young specialists, partial compensation in payments for mortgage loans, organization of mortgages for the cost price, target contract preparation, social packages are unlikely to change the situation with personnel.
First, they are limited by resources available in the defense industry and do not apply to most qualified specialists. Secondly, the young workers who are replacing the old workers will become more and more each year, giving priority to the material evaluation of their work, which is adequate to its results.
It is unlikely to retain and rely on the trust and loyalty of young professionals in the long term, even by compensating part of the costs when paying for mortgage loans or organizing a mortgage at cost if it “eats” half or more of the salary of a skilled worker, and its size is not much larger than the guest worker’s salary. What decision in these conditions will be made by a qualified worker, having paid for a mortgage, it is not difficult to predict.
A similar result can be expected from measures to retain specialists through the mechanisms of targeted contractual training, despite the fact that it is obligatory to pay twice the amount of costs associated with providing a place and social support for non-performance of obligations on the part of the graduate.
A situation arises, banal in its content, but destructive in consequences. Insufficient, and in some ways, archaic motivation does not allow retaining qualified personnel in the military-industrial complex, their absence affects the quality of defense products, its poor quality worsens the economy of enterprises, and their weak capabilities do not allow for the fulfillment of state defense orders. Here and military acceptance will be powerless.
Therefore, along with the use of new algorithms for financing the defense industry, the revival of military acceptance and the restoration of military science as necessary conditions for the fulfillment of state defense orders, a transition to modern approaches to the motivation of specialists in the defense industry is required, when the amount of wages must correspond to the result and not to a certain amount.
Frame saving path
Miser pays twice. Probably, we have already paid more, if we turn to the defense long-term construction. But this is not so important if they decided to catch up in a short time.
And here we must begin by establishing the responsibility of top managers for the preservation of qualified personnel, which was already recommended by the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation in 2012.
Today there is no such responsibility. Yes, and the wages of top managers also do not depend on the position in their organizations with qualified specialists. The indicators adopted for assessing the effectiveness of the organizations of the defense industrial complex — the number of employees, the average wage and the number of those who underwent retraining — are insufficient. They do not provide a complete picture of the real situation with highly professional employees - staffing by key specializations, degree of satisfaction, stability of staff, etc. The same average monthly salary for an enterprise does not have a value that is more convenient for manipulating statistics and salary.
Other indicators are needed. For example, the average wage growth rate for key specializations, the reduction of its deviation from the median value (the wage value, more or less of which 50 percent of employees receive), the percentage of specialists turnover, etc.
Of course, such an approach to the assessment of top management will require him to change his attitude towards the assessment of the labor of his employees through appropriate indicators. But their achievements will depend on the effectiveness of planning, organization and control, which will have to provide the top management. Only by solving this problem, he can show his qualifications and change the perception among effective workers in the organizations of the defense industrial complex about effective managers.
There is no other way to retain qualified personnel in the long term. Moreover, its potential is quite high and will not require the attraction of additional resources. So, only the inclusion of modern management mechanisms, including due to effective motivation, and the reduction of the costs in the framework of the state defense order even by a few percent would have allowed to find the enormous funds that are needed for a substantial increase in wages in the MIC and ensure its competitiveness. Soon, not in 2020.
However, the efforts of defense enterprises alone will not be enough. It is also necessary to participate in solving the problem of the customer, who determines the rules for the formation and implementation of the state defense order.
So, if the indicator of the average wage is necessary for the formation of the price of the state defense order, then when monitoring its implementation, when the customer requires not to exceed this indicator, the possibility of maneuvering means within the total price is excluded. Under these conditions, it is impossible to apply effective motivation systems in the defense industry. Here, without reaching an understanding between the customer and the DIC is indispensable.
But even these efforts will be ineffective if lawmakers do not join the problem. They should already be concerned about the issue of continuous price growth in the country and its impact on lowering the standard of living of the human resources potential of the defense industry complex. Moreover, the rise in prices, caused not by objective reasons, but by the greed of trade, public utilities, etc.
At stake is the implementation of the adopted plans for the rearmament of the army and the modernization of industry in the set time frame. The fact that they can be broken, suggests past experience. Perhaps the time has come for legislators, to paraphrase a well-known expression, to adopt the slogan “Guns instead of super-profits” and contribute to the defense security of the country.
At a press conference on the implementation of the 2013 state defense order, Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov, noting the positive trends in the implementation of the rearmament program, acknowledged that the Defense Ministry and the military-industrial complex had significant difficulties that, despite the significance of the resources allocated, jeopardize the effectiveness of spent efforts, and the problem of "defense" and the poor quality of products.
To resolve this issue, they switch to long-term contracts for the full life cycle of ordered products and new algorithms for financing work. Military acceptance is being restored and pressure on the defense in terms of time and quality is increasing.
Undoubtedly, such measures can affect the situation. However, it is unlikely to be sufficient if one imagines that the quality of weapons is not only reliability, but also the conformity of its functionality with promising ways of conducting combat. And this should be achieved not according to the scenario of well-known long-term construction projects - we work, as it turns out, but as it should and within the required time frame.
Key motive for the professional
Without qualified personnel this cannot be achieved. But for the time being, their deficit in the DIC remains, despite the efforts of educational institutions. This trend can be reversed only by creating conditions where qualified personnel do not see another place for their self-realization, except in the military-industrial complex. And they value this place.
The directors of the defense enterprises in the Soviet Union understood this perfectly well, but they are underestimated by the majority of their successors today - by modern top-managers. Although not only the directors have changed, but also the modern specialist.Such a highly qualified specialist, on the one hand, according to sociologists, becoming the owner of their knowledge and skills, is more mobile and free. Unlike the workers of the old, the Soviet formation is independent of the employer and in a different way builds relations with him. He sells him not only his work, skills and knowledge, but also his attitude - trust and loyalty in a competitive environment.
On the other hand, a qualified specialist is currently affected by the atmosphere of a consumer society - the result of reforms. When the measure of success for some becomes wealth, and for others who are not allowed to be wealth, the ability of their labor to ensure a decent life for their family. To achieve this, he is ready to earn anywhere he will pay more.
To gain trust and loyalty from a qualified specialist for the long term is possible only by an effective system of motivation that can not only retain, but also achieve quality from it.
In pre-reform times, patriotism was the key motive in this system. This intangible motive has been preserved today. At least for those who could leave the country, but remain and work in the defense industry.
To rely only on this is delusion or deceit. Especially under the conditions existing in the “defense industry” realities, when the interests of top managers and other employees are unbalanced and there are conditions for social tensions.
Guest workers pay more
The average monthly salary of an employee in the defense industry, according to statistics, slightly exceeds 30 thousand rubles. If we keep in mind that for “average wages” there is a spread, when only 20 percent of workers can receive wages above the average, and less than 60, then a considerable part of the workers of the defense industry, creating high-tech products, is in a position close to to disastrous. Let's compare this with the situation of cleaners, plumbers and painters, whose salaries in the capital are going to be brought in 2014 to 25 – 30 thousand rubles.
And the matter is not only in the limited funding and the lack of workload of defense industry enterprises. According to the data given in the newspaper “Military Industrial Complex”, in a fairly successful and funded space industry, only three and a half thousand came to the Moscow region’s enterprises in 2012 only in the Moscow region instead of the five thousand left. Is this the reason for the recent failures with the "Protons", for all their ambiguity?
Another situation with the salary of top management. His average monthly salary is two to three times the salary of other workers. For production workers, this ratio is even greater. And this is despite the fact that the management personnel in the organization of the defense industrial complex can be up to 25 percent of the total number of employees.
Maybe that is why, in terms of material motivation and flexibility of its use for skilled workers in the defense industry, modern top management sometimes shows surprising inefficiency for his salary? The fact that the methods of obtaining this salary, if they are not corruption, then have its individual characteristics, few people think.
On the one hand, receiving a salary, as under capitalism, the top management manages, as under socialism, when the state took over most of the concerns about the state of qualified specialists in the defense industry. On the other hand, paying for the hard work of qualified specialists, as under socialism, he expects productivity and quality from them, as under capitalism.
The price of such imbalance is high. Only the Russian business due to the lack of an effective system of motivation among the staff, according to AXES Management agency, annually loses more than 200 billions of dollars. Even if this is an overestimated number, the missed opportunities should still be alarming.
There are no such data on the defense industry, but it can be assumed that there are considerable losses here too. The efficiency of its management is inferior to domestic business, including in terms of personnel motivation.
This is even explained: Russian defense enterprises, unlike the military-industrial complex in other countries, are not focused on economic efficiency, but solely on solving state defense tasks with all available capacities, when price is not the main criterion. The fact that foreign "defense" for unjustified cost overruns lose their position (and at other times lost not only her), is silent.
Significant improvement in management efficiency in the coming years is not expected. The level of the average monthly salary in the defense industry over 50 thousand rubles in the case of the implementation of existing plans for its development will be achieved only in 2020 year. Whereas Russian private companies, successfully invading the sphere of the state defense order, have already reached it in 2012, which, of course, is not an example for opponents of defense industry diversification.
Measures taken in the military-industrial complex - scholarships and additional payments to young specialists, partial compensation in payments for mortgage loans, organization of mortgages for the cost price, target contract preparation, social packages are unlikely to change the situation with personnel.
First, they are limited by resources available in the defense industry and do not apply to most qualified specialists. Secondly, the young workers who are replacing the old workers will become more and more each year, giving priority to the material evaluation of their work, which is adequate to its results.
It is unlikely to retain and rely on the trust and loyalty of young professionals in the long term, even by compensating part of the costs when paying for mortgage loans or organizing a mortgage at cost if it “eats” half or more of the salary of a skilled worker, and its size is not much larger than the guest worker’s salary. What decision in these conditions will be made by a qualified worker, having paid for a mortgage, it is not difficult to predict.
A similar result can be expected from measures to retain specialists through the mechanisms of targeted contractual training, despite the fact that it is obligatory to pay twice the amount of costs associated with providing a place and social support for non-performance of obligations on the part of the graduate.
A situation arises, banal in its content, but destructive in consequences. Insufficient, and in some ways, archaic motivation does not allow retaining qualified personnel in the military-industrial complex, their absence affects the quality of defense products, its poor quality worsens the economy of enterprises, and their weak capabilities do not allow for the fulfillment of state defense orders. Here and military acceptance will be powerless.
Therefore, along with the use of new algorithms for financing the defense industry, the revival of military acceptance and the restoration of military science as necessary conditions for the fulfillment of state defense orders, a transition to modern approaches to the motivation of specialists in the defense industry is required, when the amount of wages must correspond to the result and not to a certain amount.
Frame saving path
Miser pays twice. Probably, we have already paid more, if we turn to the defense long-term construction. But this is not so important if they decided to catch up in a short time.
And here we must begin by establishing the responsibility of top managers for the preservation of qualified personnel, which was already recommended by the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation in 2012.
Today there is no such responsibility. Yes, and the wages of top managers also do not depend on the position in their organizations with qualified specialists. The indicators adopted for assessing the effectiveness of the organizations of the defense industrial complex — the number of employees, the average wage and the number of those who underwent retraining — are insufficient. They do not provide a complete picture of the real situation with highly professional employees - staffing by key specializations, degree of satisfaction, stability of staff, etc. The same average monthly salary for an enterprise does not have a value that is more convenient for manipulating statistics and salary.
Other indicators are needed. For example, the average wage growth rate for key specializations, the reduction of its deviation from the median value (the wage value, more or less of which 50 percent of employees receive), the percentage of specialists turnover, etc.
Of course, such an approach to the assessment of top management will require him to change his attitude towards the assessment of the labor of his employees through appropriate indicators. But their achievements will depend on the effectiveness of planning, organization and control, which will have to provide the top management. Only by solving this problem, he can show his qualifications and change the perception among effective workers in the organizations of the defense industrial complex about effective managers.
There is no other way to retain qualified personnel in the long term. Moreover, its potential is quite high and will not require the attraction of additional resources. So, only the inclusion of modern management mechanisms, including due to effective motivation, and the reduction of the costs in the framework of the state defense order even by a few percent would have allowed to find the enormous funds that are needed for a substantial increase in wages in the MIC and ensure its competitiveness. Soon, not in 2020.
However, the efforts of defense enterprises alone will not be enough. It is also necessary to participate in solving the problem of the customer, who determines the rules for the formation and implementation of the state defense order.
So, if the indicator of the average wage is necessary for the formation of the price of the state defense order, then when monitoring its implementation, when the customer requires not to exceed this indicator, the possibility of maneuvering means within the total price is excluded. Under these conditions, it is impossible to apply effective motivation systems in the defense industry. Here, without reaching an understanding between the customer and the DIC is indispensable.
But even these efforts will be ineffective if lawmakers do not join the problem. They should already be concerned about the issue of continuous price growth in the country and its impact on lowering the standard of living of the human resources potential of the defense industry complex. Moreover, the rise in prices, caused not by objective reasons, but by the greed of trade, public utilities, etc.
At stake is the implementation of the adopted plans for the rearmament of the army and the modernization of industry in the set time frame. The fact that they can be broken, suggests past experience. Perhaps the time has come for legislators, to paraphrase a well-known expression, to adopt the slogan “Guns instead of super-profits” and contribute to the defense security of the country.
Information