A grandiose event is expected in the Russian market both in terms of scale and consequences. "National Champion" - Rostelecom has decided to think about its future and is developing a program of qualitative changes that will cover the time horizon for the next decade.

"On sharp turns ... (c)"

On the one hand, all these "movements" were quite expected, but so far the processes of cost reduction, probably, were not so large-scale. Or at least not declared the number one target. So far, Rostelecom has been more engaged in minor "improvements" of an external nature - they carried out a rebranding and, according to representatives of the operator, "polls showed a high level of recognition" (I remember "eggs" were also discussed and the authors of those proposals also assured of the correctness and success of the appearance of these "drawings") . Then they began to transfer regional assets under this brand, changed the design and carried out repairs in sales offices, and so on in detail. At the same time, they got the opposite effect - revenue in the B2C segment, compared to the same period last year, decreased.

Only growth in the B2G segment is noticeable, thanks to the almost monopoly participation of the Republic of Tatarstan and the generosity of the state budget

In addition to the long overdue issues of modernizing the technical infrastructure, and the blow will be directed primarily at the state of affairs and the development of local networks, structural and organizational changes are also planned. And this reorganization in its most severe form will be a significant (taking into account the entire period of the program) reduction in the number of employees throughout the "new" Rostelecom. So a kind of "end of the world" is quite real, because just at the end of December it is planned to consider the draft of this program by the board of directors of Rostelecom. And some lucky people from Skylink should have already been affected, since in the next six months from 25% to 40% of the staff should be reduced.

First of all, logically, duplicating positions in the same accounting departments will fall under the reductions. Also, by reducing the number of subdivisions, lower and middle managers become candidates "for departure". But it is better for the remaining managers not to rejoice too much, since as further reductions in ordinary personnel are made, this fate will also affect some of them.

Rostelecom has already studied the structure of its operating costs and found "extreme"*

The need for financing only for the modernization of communication networks is estimated at $ 10 billion. Rostelecom expects that after replacing the copper cable infrastructure with fiber optics and the widespread use of soft switches, they will significantly reduce the technical staff responsible for the operation of automatic telephone exchanges, urban backbones and subscriber lines.

And although this renewal of local networks will take a lot of time and the reduction processes will take place gradually, this will affect several tens of thousands of Rostelecom specialists ("Implementation of this program ... will reduce the cost of operating the network by 2 times and reduce the number of technical personnel who now has 98 thousand people").

Alignment with the best

There are two reasons for the restructuring of this large machine, it seems to me. Both are external. Firstly, you probably read/heard about the close interest in Rostelecom in the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications lately. In order for the "body" to start moving, a force impact, an impulse, is required. Secondly, Rostelecom, having got into the same club of interests with the "big Russian three", must somehow move, so that the title of "national champion" does not become symbolic. In its presentation*, Rostelecom compared itself with its competitors and it is clearly seen that the same MTS, having several times lower indicators, except for the number of cellular subscribers and points of sale, outperformed Rostelecom. And other operators are not far behind.

Comparison of the results and business performance of Rostelecom with the indicators of the "big three" (part of the 7th slide) *

The target indicator for management will be the level of profitability of at least 40% ** (according to the reporting for 9 months of this year - 39.4%). Therefore, it is possible that Rostelecom, in one form or another, will "leave" its own retail network. Much attention will also be paid to sales, primarily in the corporate segment. After all, the cash flow from B2G cannot be big all the time...

Rostelecom employs more than 130,000 employees, and everyone plays an important role in achieving our overall success.

Today, Rostelecom has set a course for changing its business strategy and transforming its organizational and corporate structure. We create such an internal environment in which employees can most effectively solve their problems and make qualified decisions.

Therefore, our priority is to create more opportunities for employees. At Rostelecom, we strive to promote the personal and professional development of people and create a favorable atmosphere in the team. We offer our employees fair wages, additional social protection measures, safe working conditions.

Rostelecom pays special attention to personnel training and development. The company has organized a training system, the main components of which are a corporate university, an institute of internal trainers and a corporate distance learning system.

For beginners, we have a system of mentoring and adaptation. A career planning system has been developed, and the Personnel Reserve program is in place, which makes it possible to fill most of the vacancies at the expense of internal resources. Each employee, using modern crowdsourcing platforms, can take part in a joint search for solutions and offer their own idea for optimizing business processes.

We are interested in attracting young and talented personnel. In a number of the country's leading universities, Rostelecom's basic departments have been set up to train specialists in programs developed with the participation of the company. Every year, Rostelecom organizes internships for university students for the purpose of subsequent employment. The company has created a modular program for already working young employees, and for the purpose of their professional growth and social activity, a Youth Council operates in a number of regional branches.

The Company strives to ensure that the achievements of employees are judged according to their merits, and work at Rostelecom, in addition to income, brings satisfaction and a sense of confidence in the future.

For our employees there are preferential corporate tariffs for communication services, programs for children's recreation, sanatorium and resort treatment are being implemented. In 2015, a program was launched to support employees in solving housing problems.

One of the first in Russia, Rostelecom began to systematically help laid-off workers. As part of the personnel outplacement program, they are supported at all stages, including in finding a new job in other divisions if there are vacancies and even in other companies.

In order for the company to develop and move forward, we are building a strong corporate culture and a team in which people understand each other well at all levels. Rostelecom has gone through a difficult path of integration from individual regional companies into a national telecom operator. For several years, we have jointly developed and implemented common corporate values ​​and standards.

Today, Rostelecom's corporate culture is based on two strategic principles of the company – efficiency and customer focus. They are reflected in the adopted Code of Corporate Conduct for employees of PJSC Rostelecom. Five corporate values ​​- openness, responsibility, professionalism, innovation and continuity - help us build internal interaction, win the trust of our customers and partners.

It is important for us to understand that people like to work on the success of the company. Therefore, an annual study of the level of employee satisfaction is conducted in all regions and functional divisions of Rostelecom, the results of which are taken into account when planning HR projects in the field of motivation, development and training of personnel.

We have a busy corporate life. We hold professional skills competitions, creative competitions, sports tournaments and Spartakiads, we relax and travel together, take part in volunteer projects.

Rostelecom associates itself with the entire history of the Russian communications industry since its inception. Museums of Communications operate in many of our regional branches, and we celebrate the most important corporate holiday - the Company's Birthday - on September 25th. It was on this day in 1881 that the first step towards the emergence of telephone communications in our country was taken and, by order of Emperor Alexander III, the “Basic conditions for the construction and operation of urban telephone communications” were approved.

In the next three years, the leading Russian telecom operator Rostelecom plans to cut a quarter of its employees - 10-12 thousand annually. Considering that Rostelecom currently employs about 150,000 people (without subsidiaries), almost 36,000 employees will lose their jobs.

What is it for? And all for the sake of the same - for the sake of increasing profits by a sharp increase in the exploitation of the remaining workers. It is no coincidence that the company's management declares that by 2018 it intends to achieve labor productivity indicators at the level of the best companies in the world, comparable in terms of the type and scale of activity. In particular, the amount of revenue per employee is planned to increase from 1.8 million rubles in 2013 to 2.5 million rubles in 2018, according to the presentation of Rostelecom. This means that by reducing a quarter of employees, the exploitation of the remaining will increase by almost 40%.

Only due to net savings on salaries, Rostelecom, whose payroll is now more than 47 billion rubles, will receive almost 12 billion in profit. And in terms of total personnel costs, the savings (that is, profit in the pocket of the company's owners) will amount to more than 17 billion rubles.

Considering also that Rostelecom is upgrading its equipment, moving from analog and digital equipment to a new generation of programmable switches (Soft Switches) and building fiber-optic communication lines, the company's profit will increase even more.

There is a reason to give a damn about the conscience and interests of the working people, right?

Rostelecom President Sergey Kalugin, of course, promises that the rest can rejoice, because, they say, by reducing the staff, the company will increase the wages of those of its employees who manage to avoid being fired. Yes, but it's hard to believe. Until now, not a single “optimization” of this kind has led to an increase in wages, at least for ordinary personnel. Yes, the remuneration of top management may well increase. But those who account for the creation of all the company's profits will have to work much more and, at best, for the same money, if not less.

Why? Yes, because the laid-off employees will increase the army of the unemployed, which means that the price of labor in the labor market will decrease. Why would the management of Rostelecom pay their employees more if the labor exchange is full of those who, in order not to die of hunger, will agree to work for less money?

Therefore, none of the hired workers of Rostelecom will not seem enough - neither to those who will be laid off, nor to those who are “lucky”.

What to do? Fight without letting anyone get fired! Methods and forms of struggle are known. And the main thing in the victory over the employer is the unification of the workers and their class solidarity. And this is not just our good wish, it is a vital necessity for the Rostelecom employees themselves if they want to survive.

S. Agapchenko

Rostelecom has laid off 25.2 thousand employees over the past three years as part of its transformation from a classic fixed-line operator to a digital service provider. As a result, the company increased average revenue per employee by 21%, to RUB 2.3 million. per year, but still lags far behind the level of the largest Russian mobile operators. Until 2020, Rostelecom is preparing to lay off another 14-24 thousand people, but the process may be complicated by trade unions.

In 2017, Rostelecom laid off 8.8 thousand employees, at the end of the year the company employed 133.7 thousand people, follows from the operator's materials for annual reporting in accordance with international standards. This was confirmed to Kommersant by a representative of Rostelecom. Reductions - a part of the program of increase in the operational efficiency started in Rostelecom in 2014 at the former president of the operator Sergey Kalugin. By the end of 2014, the company employed 158.8 thousand employees. In 2015, their number decreased by 5.6%, to 149.9 thousand. In 2016, another 4.9% were fired, to 142.5 thousand people. In 2017, the rate of cuts accelerated to 6.2%. At first, Rostelecom planned to cut employees by 7-10% per year until 2018. In December 2015, the strategy was updated, setting a target for the number of employees in 2020 - 110-130 thousand people.

The rate of staff reduction at Rostelecom in absolute terms will decrease, and the target number of employees as part of the company's strategy is 110-120 thousand people, Kai-Uwe Melhorn, CFO of Rostelecom, specified to Kommersant. “With the transition to digital, there will be both partial layoffs and hiring of employees with new digital competencies. We also contribute to retraining projects, which is a fairly large investment in staff development. We give employees the opportunity to learn digital skills,” said Mehlhorn.

In 2016, the optimization of the staff allowed to reduce personnel costs by 1%, noted in the annual report of Rostelecom. But in 2017, personnel costs increased again - by 3%, to 93.4 billion rubles. The materials of the operator explain that this was affected by the accrual of a reserve under the new long-term motivation program, the transition to a new corporate pension program, as well as the growth of the payroll due to a change in the structure of the personnel due to digital transformation. Rostelecom sets the task of increasing revenue per employee and reducing the share of the payroll fund in total expenses, Mikhail Oseevsky, president of the operator, told Kommersant.

In 2014, revenue per employee of Rostelecom amounted to 1.9 million rubles, and at the end of 2017 it reached 2.3 million rubles. According to this level, Rostelecom is inferior to the largest mobile operators, Raiffeisenbank analyst Sergey Libin states. In MTS, this indicator at the end of 2016 amounted to 6.3 million rubles. in MegaFon - 9.9 million rubles, in VimpelCom - 11.6 million rubles. Fixed-line operators have higher personnel costs, including for equipment adjusters who provide Internet to households, Mr. Libin explains: if three cellular operators have personnel costs of 8-10% of revenue, then Rostelecom has about 30 %. According to this indicator, Rostelecom is closer to the German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, the analyst believes. So, in 2017, Deutsche Telekom's personnel costs amounted to €15.5 billion with 216.5 thousand employees and revenue of €74.9 billion. That is, the wage fund accounted for 20.7% of revenue, and revenue per employee was € 346.2 thousand per year (compared to approximately €34.9 thousand in Rostelecom at the weighted average rate for 2017).

Rostelecom has long taken a course towards optimization in order to make the company compact, while some of the employees were taken out of the state for outsourcing while maintaining functions, said Anatoly Nazeykin, chairman of the trade union of communications workers of Russia. At the same time, the trade union did not receive any official information about layoffs of up to 23.7 thousand people planned in Rostelecom by 2020, he emphasizes. This is a very serious reduction - if the plans are confirmed, Mr. Nazeykin emphasizes, the trade union is ready to enter into negotiations with Rostelecom, at which the fate of each employee to be laid off will be discussed.

Maykor, an IT and business process outsourcing service provider, has become Rostelecom's main contractor for a project to outsource part of networks in rural areas, a person close to Maykor told Vedomosti.

A person close to Rostelecom insists that Maykor is not the only executor of the project, but admits that to date it has won most of the tenders for it. To date, Maykor has won most of the tenders announced by Rostelecom for servicing local communication networks in rural areas, a spokesman for the IT company confirmed.

We are talking about outsourcing line-technical communication shops (LTC, serving individual sections of networks in the regions) in rural areas, the corporate publication Rostelecom's Bulletin says. LTCs in the European part of the country are currently being transferred, but soon LTCs in Siberia and the Far East will also be transferred to service third-party companies, the publication says. 146 LTCs have been handed over for service, and it is planned to hand over about 1,500 throughout Russia. Thus, according to the results of tenders, less than 9% of the planned number of LTCs in areas with low demand has been transferred to outsourcing, says Andrey Polyakov, a representative of the operator. Maykor is among the project's winners, he says, but won't elaborate.

The project is called Rural Communication, Polyakov explains. It included inter-district technical operation centers that serve territories with a population of less than 50,000 people, he continues. The goal of the project is to reduce Rostelecom's operating costs in small areas in order to ensure its efficiency. Managers will focus their efforts on large settlements, on the main line of activity for the operator - the provision of communication services, he clarifies. The project involves not only outsourcing unprofitable / small LTCs in areas with low demand - the contractor will also have to optimize the network and organize additional sales of Rostelecom products, Polyakov says.

Contracts with Rostelecom imply that the contractor will receive a percentage of Rostelecom's revenue in the serviced region, a person close to Maykor knows. This was done so that the contractor was interested in maintaining the quality of the network and increasing income from subscribers, including by connecting new services, he says. This can stop the decline in revenue from wired communications in these regions, the source of Vedomosti hopes. According to him, Maykor has already signed contracts that provide for an income of 1.8 billion rubles. Polyakov does not comment on this figure. Maykor representative Irina Semenova says that the contractor's remuneration for project services is determined by a percentage of the operator's income in each particular region. The percentage of income and the maximum price of the contract are prescribed in each contract, she explains. Semyonova does not name the amount of contracts concluded with Rostelecom.

Rostelecom's contracts also imply a significant reduction in its staff by moving to a contractor company, a person close to Maykor knows. According to him, about 28,000 engineers are currently servicing the outsourced communication networks, and Maykor will need no more than 15,000-17,000 people for this.

As part of the project, employees of Rostelecom serving local communication networks based on the LTC of small areas are transferred to the staff of an outsourcer company to perform the same functions, but with greater efficiency, Polyakov confirms. For them, a special system of motivation is being developed, a system for using official and personal vehicles. In addition, employees are expected to participate in other projects of the outsourcing company, since the territory of Rostelecom's subscriber base covers many customer service facilities of the outsourcing company. In particular, they will serve branches of the Russian Post, which is a client of Maykor, says a person close to the IT company.

Within the framework of contracts with Rostelecom, some of the former engineers of Rostelecom, who are engaged in the maintenance of local communication networks, have already moved to Maykor, Semenova confirms. They do the same work at Maykor, but more efficiently by combining operations and installation functions under service contracts. The motivation system also gives employees the opportunity to earn extra money, Semyonova notes. In addition, employees of Rostelecom who have joined the company will have the opportunity to develop their careers and acquire new skills in Maykor's corporate training system, which will allow them to take part in other company projects.