OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2012. Ekaterina Rodionova, Director of the HR Policy Department, Sberbank of Russia, addressed Russia & CIS HR Directors Summit with a report entitled "HR is not a function, HR is a mission", reported the press-centre of Sberbank.

According to Ekaterina Rodionova, until recently, the main objective of Sberbank in HR was to bring its existing practices in line with the best international standards. Now, the challenge is fundamentally different. It is the search and implementation of non-standard and innovative HR solutions. "Today, Sberbank is building a 21st century corporation, where success will be determined by how deeply the people are engaged in creating and implementing innovations", said Ms. Rodionova.

In 2012, Sberbank launched a training pipeline system for mass evaluation and training of employees, which allows to build and maintain a consistently high professional level of employees in the offices and branches. By using modern online technologies for annual comprehensive evaluation of performance, and professional and managerial knowledge level, HR Department can identify the best employees and give them the opportunity to move ahead in their careers.

To develop the managers, we are successfully implementing Sberbank 500 Leadership Program developed by Sberbank Corporate University and such leaders in business education as INSEAD business school and New Economic School. The program combines full-time training with interactive discussions of case studies and participation in group work, as well as virtual learning, including online lectures and videos, web conferencing and webinars.

Currently, Sberbank is developing its collaboration with such leading global education centers as Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ekaterina Rodionova announced the launch by Sberbank of two large innovation projects in HR: Career Portal (November) and Sberbank Virtual School (December).

Career Portal is the Internet resource representing a professional community integrated with social networks. Any user of social networks can try his/her skills and knowledge in web tests and web games provided by the resource and become a potential candidate for prospective positions in Sberbank. Informational sections, blogs and communities have been created for various categories of users.  

With Sberbank Virtual School, any employee of the bank can review online the lectures from world's leading experts, study under the programs of the best Western business schools that collaborate with Sberbank, participate in remote business games and webinars.

"New philosophy of personnel management is the cornerstone of changes that we are implementing in Sberbank", said Ekaterina Rodionova.