Research Article: 2019 Vol: 22 Issue: 2
Oleh Bodnarchuk, University of State Fiscal Service of Ukraine
Oksana Bodnarchuk, University of State Fiscal Service of Ukraine
Rukiye Ersozoglu, Dragomanov National Pedagogical University
Lyubov Kanishevska, National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine
Lyudmila Pet'ko, Dragomanov National Pedagogical University
Ganna Turchynova, Dragomanov National Pedagogical University
Natalia Vyshnivska, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University
The prognostic substantiation of the formation of professional development systems for managers was carried out; scientific and methodological recommendations were developed for improving the training, retraining and advanced training of managers in Ukraine; the main directions of the formation of a full-fledged entrepreneurial corporate education system, within the framework of which effective professional development of managers is possible, were defined; the possibility of further improving the training and development of managers to achieve real compliance of their training with the evolutionary requirements for the level of professional competence was substantiated; the necessity of appropriate regulatory support, which would contribute to the professional development of managers throughout their lives, was substantiated.
Model of Entrepreneurial Corporate Education, Top Managers, Adult Education, Staff Development, Budget.
The problems of forming a highly qualified managerial corps remain relevant for any organization, but they are of particular importance for Ukrainian enterprises, since in the recent past it had a different socio-economic model of activity and now corporate institutions and management practices corresponding to a market economy are emerging.
In this regard, one of the biggest problems in the studies of the Ukrainian labor market managers is a relatively small number of scientific works related to the professional development of corporate managers, and they, as a rule, affect certain narrowly focused subjects. One of the reasons for this situation, in our opinion, is the limited information available in the mid-2000s, the relocation of foreigners in Ukraine began to be perceived on the global market by top managers as the normal career development of a successful manager. Ukraine has become an attractive place to work for foreign managers. Large Ukrainian companies offered them compensation packages, the amount of which often exceeded offers in their “native” markets, great opportunities for self-realization and development in their professional activities. On the other hand, as Karpenko et al. (2018) point out, the formation of more or less civilized rules in the Ukrainian market led to increased competition in various industries, resulted in the ousting of domestic business entities, which over time began to merge with large companies. As a result, the former owners of the absorbed enterprises became hired managers (Park & Park, 2017; Stoyanov, 2019). The top managers were mainly owners of small and medium businesses who could not get the resources to develop their own business (Hilorme & Shachanina, 2017). Their starting position was quite good, because Ukrainians, as a nation, are fairly educated, able to quickly adapt to external conditions, which are constantly changing, are able to easily learn.
In order to test the hypothesis of the study a complex of general scientific methods were used: theoretical–divergent-convergent analysis for the systematization and synthesis of scientific and methodological developments of domestic and foreign scientists, legislative and regulatory documents; definitive analysis for the disclosure and clarification of the conceptual and terminological apparatus; retrospective to identify the features of the professional development of managers; content analysis for operating with large amounts of information, structurally informative and system-functional to substantiate the main structural components of the professional development of managers, identification of their interaction, clarifying the mechanisms of functioning; comparative for correlation, comparison and identification of common and distinctive features of the systems of training and professional development of managers in the countries studied; empirical-observation, conversations, participation in project activities, content analysis of scientific sources, proposals of educational providers, their curricula.
However, the managers showed four key problems (more precisely, areas for improvement), which are characteristic of almost any Ukrainian professional. That is: ignorance of the English language (oddly enough, but this insignificant at first glance detail reduced at times the opportunities for specialist growth in almost any sphere); lack of soft skills, first of all-the ability to "sell" yourself, represent your team, ideas, results; lack of leadership and teamwork skills; lack of fixation on continuous learning, lifelong learning.
These simple and obvious, at first glance, disadvantages created at that time a huge gap between what we today call the “labor market” and “human capital”, which, according to (Tetiana et al., 2018b), is a valuable Ukrainian resource, a renewable source of economic growth.
Thus, the exceptional conditions for foreign top managers often caused misunderstandings between domestic and foreign specialists.
Expatriates, through inflated self-esteem, underestimated the professionalism of local colleagues, which was manifested in the control of foreigners over Ukrainian. Another obstacle was mental misunderstandings in building trusting relationships. Western expatriates are accustomed to build relationships on a professional basis, but Ukrainians focus mainly on interpersonal relationships, rather than business. Despite the fact that foreign specialists were qualified managers who could effectively manage a company in a developed economy, in the Ukrainian reality, in conditions of corruption, raidership, government intervention and complete uncertainty, Ukrainian and Russian top managers still preferred. By the end of 2010s, foreigners accounted for 30-35% of all business leaders in Ukraine. Of these, 40% are Russians, the rest are citizens of European countries and the United States. This proportion correlates with aspects of the development of the Ukrainian market by local and foreign companies, including business restructuring during the economic crisis (Parent, 2017).
Ukrainian owners, above all, are looking for such skills in candidates for the post of top manager, such as operational efficiency (ability to manage costs) talent management (ability to create highly effective teams with a limited budget) ability to effectively interact with government authorities, if this is not done by the business owner himself. On the other hand, psychological stability and prudence became the most demanded.
The peculiarity of the current Ukrainian labor market of top managers is that those managers who have experience in various companies, rather than those who were mainly in the same corporate environment, are valued more.
The only thing that everyone agrees on is the need for staff training. As practice shows, in Ukraine the number of companies engaged in the professional training of their employees, has begun to grow in recent years. Accordingly, the number of corporate training centers in Ukrainian companies is growing every year. Employers take staff training in their hands, sometimes turning a blind eye to the presence of diplomas from Ukrainian universities.
Unfortunately, however, most attempts to organize corporate training remain ineffective. There are many reasons for this. Their analysis allowed us to identify three leading factors that are a source of interference, or, conversely, the engine of effective corporate training. They are connected, in fact, with the participants of the training process themselves: with the management as the customer and the controller of the quality of training, the personnel of the object and subject of training, and the teaching staff as the executor of the ordered service.
The content analysis of the external study programs conducted by us allowed us to make a ranking table that illustrates their subject and focus on a particular target audience (Table 1).
| Table 1: The Subject Of External Training Of Managers | |||
| Subjects | Functional managers | Regional managers | Top-managers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management of changes | + | + | |
| Leadership and building of authority | + | + | + |
| Interpersonal communication | + | + | + |
| Conduction of negotiations | + | + | |
| Conduction of complex interviews | + | + | |
| Conflict resolution | + | + | + |
| Management of projects | + | + | |
| Team management | + | + | + |
| Delegation of task and development of self-dependance | + | + | + |
| Motivation | + | + | + |
| Control and evaluation | + | + | + |
| Decision making | + | + | |
| Time management | + | + | |
Analysis of theoretical and practical sources makes it possible to highlight the main obstacles at the management level that prevent the achievement of higher results of corporate training, including: the unsystematic nature of the training process-there is no clear idea of whom to teach, why teach, what to teach, respectively-how to teach, and, as a result, how to check this; unformatted lists of main competencies of specialists: it is not clear what is really important for the successful performance of work, and what is secondary, as a result of what everyone does the work in own way; the formal approach to personnel training: there is no separate specialist who is engaged in personnel training (which is now called the HR-manager) or he/she does not know his/her work and cannot defend his/her position before the management; the lack of “influx” to the organization of new knowledge and professional experience from the external environment; uncorrected or lack of feedback and a system for monitoring and evaluating training results; the lack of competence in the implementation of calculations of economic efficiency of training to justify the cost of staff training; budget constraints for staff development; old approaches to work at different levels of organization.
In general, the above list can be called a lack of interest, attention and support from top management, including its non-participation in the training process.
These studies are consistent with the study of (Hilorme & Shachanina, 2017; Tetiana et al., 2018a; Sabat et al., 2019) that an imperfectly designed or unsystematic training process brings negative results, turning it into a routine and a formality, becomes burdensome for employees, hindering, rather than helping them to improve. This is confirmed by the results of our study.
It was established that in Ukraine the number of companies engaged in the professional training of their employees has begun to grow in recent years. Accordingly, the number of corporate training centers in Ukrainian companies increases every year. However, most attempts to organize systematic corporate training remain ineffective.
A number of problems and obstacles hindering the creation of an effective system of corporate education in Ukraine was determined. They are primarily related to the participants in this process: management, as the customer and the controller of the quality of education, personnel, as the object and subject of training, and the teaching staff, as the executor of the ordered service. The main task to be solved by the education system is the formation of a new model of professional training aimed at overcoming the lag in the structure, volume and quality of labor resources from the real requirements of modern enterprises.
Thus, the analysis, understanding and perception of the theoretical, methodological, psychological and pedagogical foundations that are important for the organization of staff training, the consideration of new theories and technologies in continuing adult education, as well as the creative use of constructive ideas of foreign experience will help build on the Ukrainian territory a full-fledged system of corporate education of staff in general and managers in particular.
The need for organizational changes and changes in the principles of personnel development management in the conditions of growing competitive struggle implies an increase in staff productivity, product quality, improved customer service, creative and innovative attitude. We recommend the company management to realize the benefits of corporate training, among which: creation and improvement of the system of transfer of experience within the company; training of "narrow" specialists of a specific activity (cleaning, working with software); continuous professional development of all employees; distribution of best practices of the divisions within the company; reducing the number of errors by detailed consideration of the procedures of current activities; reducing the cost of expensive external training (with a developed system of corporate training, it will be enough to send 1-2 employees who will pass on this knowledge to colleagues), etc. It is worth noting that these are not all the advantages that corporate training provides. Many problems can be solved by using various low-budget methods of internal training; through the development of intangible factors stimulating mentors, coaches, managers of educational projects, the use of competitive schemes between structural units in the implementation of the training system; development of criteria and methods for evaluation of the effectiveness of training by industry, evaluation of the training program in post-program support by coaches, managers (teachers); the explanatory work in groups, the development of organizational culture, focused on the development of corporate training.