— How will the Synergy Retraining Center help combat structural unemployment?
— Now the so-called structural unemployment has appeared in the Russian market. On the one hand, there are labor resources, and on the other hand, there are not enough specialists who are urgently needed. Additionally, many experts left the country a year ago. As Synergy, we are also facing a personnel shortage; We are looking for people to fill some positions, but we cannot find them.
Why? Sometimes because the applicants do not have enough experience, and sometimes because the specialties we need are not yet taught at universities. The number of such specialties, which are in demand but not yet widespread, will gradually increase in the coming years.
As a company, we do not like to wait for problems to resolve themselves. We take it and fix the situation. Here it is. A year ago the Retraining Center was launched in test mode. It is based on a country-specific model. I met him for the first time when I was writing my thesis at university. Our topic was: “Investing in human capital.” That’s when I learned about the existence of an educational model such as Income Share Agreements (ISA). Translated from English – “revenue sharing agreement.” Simply put, “learn now, pay later”.
Its uniqueness is that a person gets a new profession, but does not pay for training immediately, but only when he finds a job. The agreement for this type of education specifies a fixed percentage that the graduate must pay to the educational institution and the period for which this payment will be made. An important clarification is that this is not a loan. An individual pays no more than the stated training cost.
The format seems really interesting to most people in the country. Often the main obstacle when changing career path is lack of money. Retraining is not a cheap pleasure. Good courses are expensive. What do our people most often do in such a situation? They go into credit. Therefore, family conflicts and social tensions arise. The credit burden on the population in the country is already increasing very rapidly. It has increased by 3.3 trillion rubles since the beginning of the year, reaching a record 32 trillion. That’s a huge number! And here the installment plan is not from a bank, but from an educational institution, and you can even repay it from your salary. However, we decided to take some time and check how well this system will take root in us.
During the year in which this model was tested, students learned about today’s most in-demand professions by choosing them together with employers and received state-issued diplomas. Graduates are already working. We realized that the model works. Yes, there are thousands of nuances, but we believe that this type of education is also valid for our country. Therefore, we have now officially opened our Retraining Center and started recruiting personnel for training. Synergy has set itself a very ambitious goal: to retrain 10 million people by 2030. If we take into account the structural unemployment in the country and the demand for retraining, I believe that these indicators are quite achievable.
— Who can receive education at the center?
— These are people who are experts in various fields and have reached their career or salary ceiling or whose careers are essentially over. Take lawyers. The same ChatGPT is already better than the average lawyer. In the field of Russian information, this is not yet so clear, but in English-speaking countries it has been realized that there is no need for a full-time lawyer, because the “neuron” works more efficiently.
An example closer to Russian realities. Our country is entering the “blue collar period”. Due to the departure of Western companies, many existing companies are relaunching and new ones are opening. The same lawyers are engineers, developers of unmanned or autonomous transportation systems, etc. They can work as. We are currently at the beginning of a dramatic shift in the career landscape. It is clear that tectonic shifts will occur in the next three, five or 10 years that will force many people to re-educate. Now you need to be prepared for this.
— Which professions can be specialized within the scope of the “Learn now, pay later” Synergy program?
— We offer a wide range of digital careers. These are, for example, data analysts or programmers. In addition to software code development, there are a total of 28 courses on design, e-commerce, online marketing and human resources management. We are interested in ensuring that the admission candidate chooses the course that best suits him/her. In this way, we help an expert decide about his future, help him find a job and cover his education expenses.
— Where can a student turn for help if they are feeling burned out while studying or looking for a job?
— The agreement provides for a fairly long period during which our listener can receive training without incurring financial obligations. This is the first thing. Secondly, he can count on the support of Synergy employees at every moment of his training. There are several support levels. Information about all activities of the student, academic leaves, diploma certificates, etc. It has a curator who helps solve technical problems related to. There are also teachers who check your homework. And finally, a career counselor who guides each student from six months of training to adaptation to the new job.
Students take a special career development course. There are also homework assignments checked by career counselors. All counselors working in our center have certificates from international career counselor associations. They have experience in international companies and are well versed in their career paths.
— How many people have already been trained at Synergy using the new model?
— 10 thousand people have registered since the beginning of the “Learn Now Pay Later” program. Most graduates found employment approximately one and a half to two months after training. This is a good indicator. According to Rosstat, the average Russian looks for a job for about seven months. Meanwhile, there is a category of students who do not require employment. These are, for example, people who are already working but need a degree. Currently, around 1,350 people are paying tuition costs and deducting 15% of their monthly salaries.
— Synergy recruitment agency is considered one of the best among student agencies. How does he participate in the centre’s work?
— Of course, our recruitment agency is the main partner of the Retraining Center, because the employer comes from there, the vacancies come from there and through this channel people enter the labor market further. The agency operates a training-focused mini vacancy aggregator with the aim of bringing all interested parties together in one place: both the people we train and those who employ them. Companies turn to us when they experience personnel shortages.
For example, the Retraining Center had an order for 40 marketplace managers. We completed it, the customer was satisfied. In such a case, a business does not need to check its future employee portfolio and post vacancies on HeadHunter, which is quite expensive. We recently signed an agreement with Globus IT company, which accepts our programmers for paid internships and then hires those they choose to join the team. In total we currently have approximately 170 partner companies.
Unlike the targeted training model, companies do not send their employees to us for retraining. We are a career and education platform with a single entry point for everyone: employers, employees, students. Our listeners can share their CVs with us. The center provides unlimited support; This means that even after paying for training, a graduate can always return to the platform as a registered user, publish a resume and move further up the career ladder.
— How could the New Synergy program change the employment market in Russia?
“I think this could really change the approach to education in a big way because now most of the educational structures that deal with such programs sell their products using bank loans. The emergence of a new model will increase competition in the educational market and force most players to look for new mechanisms for working with customers.
Consumers of educational services will only benefit from this, as the scope of opportunities for purchasing courses with high-quality education will expand significantly. Of course, we are just at the beginning of the implementation of the “Learn now, pay later” model. And I trust his expectations.