Employee training and development

The Company has a comprehensive ongoing training and development system for its employees, from entry level to top management.

Key documents:

• Russian Railways’ Human Capital Development Programme until 2025 Russian Railways’ Order No. 2757/r dated 14 December 2020. ;
• Regulation on Training and Development of Russian Railways Managers and Office Workers Russian Railways’ Order No. 1241/r dated 9 June 2020. ;
• Russian Railways’ Programme on Employee Development and Training System Improvement until 2025 Russian Railways’ Order No. 2827/r dated 18 December 2020. ;
• Rules for Organising Employee Training and Professional Development at Russian Railways Approved by Russian Railways’ Order No. 493/r dated 5 April 2021. ;
• Regulation on Organising Employee Training and Professional Development at Russian Railways Russian Railways’ Order No. 675/r dated 21 March 2022. .

Personnel onboarding

Onboarding is a comprehensive procedure to help new hires adapt to workplace practices and rules, develop professional knowledge and skills, and learn about the corporate culture, as well as encourage them to be diligent, responsible, hard‑working, loyal, and proud to be part of the Russian Railways team.

Russian Railways employees undergo onboarding in line with a dedicated plan.

Employees responsible for traffic safety and the most sophisticated technological processes complete an onboarding internship (also job onboarding).

As part of the initial onboarding efforts, the Company holds Integrated Onboarding Days, an annual event helping young employees get a holistic view of Russian Railways’ structure, its operations, strategy, ongoing projects, corporate culture and values. In 2023, the standard offline format was complemented by Welcome to Russian Railways, a monthly online corporate awareness event.

On top of that, the Employee Service Portal now features My Onboarding, a step‑by‑step sequential road map with a set of actions to be taken by a new hire at each stage of their initial onboarding process.

Mentoring

The Company has in place a system of mentoring, which can be divided into three large streams – professional, management, and youth mentoring.

Professional mentoring is a traditional part of Russian Railways’ processes: weathered professionals immerse newcomers in the process intricacies and familiarise them with the corporate culture. Currently the Company is updating its professional mentoring approaches. In 2023, seven production branches of the Company implemented a new professional mentoring approach, with another eleven branches to join the new format in 2024.

Highlights of Russian Railways’ new approach to mentoring:

• developing a set of skills (specific actions to be taught by the mentor);
• freedom of the mentor to determine the way of teaching key skills;
• a demo day where mentees demonstrate how they use their new knowledge in practice;
• financial and non‑financial incentives.

All processes have been automated to streamline the delivery of professional mentoring.

There is a dedicated training course on best practices that mentors can use working with their mentees, which is included in the Distance Learning System.

The primary objective of management mentoring is to transfer specific management knowledge to any employee at request. Particular attention is paid to high‑potential young workers, and in order to facilitate the transfer of managerial experience they are assigned to the Company’s top managers as mentees.

All employees within the Company can seek and receive professional support from colleagues through the Corporate Mentoring section of the Service Portal.

Management mentoring is an efficient instrument boosting personal and professional growth. One-on-one meetings with your mentor make your path to development of the competences you need much shorter.

My mentor gives me practical advice and helpful hints, so that I feel inspired and full of energy for new professional achievements.

Anastasiya Navalikhina Lead Engineer of the Corporate Governance and Strategy Division at the Moscow Railway

In 2023, Russian Railways launched a new stream – youth mentoring, which aims at comfortable onboarding of young new hires and their quick absorption of the corporate values Company‑wide and team‑wide. The instrument is based on the “youth for youth” principle, and is used during three months after the employment (at least three meetings).

Training and development of blue‑ and white‑collar employees

The corporate vocational education system is based on 15 vocational education centres with 71 branches covering the whole country, from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin.

In 2023, the Company trained 44,400 employees in key jobs, including 35,000 in vocational education centres. Over 189,500 employees completed training as part of professional development programmes, including 166,100 in vocational education centres. Teaching skills and technology courses were offered to 729 vocational centre instructors.

In 2023, the Company arranged and carried out the following measures to improve its employee training and development system:

• 184 educational programmes with implementation instructions and assessment tools developed and approved;
• flexible training formats designed for ten jobs, including those of a track serviceman, an overhead lines repairman, a shunting master, and a car inspector‑repairman, so that employees can do their courses offline and online, outside their work hours;
• availability of equipment on training grounds for improving practical skills increased by 15%;
• 177 technical training aids supplied, including 107 training simulators and 70 equipment items;
• ten training infrastructure sites repaired, including training grounds with full‑scale specimen at the Tynda unit of the Far Eastern vocational education centre;
• six training centre sites equipped with new furniture and appliances.

Managers and office workers training

According to Russian Railways’ Human Capital Development Programme until 2025, the main goal of managers and office workers’ training development is to boost efficiency by ensuring accessibility, quality, and focus of educational opportunities aimed at building all kinds of corporate and professional competencies.

In 2023, over 257,000 managers and office workers received training, including over 102,000 trained at the Russian Railways Corporate University.

Talent pool

The Corporate University serves as a centre of excellence in carrying out programmes to develop the Russian Railways Group talent pool, personnel assessment, methodology of new educational programmes, implementing innovative technologies in education, and promoting best management practices and business initiatives.

The Corporate University established a comprehensive system for the development of managers included in the Company’s talent pool. The system consists of:

• levels of improving managerial competencies;
• functional programmes to develop high‑potential managers in the Company’s key business areas;
• a corporate MBA programme.

In addition to the framework for talent pool development, we also have in place a set of programmes to support management tools upon request from relevant business units and in line with the Company’s strategic goals (for example, digitalisation, process approach, traffic safety culture, risk management, and customer focus).

Managers and office workers training in 2023

• More than 3,000 managers received training under programmes for comprehensive development of the Russian Railways talent pool.
• To increase coverage of linear managers, over 1,400 employees were trained at six regional railway universities under partner programmes of the Russian Railways Corporate University.
• The Company continued consistent efforts to develop high‑potential managers to cover all functional areas of the Russian Railways Group’s operations. To develop managers’ professional competencies, the Traffic Control Academy programme was launched in 2023 for managers of major stations and railway station hubs.
• The practice of exchange internship of managers at railway enterprises of different railway domains was expanded.
• The Company’s training programmes for managers and office workers to support Russian Railways’ Digital Transformation Strategy see consistent expansion, too.
• New programmes to boost the efficiency of digital transformation processes across the Russian Railways Group were implemented in 2023.
• In 2023, the new Business Intelligence programme was developed and launched to master up‑to‑date intelligence tools for supporting management decisions. The programme focused on sourcing strategic insights, quality criteria for assessing analytical reports, data visualisation, and effective reasoning techniques.
• A series of educational events was conducted for representatives of railway offices and companies from other countries. The events, including training programmes, a webinar, and a round‑table discussion, took place at Russian Railways’ venues and at foreign colleagues’ sites.
• Over 2,100 managers attended the Corporate Sustainability Management online programme. The programme discusses sustainability principles and offers a large number of cases from various businesses while also leveraging the Company’s experience.
• The Company continued its Knowledge.Express project based on the continuing education concept. Open learning formats, such as master classes, educational mini sets, audio discussions, RZD TV programmes, and Book Club video interviews with authors, keep developing.
• Consistent efforts continue in training programmes focused on risk management, anti‑corruption, occupational health and safety, industrial safety, accessibility of railway transport for passengers with reduced mobility, environmental safety, and other areas.

Distance learning

To improve personnel performance and ensure continuous professional development, we have a distance learning system in place, offering more than 1,200 training courses. Distance learning is still the format enjoying the most of students’ attention.

To develop professional competencies, the Company is implementing its Knowledge Hour project, which focuses on keeping the Russian Railways’ personnel competencies at a required level by dedicating one working hour per month to training. In 2023, the Distance Learning System provided over 900 courses attended by more than 400,000 employees from 13 branches of the Company. Over 2 million certificates were awarded to confirm successful course completion. In 2023, the System offered 285 new and more than 200 updated courses.