R.B. Gabdullin,

Ph.D.in Economics,

Institute of Economics CS of the MES RK

“The key condition of a new economic policy success should be nailed down by the cadres. For that end we should: improve the managerial course, and to that end we have the reserves”

The full-scale and timely decision of strategic objectives on the accelerated innovative industrialization of Kazakhstan and transformation of Kazakhstan’s economic infrastructure with the use of high technologies primarily supposes the formation of an adequate workforce capacity, particularly the corps of engineers, capable of creation of science-intensive globally competitive products. The objective needs of profound progressive restructuring in the area of human resources management technologies in whole and cadres with the pronounced innovative capability is associated with the necessity of the establishing during the historically short lead time  of new enterprises and even the entire branches of science absorbing industries. For the effective functioning of competitive innovative productions the highly trained specialists needful, beginning with the designers, engineers, technologists, industrial designers, and finishing the marketing specialists, who are familiar with the methods of the science-intensive end product realization in the world market.

The fundamental modernization of the workforce capacity management technologies, in our opinion, should be carried out with the involvement of broad spectrum of most diverse institutional structures. The corporate functions, surely, should be fulfilled by the specialized state agencies. In the meantime it is expedient to involve the organizational capacity of employers associations, representatives of a trade union movement and non-governmental organizations.

The expanded composition of participants is necessary for the scrutinous multiple-vector study of an essence and subject matter of the whole aggregate of the workforce capacity management technologies at the various levels of a productive-economic activity. As is well-known at the present time there are plenty large enough number of various technologies for the work force, human resources, workforce capacity, human capital, as well as the individual and collective innovative activity processes management.

The modernization of the workforce capacity management technologies, foremost should be focused on the sweeping reforms of customary stereotypes of thinking, which are inherent to the majority of Kazakhstan’s employers, possessing the narrowly utilitarian pragmatic cadres viewing, what leads to the underestimate of creative innovative opportunities of both the individual employees and the staff at large.

Secondly, the modernization of the workforce capacity management technologies should be focused on the creation of favorable conditions for the revealing of individual abilities to creative innovative labor of practically every employee with a glance to the various types of creative activity. Herewith it is necessary to involve the latest technologies of the group, collective, innovative activity with the use of the present-day developments of innovation management.

Thirdly, during the modernization of the workforce capacity management technologies it is necessary to have in mind the specificity of a highly effective innovative labor, which crucially differ not only from the physical labor, but even from the usual executable even the fairly intellectual activity. According to the innovation activity cannons the creative process of an inventor, designer, technologist or other professional is not limited to the formal frames of officially determined forty-hour labor week. Hence the management technologies should include the whole vital processes of a creative personality, including the forms and methods of a well-minded recreational activity outside the working hours, for the incitement of a full-scale innovative capacity revelation.

In the process of modernization of the workforce management technologies it is necessary to apply the multiple-vector approach.  

The complexity of the complex multiple-vector management organization is connected with that the workforce capacity possesses the mixture of the most diverse quantitative and qualitative characteristics, starting from the educational status, professionally qualification and the sex-age structure of the country human resources in whole, and finishing by the particular constellation of personal qualities of each particular staff member.

As is well-known, administrative methods are generally used in the legacy systems of personnel management, which, although allow achieving the given parameters of labor activity in the process of production and business activity, but by no means always are able to promote adequately of innovation activities development, both at microeconomic level and in scale of the whole national economy. The implementation of strategic objectives of an accelerated industrial-innovative modernization of all Kazakhstan’s spheres of economy supposes the use of not only the traditional approaches to the workforce capacity management, but also the active research of new forms and methods for the acceleration of the economy innovative transformation processes and significant competitive recovery of the country (picture 1).

The implementation of new technologies of a workforce capacity management, in our opinion, should be carried out  in the consentient and harmonize mode at all levels of economy. Such approach is defined by the objective conditions of economic interaction growth in conditions of the production and business activity globalization. For the synchronization and harmonization of the new managerial technologies implementation at all levels of a productive-economic activity it is expedient to building of a relevant commission (or the administrative body similar in functions) for the coordination and monitoring of the new technologies for a workforce capacity management at the Government of Republic of Kazakhstan.

Picture 1 – The system of performance assurance for the workforce capacity implementation in Kazakhstan

The expediency of a relevant coordinating body creation is conditioned upon the combination of objective factors and provisions. Firstly, the predominance of a private sector in the area of higher and special education, as the statements of many expert testify, has led to the essential disbalance in the structure of the young professionals training, for example, there is a severe shortage of young professionals with the high-quality engineering and technical education, what certainly obstructs the country innovative industrialization processes.

Secondly, only at the nationwide level it is possible to solve the problems of an integrated informational support of all types of activity in an effective way, including the expanding of high-speed and broadband access systems to internet, development of satellite-based and cable educational TV broadcasting, expansion of access to the library stock, archives and other informative national bases.

Thirdly, the existent in Kazakhstan network of private recruiting agencies operates inefficiently. Moreover, some agencies deal with the counterproductive activity, directed on the “skill drain” processes organization, offering to the top-ranked specialists an talented youth the permanent employment abroad.

For the implementation of strategic objectives of an accelerated industrial innovative development of Kazakhstan the integrated approach to the use of high technologies complex for the workforce management is necessary.

The transformation of predominant at the present time among the domestic employers a short-sighted strategic vision of personnel employed in industries as the hired labor force to the progressive entrepreneurs’ world view, who consider the cadres as a human capital, providing the significant competitive advantages to their business  should become the fundamental idea of the workforce management technology modernization. 

At the present time the objective need for the modernization of a workforce management technologies byway of a phased transition to the five level model, which reflects in full measure the current trends of a labor market globalization has arisen. Besides, it is necessary to activate the phased transition processes on a nation-wide level from the traditional concepts of numerical and qualitative characteristics of a work force to the strategic vision of a workforce capacity as a major factor of a national economy competitive ability in the modern system of a global economic cooperation.

In our opinion, the five level model of a workforce management technology should possess the following key properties:

1) the scrutinous coordination and gradual harmonization of fundamental economic interests of all the productive-economic activity participants;

2) the top-priority directedness of management technologies to the cardinal development of labor productivity and efficiency of production in whole, particularly by means of incitement of a highly intellectual creative labor, focused on the creation of a science-intensive high value added final output;

3) the personnel policy focus on the reasonable equilibrium of demand and supply  at the labor market with the phased annealing of disproportions, particularly in the sphere of innovative product manufacturing;

4) the activation of processes on implementation of the latest advances in the area of information technologies, didactics and pedagogical psychology for the essential personnel training and retraining quality improvement;

5) the expansion of use of governmental programming approaches for the labor market business continuity, including the elaboration of labor force interindustrial balance;

6) the intensification of integration processes  within the frameworks of  formation of a common labor market of the common economic space member countries and expansion of affiliate programs for the highly qualified personnel preparation in the high education institutions of the countries with the developed market economy.