Professional service standards

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The implementation of labor functions by employees of many Russian enterprises implies the fulfillment by them of the requirements established by professional standards. What are they? How are relevant regulations developed?

What is the professional standard?

Professional standards (service or, for example, the release of goods) require a person to perform work according to the norms recorded in official sources. It can be, for example, GOST or an industry standard. As a rule, these normative sources reflect the specifics of a particular economic activity. So, there are service standards in the restaurant business, in the field of hairdressing services, there are rules governing the production of goods.

What are professional standards for?

What is the purpose of the standards in question? First of all, they allow you to regulate the labor activity of an employee - so that any person whom the company hires can cope with the tasks that characterize a particular production function. But on one condition:The employee must have the necessary qualifications. The requirements for it, as a rule, also include professional standards.

The relevant norms also make it possible to distinguish between the powers of employees and the specifics of the tasks solved by different specialists of the company, who, for example, work in the same department.

Standards for the quality of customer service or the release of goods allow employees of the company to gradually improve their competencies: a person, having an idea of what knowledge and skills he needs for professional growth, will be able to draw up a plan for their development.

In the presence of the standards in question, the employer may also be interested. This is due to the fact that firms that use the relevant standards have the opportunity to carry out effective personnel management through the issuance of local regulations and the conclusion of intra-corporate agreements with employees, which contain clauses on the application of certain rules. The employer, having obligated the employee to use professional standards, has the right to expect high performance from him. Of course, for this, the relevant norms must be qualitatively worked out.

Those or other types of service and production standards allow employers to accumulate and improve the personnel management system, distribute its various elements between structural divisions, and transfer it to subsidiaries and partners. The norms in question are documented: this process is usually also standardized and assumes that knowledge,formed by one business entity, with minimal labor costs, can be transferred to business processes taking place in a third-party company.

Quality-designed high standards of service and production can become a significant competitive advantage of the company in the market. Other things being equal - the same access to raw materials, sales, infrastructure - the leader in its segment will be the firm that can create the most effective personnel management system. This can be greatly facilitated by the application of the standards in question.

Relevant norms are classified into 2 main varieties: related to the service sector and production. Let's study their specifics in more detail.

What is the specificity of service standards?

The regulations in question most often include the requirements:

- to the content of the work of a customer service specialist;

- to the working conditions of an employee of a service enterprise;

- to the qualifications of the service provider.

The considered standards are used in the formation of the staff of service enterprises, in the development of a wage system. Service standards are used if the company faces tasks related to the development of a personnel management system, certification of employees, assessing the level of qualifications of specialists, ensuring their participation in training within corporate programs, as well as in specialized institutions.

What is the importance of service standards?

Standards about whichin question play an important socio-economic role.

Firstly, they encourage enterprises to improve the quality of service to citizens and other organizations: this contributes to a more active use of the services provided by firms in the market, increases the capital intensity of the relevant segments, and their investment attractiveness.

Secondly, service standards have a positive effect on the formation of competitive relations in business. Those firms that are prepared to ensure the most correct compliance with the relevant regulations are more likely to take a leading position in the market.

Thirdly, high standards of service contribute to the improvement of the skills of personnel in the economy, stimulate the participation of people in various training programs and, accordingly, the emergence of more educational organizations that are ready to provide the necessary knowledge.

What are production standards?

The next category of norms is related to the sphere of production. Its specificity lies in the fact that the added value of the enterprise is formed through the release of specific types of goods that must meet certain consumer characteristics. Thus, if we talk about professional standards in production, then they should be considered in the same context as technological norms.

So, one of the criteria for the required level of qualification of an employee (as an elementprofessional standard) may be his knowledge of GOSTs, industry standards that establish the procedure for performing work at the factory.

The quality of the development of industrial professional standards, as in the case of the norms that characterize the service sector, largely determines the competitiveness of firms, and hence the state economy. Therefore, the country's authorities may be no less than private businesses interested in the availability of high-quality professional standards in the production sector at the disposal of enterprises. Actually, the same can be said about the norms that apply in the service sector. Further in the article, we will consider in more detail how the state can influence the development of professional standards, but for now we will start by studying the specifics of their classification.

Classification of service and production standards

Let's consider what varieties of norms in question can be represented.

There are local service and production quality standards. They are developed at the level of individual enterprises by the forces of specialists working in them. Sometimes - with the involvement of external experts and consultants. Local standards are often non-public, and even have the character of a trade secret. But they, firstly, can be transferred from one enterprise to another in the order of intercorporate cooperation, and secondly, they can be transferred to other firms by employees who leave the organization where the relevant standards are developed. The norms in question best reflect the specifics of the development of an individualenterprise, the particular needs of its customers, the position in the market.

There are industry service standards. They are formed at the level of individual segments of the economy, for example, in the restaurant, hotel business, hairdressing. They are developed, as a rule, by industry consulting structures, which are established with the assistance of enterprises, trade unions, and public professional organizations.

There are national service standards. They are developed by various state authorities and fixed in regulations. The initiators of the creation of such standards can be enterprises that experience a certain need for regulatory regulation of activities. In this case, they interact with government agencies as a legislative initiative.

There are international service standards. It can be noted that they are quite rarely in the nature of official rules of law, as is the case with national standards. As a rule, these norms are only recommended for use in certain states and are not mandatory. However, if we are talking about a large transnational corporation, the international service standards developed by this company can be extended to all its local representative offices and, in fact, become mandatory for use in all countries where the brand is present.

All marked categories of standards can be adopted by one orother organization into account. It often happens that the development of local regulations is based on the provisions of industry, national or international.

Introduction of professional standards

How can professional standards be introduced into the activities of enterprises? This procedure most often consists of 3 stages:

- formation of the regulatory framework, taking into account the local specifics of the enterprise;

- staff training and ensuring that employees receive the necessary qualifications;

- initiating the work of standards specialists;

- quality control of compliance with the relevant standards.

At the first stage, the company selects for itself the main standards of service or production - those without which it will be difficult to fully optimize business processes. After the relevant norms are supplemented by others, which allow more detailed regulation of the procedure for the work of employees. The next stage is to bring the level of qualification of the company's employees in line with the requirements that are prescribed in the selected standards. This can be done in the process of internal corporate training or by organizing the acquisition of knowledge by employees of the firm in third-party organizations.

After the employees have received the necessary qualifications, it remains for them to start working in the company according to the norms that are prescribed in the selected standards. Employees begin to solve familiar tasks, adjusted for those rules and regulations that are established by the standards and require them to applyexisting qualifications. The effectiveness of the implementation of new standards is checked through control measures. Such as, for example, conducting surveys, monitoring the achievement of key production indicators, analyzing the main economic indicators of the enterprise.

Professional Standard Structure

Let's now explore how a professional service or production standard can be presented in a structure. As we noted at the beginning of the article, the basis of any standard is the norm. It can be developed at the local, sectoral, national or international level. This rule most often regulates:

- what level of qualification an employee should have to provide services or perform work in a particular area;

- how production should be organized in order to ensure high quality standards of service or production;

- what are the main criteria for effective management of the activities of employees of a production or service enterprise;

- what are the rights and obligations of employees whose competence is the release of goods or the provision of services of the required quality.

It will be useful to consider how Russian service and production standards are being developed in various professional fields.

Professional standards in RF

Theses about the need to introduce a national system of professional standards in various fields are heard at the highest level of the state power system of the Russian Federation. This is understandable, since the presencecompliance with the relevant standards is the most important factor in the formation of a powerful human resources potential at Russian enterprises, and the Russian government understands this. If manufacturing and service companies operating in the Russian Federation have difficulty finding qualified employees, as well as ensuring a stable level of quality of their products and services, this may adversely affect the growth rates of the state economy and its competitiveness at the international level.

Among the key organizations involved in the development of professional standards in Russia are the Ministry of Education, as well as the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. These structures established the National Agency for the Development of Qualifications, which became responsible for solving complex and urgent tasks in terms of training personnel for Russian enterprises.

It can be noted that among the first organizations that developed service standards in Russia is the Federation of Restaurateurs and Hoteliers. This structure has issued norms regulating the activities of workers in both production and service profiles. Structures responsible for solving emerging problems in the field of application of professional standards were formed, methods were developed for analyzing educational processes aimed at ensuring that employees of relevant enterprises receive the necessary knowledge and skills. It can be noted that such methods were subsequently approved by the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

So the national standardsservices and production in the Russian Federation are developed with the direct participation of both government agencies and non-governmental organizations. Regulatory regulation of the activities of specialists in various fields, aimed at improving the quality of their work, is largely based on knowledge and experience that are formed at the level of private businesses. For example, such major corporations as Russian Railways, RUSAL, TNK-BP, which largely determine how entire sectors of the Russian economy will develop.

One way or another, in the Russian Federation there are already several official regulations that determine the order in which certain service standards should be developed. Among the main ones is Government Decree No. 23, issued on January 22, 2013. Let's consider its provisions in more detail.

Regulatory regulation of professional standards at the government level

Decree No. 23 states that the development of a service or production standard can be carried out by the following entities:

- employers;

- associations of firms;

- professional communities;

- educational institutions;

- self-regulatory organizations.

Besides, any other interested subjects may participate in the development of relevant norms. But draft professional standards must comply with the methodological recommendations developed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, and take into account the levels of qualifications established in certain norms.

Professional standards for service and production can be developed in the Russian Federation if the provisions are followedof the Decree under consideration, also at the expense of the budget of the Russian Federation. To do this, the initiator of the relevant norm must submit its draft to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, supplemented by the necessary documents. Draft professional standards prepared by the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation are published on the website of the department for the purpose of public discussion. Based on the results of the assessment of relevant documents by the community, they are sent for examination. In case of its successful implementation, the professional standard is approved.

Uniform standards of service and production, adopted with the participation of authorities, as follows from the provisions of Decree No. 23, apply:

- employers in the process of conducting personnel policy and managing the personnel of the enterprise, in the course of organizing training and certification of employees, in order to develop various instructions, in the formation of a remuneration system;

- educational institutions that implement advanced training programs for workers in various professional fields.

Thus, the state is one of the key subjects in the development of professional standards in Russia. Budgetary funds can be used to solve problems related to the development of relevant norms.