Gazprom Neft projects recognised for achievements in digitising HR
The Gazprom Neft “Expert Platform”, a competition for developing educational products, and the company’s “Professionals 4.0” platform have been named among the winners at the “HR TECH FORUM & AWARD 2020” competition. Established in 2018, the award recognises achievements in business digitisation and personnel management, and is given to developers of digital technologies, as well as to those organisations that successfully implement them.

Gazprom Neft has been implementing an integrated digital business transformation programme since 2018, an integral part of which has been the digitisation of education, training and development procedures — meaning the company’s corporate educational programmes utilise innovative educational and training tools (such as a “virtual classroom”, AR and VR-based training sessions, the company’s online “Castle Quiz” training programme, chat-bots and more), on an ongoing basis.
The “Expert Platform” project is a competition in which participants independently develop original, proprietary educational materials. It is built around the principles of crowdsourcing and market demand, meaning employees can be invited to participate regardless of their individual specialism, role, or location. Participants upload their completed assignments, and evaluate each other’s submissions, online, through a special portal, with a cross-functional team of experts also judging projects.
An important element of the competition is an integrated training programme for participants, with articles, videos lessons, podcasts and webinars helping them prepare for every stage of the competition and, ultimately, helping them develop their own proprietary educational product. The Expert Platform makes it possible to retain and disseminate unique knowledge and insights — that could never be obtained externally — within the company, develop extensive and high-quality content, and promote employees’ development, while reducing the burden on key specialists.
The “Professionals 4.0” programme is a tool for implementing projects remotely — being a platform for implementing business and governmental tasks and challenges, through remote teams. The Professionals 4.0 programme brings specialists together on a short-term project, and provides appropriate services for setting up and supporting a team’s work, on a “turnkey” basis. This service has been developed by Gazprom Neft for use both within the company, and on the external market. Nine thousand professionals are already on the platform, with 300 projects already posted.
Ludimila Voronina, Head of HR (Downstream), Gazprom Neft:
“I am delighted to see our product so highly rated by our professional community. The success of the Expert Platform is down to a large team — including HR specialists, experts and, of course, the participants themselves — who have been unafraid to try something new and realise their own creative potential, sharing knowledge and helping drive the educational environment within the company.”
Nikolai Dolgov, Development Director of the Professionals 4.0 platform:
“This nomination for ‘Product of the Year’ is no accident. It’s the result of considerable work by the team. The project is being developed in the tradition of a product-based approach, with us receiving regular feedback on user experience, from both business and professionals, and expanding the functionality of the Professionals 4.0 platform. We’ve updated a number of things recently — including team ratings and participants reviews. We expect the platform-employment trend to continue gaining momentum: professionals see the value of working on short-term contracts and business — the clear economic benefit.”