PhD N.V. Popova¹
Dr. Hab., Associate Professor A.V. Ponomarev¹
PhD E.G. Shurmanov¹

¹Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg

Keywords: sports management, corporate human resource management strategies, corporate sports service, youth.

Background. The ongoing socio-economic reforms in Russia with revisions in the corporate HR management and labor remuneration strategies are associated with innovations in the corporate sports service design and management policies. It should be mentioned that the present situation in this area in contradictory to a degree. On the one hand, companies understand the growing demand for modern physical education and sport services from the personnel and their families, with a special priority to the traditional and popular sports appreciated both for their health benefits and team spirit and mutual support climate they cultivate. And on the other hand, the traditional corporate physical education and sport services need to give way to the modern corporate sports service models to facilitate the health improvement initiatives and competitive progress in the popular team/ individual sports and to encourage the natural sporting motivations and health cultures in companies.

Objective of the study was to analyze benefits of the modern corporate sports service projects within the corporate human resource management strategies.

Methods and structure of the study. We analyzed, for the purposes of the study, the corporate human resource management strategies with their corporate sports service components of the Ural Locomotives Ltd.; Sinarsky Pipe Production JSC; Ural Electromechanical Federal Plant; Uralvagonzavod [Ural Railway Carriage]) JSC; Kachkanar Mining and Ore-dressing EVRAS JSC; and the Russian Railways JSC [ 2, 6] – based on the questionnaire surveys of the industrial personnel in these 6 companies. We sampled 370 young people including corporate subsamples of 25, 51, 28, 61, 100 and 105 people from every above company, respectively. The sample was 46% male and 54% female with 31% and 69% being 18-24 and 25-30 years old, respectively. By the education levels, the sample was grouped into the basic general (9-class) education (2%), primary vocational (school plus lyceum) - 1%;  general secondary (11-class) education (31%); secondary vocational education (17%); and higher education (49%). By the service experiences, the sample was grouped into the under-1-year (15%), 1-5 years (43%), 6-10 years (33%) and 10-plus years (9%) groups. And positions-wise the sample included 31%, 4%, 58% and 7% of the workmen, office staff members, specialists and managers, respectively. The questionnaire survey was geared to find and analyze the people’s attitudes to the corporate human resource management strategies and their corporate sports service / physical education and sports / healthy-lifestyle-encouragement issues and the general satisfaction with the corporate sports service systems and individual physical education and sports progress.

Results and discussion. The questionnaire survey data showed every of the 6 sampled companies running the health-group-specific corporate sports service projects including the "HR Health", "Youth Health", "Women’s Health", "Personnel and Family Health" , "Healthy Lifestyle Cultivation", "Bad Habits Prevention", "Social Service" and other projects. Cost estimates of such HR health projects are normally fixed in the collective service contracts [2-6]. It should be mentioned, however, that our audit of the collective service contract of the Sinarsky Pipe Production JSC found the "Sporting Projects" and services with the relevant budgeting requirements handed over to the company’s trade union. It is beneficial that the existing corporate sports service projects are sensitive to the needs of the age- and service-specific groups and their families. Thus the Russian Railways OJSC run 2,100 popular sports groups serving 41,200 railway workers and their family members. In 2019, Uralvagonzavod Ltd. held 19 mass physical education and sports events with 19,568 competitors in total.

The corporate sports service services are reportedly the most popular [4, p. 240]. They are particularly appreciated for their specific missions geared to: improve the corporate image with its sporting culture and HR sensitivity aspects; lure young professionals to the company; facilitate the teamwork and team building efforts; develop comfortable emotional climate in the companies; keep up and promote the corporate traditions, cultures and values; help the individual socialization agendas; help the personnel effectively rehabilitate in every physical and mental aspect after hard workdays; prevent diseases; promote healthy lifestyle in the teams, etc.

We assumed in our study that the corporate sports service / physical education and sport service management means the corporate intellectual, financial, input flow, material and human resource management system on the whole with its physical education and sport service design and management domain in particular. Modern corporate sports service shall ideally “improve the HR relationships with the relevant benefits for the labor efficiency; meet every physical education and sports progress need of every staff member; encourage creative contributions of every staff member to the corporate mission and goals for joint success; and effectively use the local national traditions, historical accomplishments, progress needs and culture for success of the modern HR management system” [1, p. 60]. Special responsibility for the corporate sports / physical education and sports service is vested with the dedicated corporate sports service manager i.e. the corporate physical education and sport system manager; corporate Physical Education and Sports Council head; the local (workshop, department, youth) Physical Education and Sports Trainers’ Council heads; and the relevant managers of the physical education and sport infrastructure holding (renter) entities. Thus the Sinarsky Pipe Production JSC supports, for more than 80 years, its staff physical education and sports group headed by a dedicated physical education and sport manager, with a Trainers’ Council composed of the lower-level physical education and sports trainers serving in every large workshop/ department. The physical education and sport service manager supervises and supports activities of the Sinara Football Club, children's football and ice hockey teams, team sports, children's boxing, rifle shooting and tourist groups, plus the Sinara Walrus Club [5, p. 26].

The companies plan their corporate sports service on a yearly, quarterly and monthly basis. Most popular in the 2019 Sports Festivals, for example, were the track and field relays with the winners awarded by “Mashinostroitel’ newspaper; the Vagonskaya Snezhinka cross-country skiing event; the Uralvagonzavod Volleyball Cup and Championship; and futsal winter/ summer championships. No wonder that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic undermined the corporate sports service in the sampled companies. The Sinarsky Pipe Production JSC, e.g., had to cancel the traditional Winter Sports Festival and reschedule the Summer Sports Festival for July including football, track and field, basketball, volleyball, running and other events. It was in October that the last sports events (swimming and billiards tournaments) were hosted by the company.

The sampled companies have established good partnerships with the sports sponsors including some leading corporations, industrial interests and trade unions. One of the typical examples of such productive sponsorship is the traditional support from the International Pipe Company (TMK) for the annual basketball and football tournaments under the auspices of the Horizons International Corporate Forum.

The questionnaire survey data and analysis showed the lower corporate sports service satisfaction levels in a few companies still lagging behind in this domain [6, p. 73]. Thus 60% of the sample reported the highest satisfaction with the corporate sports service / physical education and sports / health services. The corporate/ factory/ workshop corporate sports service satisfaction indices were the following: 0.80 for the Ural Locomotives OJSC; 0.84 for the Sinarsky Pipe Production JSC; 0.69 for the Ural Federal Electromechanical Plant; and 0.61 for Uralvagonzavod Ltd. Findings of our study gave us good grounds to come up with recommendations on how the corporate sports service may be improved by every company, with a special priority to the corporate sports management standards, particularly in the youth corporate human resource management domain.

Conclusion. The corporate sports promotion initiatives within the modern corporate human resource management strategies offer excellent tools for team building, corporate culture formation, disease and bad habits prevention and health improvement purposes, with great benefits both for the industrial human resource and local communities on the whole. These benefits have been found particularly high for the youth corporate sports service projects. The numbers and progress of the corporate sports service interests and shareholders largely depend on the corporate resources and policies includingfinancial resources, professional physical education and sport service personnel and sports managers. Special support for the corporate sports service initiatives may be provided by the PR department and HR department management, trade unions, corporate progress managers and dedicated and responsible corporate sports managers.

References

1. Zubarev Yu.A. Educational-methodical complex of the discipline "Management of Physical Education and Sports" of the Regional (higher education) component of the cycle of GPD 080507 - "Management of organization" for 4th year students of the Physical Education and Sports Faculty. Volgograd, 2008. 229 p.
2. Nivchik A.V. Effectiveness of implementation of youth social projects and programs: master's thesis. Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Institute of Physical Culture, Sports and Youth Policy, Department of Organization of Work with Youth. Yekaterinburg, 2018 227 p.
3. Pavlos A.V. Actions to excel adaptation system of young workers at industrial enterprise: master's thesis. Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Institute of Physical Culture, Sports and Youth Policy, Department of Organization of Work with Youth. Yekaterinburg, 2017. 169 p.
4. Vishnevsky Yu.R. [ed.] Situation with the Sverdlovsk region youth in 2015: scientific basis of report to the government of the Sverdlovsk region. Yekaterinburg: UMTs UPI publ., 2016. 272 p.
5. Popova N.V. Mass sports, physical education and health projects: corporate experience of Urals-based company]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2018. No. 1. 25. pp-27.
6. Andryukhina L.M. et al.; Kislov A.G., Popovoy E.V., Popovoy N.V. [ed.]Socio-cultural aspects of youth policy in the sphere of labor and education [Electronic resource]. 2 Vol. Yekaterinburg: RSPPU publ., 2019. V. 1. 221 p.

Corresponding author: n.v.popova@urfu.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyze benefits of the modern corporate sports service projects within the corporate human resource management strategies.

Methods and structure of the study. The article presents the results of the document analysis, comparative data analysis, and secondary processing of the empirical data in terms of implementation of corporate social programs at 6 industrial enterprises of the Urals.

Results and conclusions. The corporate sports promotion initiatives within the modern corporate human resource management strategies offer excellent tools for team building, corporate culture formation, disease and bad habits prevention and health improvement purposes, with great benefits both for the industrial human resource and local communities on the whole. These benefits have been found particularly high for the youth corporate sports service projects. The numbers and progress of the corporate sports service interests and shareholders largely depend on the corporate resources and policies includingfinancial resources, professional physical education and sport service personnel and sports managers. Special support for the corporate sports service initiatives may be provided by the PR department and HR department management, trade unions, corporate progress managers and dedicated and responsible corporate sports managers.