Proj. U2.04/96 - training Staff Ukra NPP

The working plan and budget of the NNEGC-ENERGOATOM (EA) for the year 2000 defined training and continuing education of the managers and of the manager successors. However, fulfilment of these plans proved to be complicated due to the following reasons:

• At that time EA did not have any experience in the training of the management staff
• Management training was not based on a systematic approach
• There was a lack of human and material resources needed for the development of the didactic material.

Therefore it was decided to launch this project and to leave to EA all the materials that were developed and handed out in the scope of the Project for future training of its management staff.

Moreover, the parties identified the need for the development of standard models for the training programs for the operational personnel and instructors, particularly for the following roles:

• Plant Shift supervisor
• Unit Shift Supervisor
• Reactor Shop Shift Supervisor
• Turbine Shop Shift Supervisor
• Instrumental and Control Shop Shift Supervisor
• Electric Shop Shift Supervisor
• The project was supervised by the Regulatory Body, due to the implications in the field of personnel licensing and re-training.

The objective of this contract was to improve the nuclear safety at the Ukrainian NPPs through establishing systematic training system for the middle management, providing at the same time a general improvement of the safety culture at the Ukrainian plants.

More in detail, the project aimed at establishing a methodological basis for the future development of training of the middle level managers in the Training Centres of Ukrainian NPPs, through the transfer of methodology and practices of the Training Centres in France and Spain, preparation of the training programmes and implementation of the pilot training course in Ukraine.

The project was organized in the following tasks:

Task 1 (Project Management and Kick-off meeting). The Project Kick-off-meeting (KOM) was held in Kiev during the week of December 3rd - 4th, 1998.
In addition to the standard administrative issues, the meeting also agreed the job positions to be analysed, and additionally South Ukraine NPP (SUNPP) was selected as reference site for the project implementation.

Task 2 (Analysis of current organisations for middle management). Started by the consortium experts, preparing the workshops in SUNPP corresponding to the Survey on selected job positions. The objective of Task 2 was to determine the current middle management structure at Ukrainian NPPs and to analyse several job positions as mentioned in the ToR, by developing their job descriptions to determine the corresponding competencies or training requirements, namely:

• Deputy chief engineers
• Heads and deputy heads of workshops
• Heads and deputy heads of services (support services).

A methodology to conduct interviews as preliminary phase for gathering actual data about the selected job positions was developed.

Reference was made to the 13 IAEA Core Competencies and some examples were developed in order to demonstrate how to go from functions and activities to the competencies, and how to evaluate the required level of competency.

Task 3 (Development of a training plan). Initially prepared in Spain with a two day workshop held in Madrid in order to design the strategy to be followed in the next workshop in SUNPP between February 22 and 24.
A training plan for the middle managers was developed that consisted of five seminars.
A specific sub-task (Project Steering Committee and creation of National Management Committee) was carried out.

In relation to the creation of National Management Committee, the western experts transferred their competence and knowledge to EA, which was working at the development of a Coordination Committee that would be responsible not only for the manager training but also for licensing requirements, training programs for licensed people, integration of other existing Institutes (Kiev, Sevastopol, Odessa).

Task 4 (Training of instructors). The list of competencies for instructors of managers was developed, taking also into account the different national approaches (Ukrainian, Spanish and French). Based on the list of competencies a guideline was developed for instructor selection.
A workshop was held at SUNPP where the guideline and the draft training plan were reviewed. The guideline covered the selection of instructors for managers and the list of competence for the instructor for managers.

Task 5 (Pilot training workshop in Europe). The two one-week training workshops were conducted in Spain and France. These workshops covered the following areas:

• Safety Culture
• Stress Control
• Visit to Spanish NPP on implementation of Safety Culture
• Management Change
• Visit to French NPP to observe Management change
• The feedback from the trainees in these courses was later used for sub-task 5.3, Assessment of training workshop, as part of the Evaluation process of a Systematic Approach to Training (SAT) designed training programme.

Task 6 (Organisation of training courses in Ukraine) The course were designed to analyse the western approaches, review the training programs and start the development of the training materials for instructor training and for training of Managers.
For these subtasks, workshops were held at SUNPP with the local experts.

At the end of September 1999 the Training Courses to selected NPP managers took place. The Consortium expert, the Beneficiary representative and the Local Project Manager, all participated as observers. The course was provided by local experts, from ZNPP and SUNPP, to SUNPP middle managers. The course covered the concept of Management and aspects related with it, such as motivation, delegation and conflict resolution. The conclusions from the course and the feedback from the participants, was that the course was useful for their day-to-day manager work. The trainees also provided suggestions to improve the seminar.

At the training courses, guidelines were provided to the local subcontractor experts to create the most appropriate Quality Assurance Program. A guideline for the “Quality of the Training Processes” was provided by the Consortium expert, based on an EDF document on that area, and adapted to the Ukrainian conditions. The working group agreed that this Ukrainian guideline was a good adaptation to the local conditions, and that it should be a good corporate QAP for the management training system. It was recommended its implementation as soon as possible.

Comments

(quality of the results, lesson learned, recommendations for follow-up)

The project met the objectives stated in the TORs and provided invaluable support to all the safety related activities carried out at the Beneficiary.

The materials developed constitute a very thorough and complete documentation, which has been successfully used in the pilot courses and that should be a reference for further development of training materials for management training or training to other personnel categories.

Further Information

Further information on the project results could be sought from the beneficiary organizations.

The Project Final report is available at the JRC-IE archive.