Abstract:

Self-education is one of the mandatory elements of the Life-long learning concept. This training involves obtaining knowledge and skills independently on the initiative of the people themselves. This type of training, according to most researchers, is the most motivated training option. Since the concept of Life-long learning is now the dominant approach to training people, it is important to monitor how many elements of this concept are used in the practices of personnel management in organizations. After all, the breadth of implementation of any concept depends on the number of practices, and the greater this number, the more widespread this concept is. Self-education also plays an important role in the public service system.

The object of research is employees of the state Employment Service Centers of the Omsk region, one of the typical Russian regions. Their activities in modern conditions are subject to new requirements related to improving the efficiency of its activities and the introduction of information technologies.

The main hypothesis of the study was that self-education practices are common among civil servants, but their prevalence is differentiated taking into account the demographic characteristics of civil servants, their position, and the geographical location of the office. The second hypothesis was that civil servants prefer self-education in the framework of organized events (for example, attending conferences, seminars and other events organized by the employer, etc.) as opposed to unorganized independent learning (reading professional literature, proactive training in online courses, studying at the university, etc.). To test the hypotheses, we used an expert survey, descriptive statistics, average analysis, and cluster analysis.

The hypothesis about the prevalence of self-education was confirmed – the average number of options was 3.92 (out of 6 possible), which indicates the breadth of self-education practices used. In addition, socio-demographic features of employees' self-education were identified. The influence of socio-demographic characteristics of employees on the use of self-education practices was confirmed – women, employees aged over 40 years old, and managers on average use more practices. Based on the cluster analysis, there were identified three groups of employees by the degree of their activity in the field of self-education.

The analysis also revealed that employees are more likely to use training options that do not involve maximum personal activity. So in the first place, both in popularity and in usefulness, was organized learning, and in the last place – independent learning.

As a result of the study, it was concluded that the practice of self-education as an element of Life-long learning is quite actively used by civil servants. There is a link between the use of a particular practice and its assessment of its usefulness. Less labor-intensive practices on the part of the employee are used more often.
It is also concluded that the dissemination of self-education practices among civil servants requires targeted efforts to build a system of personnel development and demonstration of the experience of active users.

Keywords:

Adult education, personal development, civil servants.