How to make employees change cigarettes for a running track?
Updated version of Soviet tradition of sports achievements of Nizhnekamskneftekhim
The number of those who regularly do sport is going to reach 40% in Tatarstan by 2020. About one billion rubles is expended for it in the republic every year. Some employers decided to support the healthy tendency and now make employees familiar with a right lifestyle. But there are also those who managed to save their own traditions. Nizhnekamskneftekhim has always cultivated physical culture classes and sport. For instance, any employee can not only exercise with a coach but also get equipment. Realnoe Vremya tells what money the enterprises gives to support sport and what the employees can do at lunchtime.
Olga Barova's schedule has daily sports training sessions. She works as assistant of Railway Transport Administration but changed her working kit to sports every evening. Olga started to go skiing at the age of 11, then she left the sport and returned to it. But having found a job at NKNKH 20 years ago, she signed up for a sports class and hasn't separated from her favourite skis since then.
''I met girls who work here, we used to train with them. They said they did sport, and skis were back to my life somehow again,'' Olga remembers.
Olga constantly competes in municipal and regional competitions, she is a third-time medallist of Athlete of the Year corporate exhibition contest. Their team trains in Almash sports base where the track is made of artificial snow. Thanks to it, skiers do sport from November to April without paying attention to the harsh weather. The track is illuminated. This is why evening training isn't any inconvenience.
''The coach makes up a plan according to which we train. Skiing is a very expensive sport. For instance, a good kit is about 20,000. Skis, boots are also expensive. The Trade Union Committee gives us some money, and we purchase something ourselves. For example, kits were provided last year, they always give wax, we have everything we need and we try to save it,'' Olga Barova tells.
Any employee can go skiing, running or do another sport. Neftekhimik Sports Club works in the enterprise for this. It has football, volleyball, athletics, table tennis, kuresh national wrestling and other sports coaches. Free training sessions for NKNKH workers are carried out on a daily basis.
''We have instructors, a good sports base – Fakel, Druzhba, illuminated skiing base, swimming pool, running tracks – in brief, there are all conditions to do sport. If a person has a desire to do the sport that is cultivated here, welcome, there is everything for it,'' tells head of Neftekhimik Organising Department Oleg Shumkov.
In addition, the enterprise regularly holds sports competitions that coaches and social sports activists organise. Physical culture instructor Tatiana Fyodorova is responsible for sports life of Divinyl and Hydrocabron Feedstock Factory where she annually stages at least 20 different sports competitions.
Nizhnekamskneftekhim is the only enterprise in the city that hosts a hockey tournament. Teams can train at hockey ice rinks, all competitions take place in Neftekhim Arena Ice Palace.
''A team comes, we give ice skates, elbow pads, other pads, sticks, helmet, T-shirts, which is quite enough not to get an injury. 25 teams are divided into leagues depending on their playing level. Almost all teams in the First League have their own kit because their participants graduated from Neftekhimik Hockey School and today they are NKNKH's workers,'' Oleg Shumkov explains.
The Trade Union Committee annually expends about one million rubles to hold competitions and buy prizes. In addition, additional money is sent to pay the salary for instructors, lease sports sites and purchase equipment.
''When my sister came from Voronezh, I took her to competitions, she was so surprised. She said they didn't have it for a long time, while our Nizhnekamskneftekhim saved it. Now ask any city whether sport among employees survived. I'm 99% sure it didn't. Of course, sports work isn't the most important thing. But I believe it affects the atmosphere in the collective. It impresses when a shop's director fields his team in volleyball, football and other competitions. Relations are different when you played with your colleague, running track on the pitch!'' says physical culture instructor of Neftekhim SC Tatiana Fyodorova.
''Petrochemists put the sport on a par with social guarantees. They got used to doing sport, sport stimulated them a lot,'' head of Neftekhimik Organising Department Oleg Shumkov is sure.
To attract as many employees as possible to sport, the enterprise's departments have sports corners. All people can play darts, chess, table tennis at lunchtime or after work. Work yields fruits – over 7,000 employees of Nizhnekamskneftekhim annually take part in all sports competitions, which is a role model of the attitude to the development of sport and physical culture.