MTS Policy in the Field of Diversity, Equality and Inclusiveness

In 2021, supporting the social objective of the Company’s ESG strategy, the Board of Directors developed and approved MTS PJSC Policy PT-084-1 “MTS Activities in the Field of Diversity, Equality and Inclusiveness” with subsequent coverage of all MTS Group subsidiaries.

The Policy systematizes activities in the field of diversity, equality & inclusion (DE&I) and is aimed at creating conditions for sustainable business development considering the needs of society and the interests of MTS stakeholders.

The document establishes the principles and areas of the Group’s activities in the field of DE&I, the observance and implementation of which demonstrate to the stakeholders the goals of MTS in this area, contribute to the creation of an efficient mechanism for planning activities and reporting in the field of DE&I.

Being one of the tools for implementing the ESG strategy, the Policy is aimed at introducing advanced DE&I practices into the activities of all MTS Group companies and contributes to gaining competitive advantages in business.

The priority areas of the DE&I Policy include ensuring an inclusive environment and gender equality at all levels, development of an information-oriented society and learning, promotion of health and safety, social and economic development of regions and communities, as well as public reporting in the field of diversity, equality & inclusion.

The basic principles of the policy include: respect for the interests of stakeholders, compliance with applicable law and protection of human rights, ethical business conduct, equality and non-discrimination, development and implementation of innovative technologies, improvement of corporate governance system.

Our Employees

MTS pays special attention to building and developing an effective and successful team of professionals.

MTS actively uses the best practices in the area of employee programs. New approaches to training staff, improving working conditions and communication channels, promoting a healthy lifestyle, conducting adaptation and retraining programs — this is just a part of the opportunities opened up to the employees.

Remuneration and social benefits

MTS has a competitive remuneration system. According to the data for 2021, the average salary at the Company is 27.7 % higher than in the country as a whole.

In addition, MTS provides its employees with a substantial package of compensations and benefits. Furthermore, the employees can take part in the “Benefit Cafeteria” program where a set of an employee’s benefits may be changed based on their individual decision. This approach enables us to qualitatively satisfy different employees’ needs with high cost effectiveness.

Performance Evaluation

All of the Company’s employees participate annually in the performance evaluation procedure which includes both an evaluation of fulfilment of key performance indicators and the competence development level. During the evaluation process, managers provide extended feedback based on annual work results, and, following the results of the evaluation, a plan of development measures is drawn up for the employees.

In 2021, the work on the development and improvement of the KPI system was continued, including an increase in the number of cross-cutting team indicators which help effectively unite teams in order to achieve common objectives. For the purpose of developing the employees’ potential, additional options have appeared for assessing the compliance with the Company values.

Thanks to a properly built personnel development system, approximately 80 % of managerial vacancies in the company are closed through the involvement of in-house candidates. Using advanced distance learning platforms, while at the same time maintaining the quality, it has been possible to provide employees with opportunities for developing professional and personal competencies, as well as for studying new digital directions and retraining.

More detailed information is available in MTS Group’s Sustainability Report for 2021: chapter “Corporate Social Responsibility”, section “Employees”

Advanced training for personnel

Remote training

MTS Corporate University Department (CUD) is responsible for comprehensive training of the personnel.

The mission of the University is to create development opportunities in various formats, expanding the boundaries of business.

Experts from the Corporate University develop and maintain the distance learning system (Learning Management System), develop e-learning area, launch educational programs for blocks, hold trainings and support new employees.

In 2021, the Department set itself the goal of improving the quality of employee training, as well as their loyalty to corporate training. The following changes were made.

• The approach to producing educational content was changed. A single roadmap  of creating an educational product was elaborated.
• Changing UI/UX design, creating a design system and templates for the courses. This made it possible to bring all training to a single style.
• We introduced new modules into the corporate LMS system: testing module, e-mail messaging module. These tools allow trying new learning formats to increase user engagement in the learning process.
• Introducing new training formats: e-mail courses, gameplay videos with unusual scenarios, training courses on Tilda.
• Generating of a new approach in communication with a business customer: receiving all requests and communicating on the DaVinci platform.

More than 1000 distance courses may be found in the catalogue — these are interactive presentations, longreads, video courses, webinar and online training records, books and memos.

Apart from single courses, methodologists from the Corporate University suggest studying programs — a series of courses with the same subject and the same end objective of training. Such an approach contributes to well-structured and holistic development.

Faculty training

Training formats

In 2021, the CUD developed and launched several mass distance courses and programs.

• The content and design of the courses below mandatory for all employees were completely revised: Code of Business Conduct and Ethics; Managing the Conflict of Interest; Confidential information. Each of these courses was attended by 35,000 to 40,000 employees. 94 % of employees were trained before the deadline. In 2020, this figure was 60 %.
• “Digital Etiquette” e-mail-course. About 3,000 people self-assigned it. The course pursues not only a business goal, but is also focused on the user needs. As a result, 92 % of students completed the “I Want to Study” e-mail course.
• “Digital Etiquette” e-mail-course. Self-assigned and passed about 3,000 times.
• We relaunched the first training course of the information educational environment (LMS) “Onboarding at a New Job in a Week”. The course was built on Tilda, so it became more user-friendly. The course was assigned to 35 thousand people.

Online trainings

In 2020, due to transition to remote working, 90 % of classroom trainings were changed to the online format by the Corporate University. Trainers held events for 2.5 hours in Skype for Business. Besides, the training format working in small groups and with the option to practice theory was maintained.

In addition, the “Management Thinking Beyond the Bounds” training was piloted in the messenger. For a week, the participants received tasks, discussed performance and shared experience on the basis of the corporate messenger. Willingness to recommend the training to colleagues: 9.6 out of 10.

Development programs

The following training programs were launched for professional development of hard and soft skills of employees and for improved efficiency of business processes within the ecosystem development in 2021:

• Knowledge marketing fest is a knowledge festival for employees of the MTS Marketing and Customer Experience Unit;
• SELL OUT: partner sales training is a training and development program for managers working with retail partners;
• Efficient recruiting is a program for developing recruiters to build a system for hiring employees and analyze its efficiency;
• #TechTalk. is a series of online meetings with the Convergent Networks and Services Operations Department;
• Summer School of Product Analytics is an in-depth study of product analytics tools for developing digital products;
• T&D School (Training & Development) 2.0 is a series of synchronous webinars for trainers and all teaching roles on specialized topics:
  • “Engaging in learning through gamification and microlearning”;
  • “Gamification at minimum and maximum rates”;
  • “Master Mind as a tool for achieving success”;
  • “Technologies and evolutions of 5G”;
  • Program for experts “Basic knowledge transfer level”;
• “Experts” Project is a program to preserve and reuse unique knowledge in the Company engaging internal experts and the MTS Blog platform;
• Digital HR — for regional HRs, who are the agents of digital transformation and ambassadors of the MTS ecosystem. The objective of the program is to assist growth of digital culture and to create an innovative environment inside the business units;
• MTS Product Owners School (rounds 4 and 5) — a comprehensive training program covering all stages of digital product creation and development.

Personal consultations

In response to the challenges of the time, in June 2021, such a service of personal consultations as psychological counseling appeared.

We have also collected all the services of personal consultations (coaching, career counseling, psychological counseling) in one form. Now filing an application has become more convenient and the employee can choose the consultant he/she needs. The sessions are held online (in any convenient form). Face-to-face sessions are also possible, if the consultant and the employee are in the same city.

Informing internal customers was updated. Thanks to the targeted selection of tools and improving the quality of regular communications on the portal, the service NPS increased. Coaching — 84 %, Career consulting 100 %.

E-libraries

In 2021, the corporate library Alpina Digital boasted 12,185 readers and 35,756 hours of reading time. All books are available as a desktop version or in the app.

Besides, the employees also read the periodicals library Public.ru with the best business publications: Forbes, “Kommersant”, RBK, “Profile”, “Expert”. The library also has magazines such as Psychologies, Geo, Computerworld Russia, “Zakon”, etc.

Recruitment and adaptation

Onboarding of a new employee in the work and corporate culture is done through the adaptation measures. We continue walking the way of transformation and automation of the processes, using opportunities of product teams.

In 2021, corporate onboarding of new employees still takes place online. The first training takes place at the “Start” faculty in the MTS Corporate University. It contains the necessary minimum for newcomers and those who returned after a long vacation: the onboarding program consisting of seven courses (updated in 2021) contains the knowledge about the company culture and processes required for onboarding.

The “Onboarding at a New Job in a Week” program is automatically assigned to a new employee. On the first business week, he or she reviews the adaptation stages, history and strategy of the company, structure and products of the MTS ecosystem, rules of work and compliance principles. Easy and dynamic courses set for productive work and provide information necessary in the first days.

Also, within the onboarding, newcomers participate in the Welcome Day online event, where trainers immerse them into the company structure, introduce them to the strategy and opportunities, experts share success stories and answer questions. This is an informal online event designed for new employees, which is open for everyone at the same time. Even experienced employees are happy to get additional focusing on the Company’s strategy and experience of inspiring stories. In 2021, the Welcome Day program was redesigned, which made the event more informative and convenient for the new employees.

MTS strictly complies with the requirements of business ethics and compliance, therefore a newly recruited employee is given enough time to study the courses on respect for copyright and compliance with the antitrust legislation. They may independently distribute their load to undergo the necessary training within time assigned. After the training, anything that seemed complicated or unclear to the employee, becomes simple and easy.

MTS was one of the first Russian companies to launch a mobile version of mandatory briefings (on health and safety, fire safety, local regulations, Civil Defense and Emergencies) during the pandemic. The Stark app is functioning giving the following opportunities to a candidate for employment:

• full name and contacts of the HR employee (recruiter), who supervises the candidate;
• date of registration at work;
• addresses: registration place (HR), pass collection place, medical examination place;
• review of the Company’s local regulations (with confirmation of the fact of review);
• attendance of onboarding briefings and courses;
• brief information about the Company.

The app is being finalized and transformed into a more convenient version: Hello. Information is provided dynamically depending on the company of employment and the city of employment. Currently, the Stark app provides the possibility of remote employment.

In 2021, there was a focus on making the onboarding personal for different categories of employees and a separate area of onboarding for product owners was highlighted: onboarding meetings for new software products are held, they are provided with personalized content to immerse themselves into the position. Materials of the School of Software are posted for product owners on the Corporate University website.

The messaging lists for new employees go on improving, now employees can get basic information from the onboarding letters. The mechanics of collecting feedback from new employees is also improved as the newcomer may share their impressions of the hiring and onboarding process during the trial period. Based on the newcomer assessment, it becomes possible to calculate the important indicators automatically: CES (Customer Effort Score is a support performance evaluation metric)  for hiring and onboarding processes, tNPS (Transparency Net Promoter Score — loyalty index) of the company.

Work with universities

Internships

In 2021, MTS launched an updated MTS Intro internship program. Recruitment for the program lasted for a year, university students and graduates could complete an internship online, without considering the city of residence.

More than 450 interns from different areas were accepted for internship at MTS Intro: IТ, Marketing, Product Management, Finance, HR, PR, Engineering, etc. More than 35 % of interns were transferred to the company staff, while the transfers to the IT staff amounted to about 60 %.

	2019	2020	2021
Number of students who completed internship in MTS, pers.	558	350	465

Cooperation with universities

MTS Group cooperates with HSE University (Higher School of Economics), MIPT (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology), BMSTU (Bauman State Technical University), Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Financial University, NNSTU (Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University), SibSUTIS (Siberian State University of Telecommunications and Information Science), Lomonosov State University, St. Petersburg State University, MAI (Moscow Aviation Institute), MISIS, Skoltech (Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology), Kuban State University, Kuban State Technology University and other universities — around 30 in total.

The interaction with universities takes place in the following formats:

• lectures and workshops;
• project tasks;
• participation in career days and organization of in-house career events;
• master’s degree education programs.

Partnership in master programs is traditionally developed with MAI, MIPT and Skolkovo. Laboratory practices at National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, dedicated courses with Innopolis University and Kazan Federal University.

Moove program

Moove by Skolkovo x MTS — a program of additional education for students aimed at developing soft skills and product management skills.

• Teachers — professionals of technology industries, including experts of MTS and business experts of Skolkovo, as well as professors from leading business schools of Europe.
• Participants — masters of the first and second years, bachelors of the fourth year. These are ambitious students who want to play a major role in the economy of the future.

Program objectives:

• contribute to the development of the Russian digital economy by training new leaders of the innovative environment;
• create a unique educational program to combine management knowledge and skills of innovative product development;
• train experts of a new format who are eager to be leaders in a new reality.

Training takes place according to the project method. From the first day, the participants are divided into teams and travel the route from generation of hypotheses to full-scale launch of a digital product. Mentors and trackers — entrepreneurs and managers from MTS and other IT companies — help the teams.

Thus, students turn into experts capable of working both in a large corporation and in a small startup. They spend less time for adaptation, move quicker through a career ladder and earn more.

In total 681 applications were received for the program in 2021, and the competition was record-breaking — 12.1 persons per position. As a result of the selection, 40 students joined the Moove program group (for 2021/22 academic year).

Graduates (2020/21) completed the program with a built up track of professional development.

Following the program results, the employees:

• know business models of modern digital companies;
• are able to develop and launch a product in the market;
• know how to monetize a business idea;
• know trends, see the opportunities for technological business;
• know how to work in a team;
• know how to negotiate with different stakeholders and defend their opinion;
• know how to manage a product portfolio;
• know how to think strategically;
• see the interconnections between various aspects of business and know how to manage those.

Scale: we will graduate 138 students in three years.

Graduate career paths:

• ~47 % of graduates work in Digital Product Management;
• ~15 % are engaged in developing their startup;
• ~55 % of graduates demonstrate career growth: they changed two or three career levels and increased their revenue by more than one and a half times;
• most program graduates build their careers in technology companies (Avito, Delimobil, Tinkoff, Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, Yandex), every seventh graduate is developing their startup, 10 graduates work at MTS.

A community of students and alumni has been created and is developing (3,070 subscriptions in the Telegram channel, 8,000 people in the messaging list, 800 people in the information chat bot of the programs).

The program is designed for three years:

• 1st stage (2019–2020) completed;
• 2nd stage (November 2020 — July 2021) completed;
• 3rd stage (September 2021— April 2022) — in progress.

Occupational health and labor safety

Number one priority for the Company is to preserve life and health of the employees, to provide favorable and safe labor conditions at MTS PJSC.

Personnel safety, health and well-being are the main components of the Company’s corporate social responsibility. Since 2020, MTS has joined the international approach Vision Zero, or “Zero Injuries” — this is a qualitatively new approach to organization of prevention, combining three areas: safety, workplace hygiene and well-being of employees at all production levels. Safe and healthy labor conditions are not only a moral and legal obligation, but also prove themselves economically. Investment into labor protection helps avoid people suffering and protect the most valuable thing we possess — our health, physical and psychological well-being. It is also crucial that they favorably influence motivation of the employees, the quality of work and products, the company’s reputation, extent of the satisfaction of employees, managers and customers, and, therefore, economic indicators.

Improvement and development of the safety culture at the enterprise take place through an informed approach pursued by senior executives who implement consistent management and create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation at all levels of the Company. At this stage, MTS Group’s Strategy in the field of safety, health and well-being for 2021–2023 is being implemented. The strategy implementation includes international practices and methods to introduce Vision Zero. It is evident that success in the implementation of the Strategy will depend on commitment of the company’s managers, motivation of the line managers and awareness of the employees.

Work on the development of the safety culture implemented at MTS PJSC is aimed at:

• preserving life and health of the employees in the workplace;
• continuous improving the OSH management system;
• accounting and analyzing occupational injuries, detecting and investigating root causes of accidents with the employees and contractors of the Company and carrying out activities to prevent occupational injuries and diseases;
• continuously detecting and managing occupational risks;
• providing relevant and high-quality training for managers and labor protection professionals;
• encouraging the employees to comply with the safety rules and raising their awareness;
• involving the Company’s employees in the safety culture development.

Following the results of 2021, the analysis of the implementation of the planned activities on labor protection in the past year was performed. In total, MTS PJSC spent RUB 87.3 million on the labor protection activities in 2021, which made up 106 % of budget performance (RUB 69.5 million in 2020; RUB 99.4 million in 2019 and RUB 86.9 million in 2018).

The employees trained on health and safety are managers, experts, members of commissions on health and safety and other categories of employees. Various training systems are used for internal training on labor protection, such as the specially designed system on labor protection Colossus, including training on health and safety, fire safety, electric safety, and also the distance learning system for labor protection of MTS Corporate University “Virtual Academy”. The Company provides training on first aid to persons injured at production facilities. First aid training is a set of actions aimed at recovery or preservation of life and health of the injured. The main objective of the training is to practice employees’ independent actions and behavior aimed at preserving life of every injured, before arrival of rescue services.

One of the mandatory areas in labor protection is special assessment of the labor conditions. This process allows for identifying and evaluating the harmful and/or dangerous production factors in the workplace and planning the activities to improve working conditions. As of December 31, 2021, 23,885 workplaces (96 % of the total number of workplaces) have been estimated at MTS Corporate Center and MTS PJSC branches (24,556 workplaces were estimated following the results of 2020, 24,987 workplaces were estimated in 2019 and 23,926 workplaces — in 2018), and special assessment of the working conditions will continue in 2022.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) plays an important role in the prevention of employee’s direct exposure to harmful and/or hazardous production factors. MTS PJSC developed and approved norms of free issue of special clothing, footwear and other personal protective equipment to workers who are engaged in work with harmful and/or dangerous working conditions. Timely procurement of certified PPE is provided, deadlines for wearing and testing of personal protective equipment are met. Properly organized safekeeping of PPE is ensured.

MTS employees engaged in work with harmful and/or dangerous working conditions undergo preventive (at employment) and periodic (during work) medical examinations. The purpose of the periodic medical examination is a dynamic monitoring of an employee’s health in the workplace, prevention and timely identification of the signs of occupational and general disease, and prevention of accidents. During the reporting period, MTS PJSC held preventive and periodic medical examinations of 1,332 and 5,163 employees, respectively.  As a result of periodic medical examinations, 17 employees needed to transfer to another job, and health resort treatment was recommended to 17 employees.

Particular attention is paid to the organization of MTS activities to prevent occupational injuries and diseases. One of the main mechanisms to prevent production injuries is timely and proper assessment of professional risks that may arise at workplaces and their proper management. Since 2019, the “Requirements to investigation of accidents” standard has been in effect at the Company, which the branches use to take the corresponding actions.

Heads of units and representatives of employees participate in monitoring and in the development of annual H&S Safety Plans in branches for the next year, as well as in the development of the List of actions to improve the labor conditions and the safety culture. Actions aimed at supporting a new approach, Vision Zero, were scheduled for 2022.

In 2021, eight accidents took place at MTS PJSC, as a result of which eight employees were injured (two thereof were women). In terms of severity, all accidents fall within the category of minor accidents. As compared to 2020, there was a slight increase in the total number of injuries, but their severity decreased significantly.

Rate of injury, which is characterized by Accident Frequency Rate (AFR), was 0.25 in 2021 (0.20 in 2020, 0.17 in 2019 and 0.27 in 2018). Accident Severity Rate (ASR) was 30.4 (55.7 in 2020, 107.4 in 2019 and 106.6 in 2018).

Accident and Lost Work Time Rate (ALWTR) in 2020 amounted to 0.06 (0.09 in 2020, 0.02 in 2019 and 0.03 in 2018), and Lost Work Day Rate (LWDR) — 1.60 (1.10 in 2020, 1.47 in 2019 and 2.18 in 2018). Absentee Rate (AR) — 4.61 (4.41 in 2020, 4.31 in 2019 and 4.36 in 2018). No occupational diseases were found in employees in 2021.

Drivers of vehicles and technical experts (work at height, work in electrical installations), who maintain the communication network, are employees with high accident rate.

Annually, MTS PJSC cooperates with the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation (SIF RF) for financial support of preventive measures to reduce accident injury rate and occupational diseases among employees and to provide health resort treatment to employees working with hazardous and/or dangerous production factors, as well as to obtain discounts on insurance rate for compulsory social insurance against industrial accidents and occupational diseases. In 2021, the total amount received from this work made up RUB 10.2 million (RUB 8.9 million in 2020, RUB 6.2 million in 2019 and RUB 6.8 million in 2018).

At the expense of funds of the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation:

• medical examinations were conducted;
• uniforms, safety shoes and other PPE were purchased;
• special evaluation of labor conditions was performed.

Much attention is paid to the promotion of labor protection issues, and various forms of communications are used. Every year in April, in anticipation of the Global Labor Protection Day, various actions are taken to improve the labor conditions and protection of the Company’s employees, and to prevent accident frequency rate and occupational diseases. In 2021, it was not possible to attend all offline events due to the epidemiological situation around the world.

One of the tools to promote the labor protection issues is to develop the safety culture for our employees and managers. Work in this area has been carried out at the Company since 2018. In particular, a distance learning video course “Safety Culture” was developed and placed in the Virtual Academy in the end of 2018 (the course has already been attended by more than 1,200 employees). Safety culture improvement is the informed change of employees’ and managers’ attitude to responsibility for creating safe working conditions at the Company.

Every year, the Company assesses the effectiveness of its OSH management system based on quantitative indicators that objectively evaluate the extent of implementation of its labor policy. The assessment is conducted for each region. As a result of evaluating the OSH management system effectiveness, analysis is carried out, and concrete measures on improvement of labor protection are planned.

Detailed information on assessment results is available on the website.

Social Investment in Digital Development and Education

Social Investment¹
S — Social

¹ More detailed information is available in the MTS Group Sustainability Report for 2021: chapter “Corporate Social Responsibility”, section “Local Communities”

MTS implements a comprehensive social investment program and considers the matters of developing the territories of operation in a comprehensive paradigm with the aspects of supporting social, economic, cultural, financial and economic, investment and other areas.

The strategic objective pursued by MTS in the area of social investment is to improve the quality of living, to digitalize, to increase digital safety through rendering a wide array of services and to develop innovations in the area of health care, education and urban infrastructure, as well as in other spheres. Engagement of the main target audiences in MTS social initiatives ensures long-term positive contact with the Company and makes it possible to form emotional attachment to the brand.

MTS adheres to the following principles of social investment in human capital formed based on analyzing the current social needs, including in the regions where the Company operates, the Group expertise, as well as best practices in the field of sustainability:

Continuity, sustainability	MTS elaborates and consistently implements long-term programs aimed at achieving sustainable positive social changes. The Company focuses its efforts on implementing the UN goals in the most complementary business strategies of the Company.
Public involvement	The Company applies the mechanics of active wide audience involvement in programs. MTS provides an opportunity for personal contribution to solving relevant problems and creates conditions for implementation, thereby creating the highest quality and long-term contact with the public, which contributes to loyalty to MTS.
Localization	MTS implements social investment programs with a deep understanding of regional specifics, adapting each project at the local level, taking into account the context of a particular region.
Partnership	MTS develops the partnership and intersectoral interaction practice, which contributes to unifying the efforts of participants based on mutual interests in order to achieve synergy in solving socially important issues.
Versatility	MTS focuses its efforts on the efficient solution of social and environmental issues using technological tools and digital expertise.
Efficiency	The Company evaluates their implementation on a regular basis.

Most significant social projects of MTS in 2021

Generation M

An art and charity project that combines the ideas of talented children development and help to severely ill children. The project mission is to give equal opportunities for creative education to people and teenagers regardless of the place of residence and social status. The project is implemented with support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

Educational courses are posted on official online sites of the project being the website and the community in VKontakte in more than 15 creative areas: singing, choreography, fine arts, photography, movie making, journalism, acting, fashion design, etc. Children and teenagers from any region of the country can receive additional education free of charge, which contributes to developing their creative potential. Acknowledged masters of culture and representatives of well-known cultural and educational institutions work with children and teenagers. Over the years of project implementation, Generation M educational courses have been viewed more than 30 million times.

Unique charity mechanics of the project brings up young philanthropists all over the country. All activities in groups and on the website of Generation M are converted into “live money”, which MTS transfers for charity funds, program partners, treatment of seriously ill children. With their creative activities, the project participants generated more than RUB 22 million.

In 2021, the program is included in the number of global practices recognized by the UN as advanced in achieving sustainability goals.

In 2021, the project activities were adapted to the current conditions and held online (for more details, see the paragraph “MTS Contribution to Combatting COVID”).

Power Place

In 2020, MTS launched a comprehensive federal project “Power Place”. In close cooperation with national parks, wildlife reserves and urban territories. Within the project, MTS develops technological products with the aim to develop ecotourism and promote cultural values ​​in specially protected areas.

In 2021, 10 socially useful digital products (VR movies, audio guides, video monitoring systems with AI technology, educational materials with AR elements, interactive books about conservation districts, etc.) were created within the “Power Place” eco-program; 350 thousand active participants in five regions of Russia are involved in the project.

“Cultural Code”

“Culture Code” is a volunteer project of MTS, whose goal is to preserve and support cultural values ​​and initiatives that are unique to the territories: developing creative technologies, preserving cultural monuments, supporting craft schools and unique craftsmen, initiative local communities and movements, as well as original regional events and exhibitions and art objects. One of the priority project formats is the digitalization of existing cultural and historical heritage sites for accessible online study and visiting, including with the help of VR technologies.

Within the project, MTS involves residents and volunteers of Russia, partners, corporate customers and government officials in preserving cultural values unique to the territories.

At year-end 2021, the project covered 54 regions; 26,000 people and 4,000 volunteers took part in organizing the project events.

Help to local communities

Since 2016, MTS has been implementing a comprehensive program of social investment and support to local communities. In this regard, we interact with independent groups of citizens who, not being charitable foundations or NGOs, try to solve social problems that are important for the region and territories.

Our approach involves deep immersion into the life of the community and providing assistance aimed at solving a specific issue that is important at that very moment. Once the issue of the community is identified, MTS offers assistance in various formats.

• Volunteer help by our employees.
• Purchase of equipment, inventory, payment for logistics to solve urgent community issues
• Help with creating educational content for a wide audience.

In 2021, MTS provided assistance to volunteer communities and the most vulnerable population, for example, the Company supported the collection of food sets for the poor and sets for first-graders from large families. MTS also continued to arrange psychological assistance, including through free hotlines in the regions, and supported Russian cultural and educational centers in organizing educational and helping online broadcasts. Within its ongoing work with communities, MTS also regularly offers their members helpful materials in various communication channels most relevant to a particular territory or region at a given moment.

In 2021, about 500 thousand people became the end beneficiaries of the program. While continuing long-term work with the community and involving its members in other own social projects, the Company becomes the head of a large-scale movement aimed at solving the social problems of the country inhabitants.

ESG mentoring

MTS provides free tools to promote small businesses helping local entrepreneurs develop their business, get new customers, meet other entrepreneurs and active people in their city and find partners among them. MTS also offers small and micro businesses convenient digital solutions to simplify the process of resolving everyday business tasks.

“We Know Personally” is an interactive map of Russia, with the help of which entrepreneurs can tell a new audience about themselves, and clients can support local establishments: coffee houses, hairdressing saloons, non-chain cafes, car repair shops or beauty salons. Information is placed on the map free of charge, businessmen can leave a request on the website to add their contacts to the online service.

Programs for support of small and medium business

MTS provides free tools to promote small businesses helping local entrepreneurs develop their business, get new customers, meet other entrepreneurs and active people in their city and find partners among them. MTS also offers small and micro businesses convenient digital solutions to simplify the process of resolving everyday business tasks.

“We Know Personally” is an interactive map of Russia, with the help of which entrepreneurs can tell a new audience about themselves, and clients can support local establishments: coffee houses, hairdressing saloons, non-chain cafes, car repair shops or beauty salons. Information is placed on the map free of charge, businessmen can leave a request on the website to add their contacts to the online service.

Also, in order to eliminate gender inequality and support female entrepreneurs, MTS is holding “Lady 007” business accelerator in the Russian regions in partnership with the all-Russian public organization “Women of Business”. The two-month educational course helps participants open profitable businesses and start-ups, develop new ideas and improve the efficiency of their enterprise. The best projects get grants and regional support for business development. The project covered six cities in 2021, about 1,000 women became the accelerator participants.

Urban Legends

The “Urban Legends” project aims to support and develop domestic tourism and create modern digital services with unique content. Within the project, MTS engages residents of Russian cities to create unique “people’s” audio guides with a focus on places and events that are appreciated and loved by locals and that best reveal the city essence and features. You can use the guide even without Internet connection and at any convenient time.

At the time of writing this report, MTS audio tours have been launched in 45 cities across the country. About 6.3 million Russians are involved in the program implementation. In 2021, the Urban Legends project is launched in 13 new cities.

Digital Literacy and Cybersecurity Projects

MTS has been consistently implementing comprehensive programs aimed at teaching digital literacy to two audiences: elderly people and young schoolchildren.

The gramota.mts.ru portal helps eliminate the digital divide, familiarize the older generation with the capabilities of modern mobile devices and the Internet, show modern technologies and services able to simplify a person’s life in a variety of life situations: from taking medications to sports activities and maintaining an active lifestyle. The project allows for involving people who were not previously familiar with technology into the country’s digital economy. Training on the portal is free, and the online format enables people with limited mobility or those who live in remote areas of Russia to learn mobile technology.

In order to protect children from negative content and fraudulent resources and at the same time teach them to use the Internet capabilities for study and development, MTS volunteers conduct digital literacy classes for schoolchildren in collaboration with representatives of educational institutions and psychologists.

In 2021, MTS, together with the largest representatives of the digital industry in the Russian Federation, became the founder of the Alliance for Protecting Children in the Digital Environment and joined the Digital Ethics of Childhood Charter created by the Alliance. The principles laid down in the document will allow to increase the level of digital literacy and protect children from potential threats on the Internet.

MTS Media educational platform

The corporate educational MTS media platform publishes informative, educational and helpful content. The main objective of such publications is to improve digital literacy and the quality of life of people, primarily through the capabilities of MTS high-tech products and services. We help save money, take care of the safety of our readers, tell how to solve everyday tasks related to everyday life, leisure and interaction between a person and the state faster and cheaper.

The materials are in demand by the audience — in 2021, such publications on the MTS Media platform and in the Yandex.Zen channel of the same name got more than 17 million views, of which socially oriented materials received 3.4 million views, which is almost 80 % more than in 2020.

Corporate Volunteering

A separate area of the Company’s social investments is corporate volunteering. MTS volunteer movement “Simply Do Good!” has a long history bringing together 7,500 volunteer employees of the Group being an essential part of the internal corporate culture.

The most popular areas of volunteering among the surveyed MTS Group employees in 2021 are:

• support and assistance to orphans (55 %);
• support and assistance to elderly people (42 %);
• support for environmental initiatives (42 %);
• donation (39 %).

The major federal volunteer projects of MTS are “Going to School with MTS”, “Christmas Trees for Children”, “World of Knowledge with MTS”, “Memory Across Generations”, “Safe Internet Day”, “To Grandparents with Love”, “Accessibility for All” (for people with disabilities).

In 2021, within the MTS Best Social Projects competition, the winners in the following categories were awarded: “Health”, “Inclusion and Mentoring”, “Digital Volunteering”, “Creative Volunteering”, “Intellectual Volunteering”, “Cultural Heritage Preservation”, “Local Communities”, “Ecology”.

Mobile Fairytale Puppet Theater

In 2022, Mobile Fairytale Puppet Theater, the MTS corporate volunteer puppet theater, will celebrate its 10th anniversary season.

Theater groups are actively working in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar. The main theater audience is composed of the wards of children’s social and rehabilitation centers, hospitals and nursing homes.

During the year, more than 50 thousand people became spectators of the theater; the theater proudly presents more than 18 performances featuring about 150 actors.

All performances translated into Russian sign language and equipped with subtitles are uploaded to the MTS KION online cinema.

• Performances and workshops are available on the theater’s YouTube-channel
• Theater news in the VK community
• The theater’s website