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New Mentoring Rules: Key Points

Legal Digest News
On March 1, 2025, mentoring will be officially recognized as additional work for which payment will be due. Acsour experts explained how employers can properly formalize labor relations with employees performing the duties of mentors.

On March 1, 2025, Article 351.8 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, which is devoted to the specifics of regulating the labor of employees performing mentoring work, comes into force. The article includes six parts:

1.Part 1 of Article 351. 8 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation contains a definition of mentoring. Thus, from March 1, mentoring is additional paid work aimed at helping another employee acquire professional skills and is performed on behalf of the employer. The mentor must give written consent to perform such work.

2.Part 2 of Article 351. 8 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation establishes requirements for the content of the conditions in an employment contract or additional agreement with an employee-mentor. The document must indicate the content of the mentoring work, the duration of the mentoring and the form of implementation. It is specified that

  • the content of mentoring work is the specific actions that the mentor must perform;
  • the form of performing mentoring work is a way to organize the work of the mentor, the transfer of his knowledge and experience

3.Parts 3 and 4 of Article 351. 8 of the Labor Code contain information on payment for mentoring. The amounts and terms of payments for mentoring in commercial organizations may be established by collective agreements, contracts or LNA (local regulations). The LNA must be familiarized with and signed by the employees to whom it will apply. If there are no such documents, the amounts and terms of payments are established by the contract or additional agreement.

For employees of state and municipal institutions, the amounts and terms of payments are established by laws and acts of the corresponding level.

4.Part 5 of Article 351. 8 of the Labor Code specifies the requirements for the conditions in the contract or additional agreement regarding the amounts of payments for mentoring and the rules for payments. Thus, the amount of additional payment can be set as a fixed amount, for example, 10,000 rubles, or as a percentage of the salary (tariff rate), for example, 10%.

5.Part 6 of Art. 351. 8 of the Labor Code regulates the procedure for terminating mentoring. An employee or employer may decide early to terminate mentoring work. The employer must notify the employee of its decision at least three working days before the cancellation of work as a mentor. To do this, it is necessary to issue a notice in writing and give it to the employee against signature. Information about the period within which the mentor must notify about the termination of activity must be specified in the mentoring regulations

Acsour experts note that when appointing an employee as a mentor for an intern, an Order on the appointment of the employee must be issued. The order must include the mentoring period, the mentor’s position, his/her last name, first name and patronymic, as well as the last name, first name and patronymic of the intern assigned to the mentor.

Mentoring is a formalized work with clear rules and compensation. Failure to establish payment for mentoring infringes on the rights of employee mentors and may entail administrative liability for the employer in accordance with Part 6 of Article 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. In order to avoid administrative liability and conduct activities in accordance with the law, contact Acsour.
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