War in Ukraine - How to support affected colleagues?

  • 9 March 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 134 views

Userlevel 6
Badge +18

Dear Community,

Many of you may feel the same way as we do. Sad, shocked and helpless because of the war in Ukraine. This is all quite understandable in light of the terrible events that are unfolding. Our thoughts are with all those affected and we #StandWithUkraine. Perhaps, you have people in your teams who are directly affected or may be worried about their friends and family. Therefore, it is now your task as HR professionals to support your employees in this situation as best as possible.

 

We hope that we can help some of you by sharing our initiatives below, and we especially look forward to hearing more ideas from your side, too. 

  • How do you deal with this issue?
  • As an HR Professional, what challenges are you facing that you need help with?

 

At Personio we have 14 colleagues who were born in Ukraine and/or are Ukrainian citizens, and 25 colleagues with Russian roots. There are also several colleagues who have partners or friends in these countries. All of them are equally worried about their loved ones and about the current situation. 

As we would like to express our solidarity and to offer our support to those affected, our HR teams have been working in the background to pull together resources so that we can support both internally and externally. Here are some ideas that we would like to share with you. 
 

Internal support for employees: 

  • Additional paid vacation days
    for those who are affected by the war (themselves or their relatives). 

  • Listening forum
    for all those affected directly, indirectly, or who just want show support, or to learn more on how they can help. We will organise a listening forum as a safe space (over Zoom) on a regular basis

  • Therapy and Counseling
    We work with Selfapy (DE & EN), TherapyChat (EN & ES), Health Assured (EN) and Axa BeSupported (EN) to offer all our employees individual and professional support, free of charge.

  • Internal information page
    We created a dedicated page on our communication tools where all information about the current situation can be found, including the different help and support services.

 

External support: 

  • Fundraising
    Internally, we call for donations for various aid organizations, such as the Red Cross, Caritas and UNHCR, and then donate them collectively to the respective institutions. Personio will double the total amount offered by the employees, and also donate an additional 100,000€. 

  • Impact Day
    A fully paid day off on which all employees have time to do something charitable for those affected by this war. 

 

We look forward to hearing your ideas and any questions that you might have.

Best,
Your Personio Community Team


4 replies

Userlevel 1
Badge +1

Hi! These are great action items, Daniele. I work at a charity and we don’t have much money to give away but we decided to offer two days of special leave for volunteering. This gesture was very much appreciated by the team. We are also working on a document with ideas and tips how people can help.

Userlevel 6
Badge +18

Hi @Nora Winter,

Two whole days of special leave is really great! I’m glad that your employees were appreciative of that. 
Thank you so much for sharing your input with the community. I look forward to reading some ideas from others, too 😊

Best,
Daniele

 

Userlevel 6
Badge +18

🇬🇧 For our UK members: In case you would like to learn more about hiring Ukrainian refugees, we stumbled upon the following article:

‘Homes for Ukraine’: What does HR need to know about hiring refugees?

Userlevel 4
Badge +8

Hi everyone! 

We can finally share with you that we have recently partnered with two new job boards where you can share job openings for refugees using the multi-posting feature.

You can find all the info in our just released Product Update: 

 

 

We hope to support the refugees from Ukraine and you as HR professionals and recruiters. 💙💛

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