People of the Land

People are the greatest value. We have to take care of each other, create opportunities for development for those who stayed and return those who left. This is how we can rebuild the country.

This summer, we had a strategy session, and, perhaps, like many other Ukrainian companies, we tried to understand what to do and where to move further. We started to think, “What should we do?” And we understood that Work.ua is like an airport. And not just any airport but a kind of “airport of dreams.”

Because, in fact, when we talk about the job for a person, about a real job, the one that you were made for, the one Skovoroda talked about, a feeling appears as if I am flying towards my dream: I want to do something, it inspires me. It turns out that the place where companies send or publish job vacancies is like planes of various airlines parked at the airport, and each person can see where they are flying to. Airlines then represent the “land of dreams.” So, Work.ua is a sort of huge airport frying to 40 thousand countries, where 90,000 planes are parked simultaneously, and about 400,000 people come there every day.

Why am I talking about this?

This scale gave us the understanding that we should think broader rather than just be this technological project. I am sure that here we have representatives of many companies who faced the same challenge: whether to do “just business” or to think about acting within certain super-systems now and in the future. When you start thinking like this, you realise all of a sudden why you are really doing it. And new ideas start emerging as “why” you are doing this. I am absolutely sure that to make the leap now and grow exponentially, we should not act as we used to.

One of the strategies for interacting with the environment is the strategy of servicing. When we see that the things inspiring us and for the sake of which we are making great efforts become a big field, a big business, and a big community after some time, it is even more inspiring to work for their benefit. This strategy has much more energy and much more future. Once, I heard the phrase, “If we believe in the victory, we must go on building. We must start with ourselves – if we believe in something, we must protect it with our own actions.”

In August this year, I met Maksym Ostapenko, Head of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, who had been the Head of the Khortytsia National Reserve for 25 years and was appointed after Lavra’s liberation from the Moscow occupation. He said that there were more than 140 world-class architectural monuments in the territory of Lavra. Most of them are in a completely dilapidated condition. It is hard to believe, but it is possible to realise why: our extermination as self-aware people starts with this. Our company has decided to contribute to the restoration of Lavra’s main bell, which is open to visitors. You can climb it and see what we are fighting for, to think and to dream at a different height.

After that, we started thinking: what do we talk about with our people? Do we just hire them, or do we talk about senses with them? Or should we talk about their worldview? Why and what are we fighting for? Unfortunately, not so many companies talk about this now.

We help different units a lot, like all of you do, I am convinced. Do you know what is very important in these processes? Attracting people so that everyone could feel their involvement. Not at the level of the company transferring money, but their personal contribution.

We will win by all means, and I have no doubts about this. For this to happen, it is critical that everyone feels like a warrior. The one who is ready to follow their heart, their path. And to do what they believe in.