Metinvest Group, together with DTEK Academy, has developed and implemented a unique learning course for employees to help war veterans adapt to civilian life – Heroes Among Us. The first wave of the programme will cover 1,200 managers of the company's enterprises in the regions where the company operates.

Almost 400 employees have already returned to work at Metinvest after demobilisation, and the number of war veterans at our enterprises will grow over time. They strengthen the teams, in particular, thanks to the skills they acquired during the defence of Ukraine: leadership, teamwork, result orientation, cohesiveness and mutual assistance. However, the heroes need time and support to recover from their experiences at the front, rejoin the work teams and help Ukraine on the labour front. Metinvest is committed to support them along this way.

Work teams, which war veterans join, play an important role in their successful adaptation. At the same time, maximum involvement in this process requires certain knowledge. That is why Metinvest has developed and implemented a unique learning course for employees on the adaptation of war veterans to civilian life – Heroes Among Us.

Until now, there has been no similar training programme in Ukraine in terms of content. It was developed jointly with DTEK Academy and with the participation of more than 20 experts: Metinvest management, psychology and HR specialists, and military psychologists. It is especially valuable that war veterans themselves were involved in the development of the learning course. They shared their experience and gave useful advice.

The first wave of training under the Heroes Among Us learning course for war veterans adaptation started at the end of 2023. Managers will be the first to undergo training. They directly create a comfortable working atmosphere in their teams, interact with employees who have returned from the frontline on work and other issues, set production targets and aim to achieve the desired result.

Currently, 1,200 managers are taking the Heroes Among Us learning course. The training will cover managers of all levels and will take place in several stages. The course consists of seven modules that take seven weeks to complete. The modules contain practical video tutorials that will help with the adaptation of war veterans, understanding their needs and strengths step by step.

The Heroes Among Us learning course will help you better understand the experiences and feelings that war veterans have gone through, their psycho-emotional state, needs and difficulties they face when returning to peaceful life. It also contains recommendations on how to build an effective dialogue with a war veteran in a given situation and how to help them cope with negative emotions. It will teach how to better help demobilised colleagues with socialisation and adaptation, etc.

An adapted version of the programme will soon be developed for all Metinvest employees so that all teams at the enterprises receive the relevant knowledge.

To find out more about how Metinvest supports demobilised employees, read the story of Mykola Tkachenko, a war veteran and a rolling mill operator at Zaporizhstal.