Metinvest is among the five best employers in Ukraine according to TOP 100. Ratings of the Largest magazine and was recognised in a special nomination for the Best Corporate Educational Programmes, delo.ua reports.
The editorial board of the magazine and a special expert jury identified 50 companies that are responsible employers and, despite the war, invest in people, their main asset.
The experts evaluated the candidates based on special criteria: re-socialisation of veterans, remuneration and salary policy, investments in corporate education, improvement of staff welfare and innovations used by companies in their HR policies.
The longlist includes the country's largest companies by revenue for the past and current year and recognised industry leaders. The shortlist includes those who received the highest scores from the expert jury and the editorial board, and the employer's brand awareness was also taken into account during the online voting.
The award ceremony for the best employers in Ukraine took place on 14 September in Kyiv during HR Wisdom Summit 2023. Metinvest's representative took part in a panel discussion on veterans' re-socialisation strategies.
Society needs to become more inclusive, the reintegration is not a problem but a new reality.
— Tetiana Petruk, Chief Sustainability Officer of Metinvest GroupThe jury considers the launch of Metinvest Polytechnic, the Ukraine's first non-governmental mining and steel university, in September 2022, to be the company's achievement in education.
Despite the war and the occupation of Mariupol, more than 350 students are studying remotely in modern engineering and technical specialities, combining university theory with practical training at Metinvest's enterprises.
Read more about why the company has been recognised as one of the best employers in Metinvest's case for the TOP-100. Ratings of the largest magazine.
Despite the crisis in Ukraine's mining and steel industry because of the war and unprecedented challenges in the labour market, Metinvest managed to rebuild its business, launch employee support programmes and prepare for the development of the domestic mining and steel industry.
Personal challenge
The war had a devastating impact on Metinvest's business. The company lost control of its steel plants in the temporarily occupied Mariupol. It also had to suspend the operation of its coke plant in frontline Avdiivka. Metinvest Group was forced to radically restructure its production operations, create a completely new logistics system and find alternative ways to export its products.
Another challenge for the company since the start of the war has been the massive migration of staff and a significant loss of their skills. Many of Metinvest's employees have moved to other regions or countries, changed their profession or specialisation, or simply cannot work in the current environment. In addition, more than 10% of Metinvest's employees serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This significantly reduces not only the potential of the Ukrainian mining and steel sector in general, but also of Metinvest Group in particular. The outflow of human capital makes it very difficult to maintain current production volumes and restore them in the future.
However, even in the face of the full-scale war, the Metinvest's greatest value is its employees, their lives and health. "A strong, united team is, has been and will remain the main value for Metinvest," Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest, says and assures that comprehensive assistance to employees is one of the Group's priorities.
Collective responsibility
In 2022-2023, amid the war, Metinvest did everything it could to preserve its main asset - its employees. The company has implemented a number of projects to ensure employee safety and protect their mental health. "The company allocates maximum resources to support its employees. We need to make sure that our people are as safe as possible, receive decent pay and have the conditions for professional development," Yuriy Ryzhenkov says.
"The war and forced migration have significantly deteriorated the situation on the domestic labour market, so hiring employees with the right qualifications is sometimes a challenge. That is why Metinvest is making every effort to preserve its human resources. For example, all employees of the enterprises in Mariupol and Avdiivka were offered to relocate and take retraining courses.
A large part of the team has been retrained and acquired new professions at the Group's enterprises. This is due to a significant reduction in production volumes and changes in operating modes. Today, more than 2,000 technologists are temporarily performing repair work at the Group's enterprises, including those that the company previously outsourced.
The Group's HR management algorithms have also undergone significant changes, making them more dynamic and flexible. Each enterprise promptly responds to changes in capacity utilization and calculates the required number of the staff. Metinvest balances any surplus or shortage of staff by rotating employees among the Group's enterprises. Business trips to neighbouring production facilities are a common practice for Metinvest employees and managers. The company reimburses the cost of renting accommodation or provides dormitory accommodation and gives bonuses to employees who are involved in rotations.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Metinvest has employed more than 7,300 people at its facilities in Pokrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih and Kamianske, including more than 1,600 employees from Mariupol and Avdiivka.
The company emphasises that it was extremely important to provide comprehensive assistance to thousands of evacuated employees from Mariupol and Avdiivka. In addition to work, people needed housing and basic needs. In order to keep the teams of the enterprises that are currently out of operation, the company engaged thousands of employees to carry out repairs and landscaping while maintaining their basic salaries.
The company prepared 6,000 temporary accommodation places for the evacuees and launched the Housing for Our Employees corporate project. As part of the project, employees provided housing for displaced colleagues, and Metinvest reimbursed the costs.
About 37,000 employees worked at the Group's enterprises in the regions under occupation (Mariupol) or in the areas where fighting is taking place (Avdiivka). Therefore, the urgent task was to evacuate people to safer regions or abroad. In total, more than 20,000 people were evacuated from Mariupol and Avdiivka.
The company also promptly equipped bomb shelters at its facilities with everything necessary for people to stay there for a long time, including water, food, medicine and communication equipment.
Zaporizhstal has a separate programme to restore housing for its employees: the company helps citizens with initial repairs or reimburses the costs of such repairs. According to Roman Slobodianiuk, General Director of Zaporizhstal, almost 100 employees of Zaporizhstal and other Metinvest enterprises in Zaporizhzhia have already received support from the company under this programme.
In addition, rehabilitation centres have been set up in Zaporizhzhia and Kamianske for employees and their families, as well as for other citizens who have been evacuated from the war zone. These centres offer counselling and medical assistance, as well as housing and employment opportunities at the company's enterprises.
Metinvest employees themselves call their company the steel pillar of Ukraine. The company continues to take care of the safety and well-being of its employees. Among the priorities are also aid to the country, the army and maintaining its position in the market. The company says it is ready to resume production as soon as possible.
Labour front
To date, the company has managed to balance headcount and productivity, which has allowed it to approach pre-war salary levels. The pace of growth varies across the Group's enterprises, but the company finds opportunities to implement effective motivational systems. As a result, employees' incomes are growing and the situation in the company is stabilising.
Metinvest pays great attention to the reintegration of employees that return from the war. After all, more than 8,000 employees serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In particular, the company's Saving Lives humanitarian initiative in cooperation with Protez Hub is implementing a charity programme to provide prosthetics and rehabilitation for military and civilian victims of the war. Already 52 people, including Metinvest employees, are undergoing treatment and rehabilitation, and 14 have received prostheses.
A special unit has also been set up to work with war veterans with disabilities. Its task is to explore opportunities for reinstatement of injured employees after their demobilisation to suitable vacancies. The department is already working with the first group of such employees.
"We are interested that the military and civilians who sacrificed their health for the sake of all of us return to full life as soon as possible and with the least discomfort. This is exactly what the early verticalisation equipment that is now available in Ukraine thanks to the Saving Lives initiative provides to the injured," Tetiana Petruk, Chief Sustainability Officer of Metinvest Group, said.
It is worth noting that the Saving Lives initiative is the Metinvest's largest humanitarian project since the beginning of the great war. The corporate initiative has already become a comprehensive and one of the largest humanitarian programmes in Ukraine. Almost 200 companies from around the world have joined it. Almost half a million people in 70 territorial communities have received aid with food and clothing, medical treatment and psychological rehabilitation. Recently, Saving Lives and the UN Global Compact Ukraine announced the establishment of psychological rehabilitation and support centres for affected civilians. The first such centre is scheduled to open in Zaporizhzhia in July this year.
Currently, the Metinvest Together psychological support service helps Metinvest employees and their families cope with stress and anxiety. Over the year of operation, the service has provided nearly 3,400 individual and group counselling sessions.
Metinvest is also committed to training qualified specialists for the future. Last year, Metinvest Polytechnic, the first non-governmental mining and steel university in Ukraine, was launched. Currently, Metinvest’s employees and their children can study at the university free of charge, where the second admission campaign is underway. Those admitted to Metinvest Polytechnic include employees of Metinvest enterprises from Zaporizhzhia, Pokrovsk, Kamianske and Kryvyi Rih, as well as Mariupol and Avdiivka residents who left their homes because of the war. The company guarantees the best students a first job, financial and other incentives. "Metinvest Group will continue to support the university and contribute to its development," Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of the Group promises.
