A roundtable discussion was held in Kryvyi Rih on the reintegration of veterans with a focus on HSE. It was attended by leading HSE specialists, heads of HR departments, and heads of structural units at Metinvest's Kryvyi Rih enterprises, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih and Ferrexpo Poltava Mining. The event was organised by Ingulets GOK.
More than 3,000 employees of Metinvest's Kryvyi Rih GOKs have joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war. Veterans who have been demobilised from the army are gradually returning to their enterprises. However, the extremely stressful conditions they were in affected their mental health and perceptions of safety. Today, the task of every responsible employer is to create the proper conditions for the adaptation and socialisation of all those who are currently defending the country and will return to work tomorrow.
"Today, Ukrainian industrial enterprises operating under full-scale war conditions acutely feel the consequences of military aggression. In particular, because some of the qualified personnel are currently serving in the Armed Forces. But we are all waiting for their return, for the fact that they will change their military profession to a civilian one. And this is already happening, which means we have to be ready to welcome them into our teams and help them adapt to the conditions in which they worked before the war. At the same time, we have employees who have remained at their workplaces all this time and have some experience of working even under bombing. We need to take into account a lot of factors to restore the work teams, increase production volumes and maintain a decent level of support for Ukraine's economy," said Oleksandr HERASYMCHUK, CEO of Metinvest Group's Ingulets GOK.
War, with all its manifestations, is a powerful stressor that can affect the human psyche even several years after the end of hostilities. The participants of the roundtable shared their experience and best practices on how to help people returning to work today to stabilise themselves internally and find fulfilment in civilian life. The areas of HR, HSE and medical service responsibility were determined, which should accompany the veteran from the military unit to full adaptation at the industrial enterprise.
"Our veterans have changed now, they are 25+, which means they have a long career ahead of them. This raises the question of how to adapt them to the production environment as efficiently as possible, and how to adapt the production environment to veterans? How to build a management system that would create attractive conditions to both veterans and the enterprise itself and contribute to the efficiency of its operations. For example, at the meeting, we learned that Ingulets GOK is already screening, supporting and rehabilitating veterans. These are all great practices," said Andrian HALACH, moderator of the roundtable and head of Promyslova Bezpeka company.
During the joint work, the participants also learned about the experience of organising mental health management in foreign companies. They also discussed mental risk management and psychology training programmes at enterprises. The best practices in working with veterans are planned to be systematised and applied in teams.
