Seven Tips to Support Your Teammates in Ukraine

Just a month ago, I was busy fine-tuning growth campaigns, launching new services, and finally shifting focus on developing internal products and the startups I invested in. And the timing seemed perfect. Ukraine has been a leading IT outsourcing destination for several years straight. The tech sector has steadily grown by about 30% annually, with the export of IT services hitting $6.8 bln in 2021, a tangible increase from $5 bln in 2020.

The Ukrainian startup scene has also been booming. Kyiv alone is home to over 1000 successful startups. I’m sure you’ve heard of Grammarly, GitLab, Reface, Ajax, and Jooble. Guess what? All these unicorns have Ukrainian roots and teams in our capital.?

Millions of Ukrainian ICT experts have become part of international teams, helping them drive innovation and deliver new solutions faster. Now all these talented people are at risk of losing their lives and homes, or at least jobs and businesses, because of Russia’s ruthless and downright barbaric invasion of Ukraine.?

Thanks to the long-standing investments in its continuity and the team’s unconditional commitment to its success, my business has survived. Yet not every agency in Ukraine has been this fortunate.

Considering the rapid development and global reach of the IT industry in Ukraine, I assume hundreds of thousands of foreign businesses have teammates or partner agencies from Ukraine. So here are some meaningful things you can do right now to support your tech workers from Ukraine.?

Show Solidarity

Living in a war-affected country is a challenge and a continuous source of stress. The simplest way to cheer up your teammates is to express solidarity, show that you genuinely care and that heinous crimes against peaceful citizens must not go unpunished. There are numerous ways to do this, but here is what we’ve seen in support of Ukraine and much appreciated so far:

• Make a public statement condemning the war. As President Zelenskyy puts it, ‘Indifference and silence are complicity.’ Your teammates, customers, subscribers, and competitors should all know your stance on this war. This way, you spread awareness, inspire others to follow suit, and influence politicians in your country to make difficult decisions faster.
• Change your logo colors to blue and yellow. FOX ABC, Slack, Bitrise, and hundreds of other companies have changed their logo colors to the Ukrainian flag color. The former are the tools our delivery teams use daily, and it’s heart-warming to see that our favorite products stand with Ukraine.
• Add a banner or landing page. Don’t assume your customers are well-aware of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Not everyone watches the news daily or understands the scope of the tragedy over here. Inform them how they can help and add donation links to vetted nonprofits and humanitarian aid centers. Clutch,? Airbnb, Etsy, Amazon, Kazidomi, Upwork, and dozens of other companies made changes to their platforms to draw attention to the people of Ukraine and share what relief efforts they’ve done and what you can do too.
• Leave the Russian market. Hundreds if not thousands of multinational corporations have pulled out of Russia. Such unanimity among the global community is apparent: continuing doing business with Russia equals sponsoring its military aggression against Ukraine and neighboring countries. It’s unthinkable that Russians could still enjoy all the privileges of a civilized life while Ukrainian civilians were dying because of Russia’s endless shelling.?

Ask What They Need Most

No one knows better what’s going on in the country than the people living there. Every company has its own business continuity plans, different team sizes, and varied access to resources. There’s no perfect solution that works for every team. So it’s only natural to be direct and ask what help your teammates would appreciate most.

At Redwerk and QAwerk, the number one favor we’ve been asking for is the opportunity to continue working.

Remember when President Zelenskyy said, ‘I need ammunition, not a ride’? We can relate to that because we also need projects, not charity.

While we genuinely appreciate all the donations, we want to keep being useful, share our decades-long expertise, and deliver top-notch services, just like we did pre-war. That’s what allows us to keep talented people employed, taxes paid, and the spirit high.?

There’s hardly an industry that Russia’s unprecedented hostility hasn’t disrupted, but people continue working. Farmers, bank workers, public sector, so should we. The IT industry might be the savior of Ukraine’s economy; that’s why we’re so pumped about staying productive and taking on new projects despite the war.

Allow Ample PTO

Russia declared war on Ukraine on Thursday, February 24. Despite months of media talk about Russia’s likely invasion of Ukraine, my teammates and I didn’t believe a full-scale war would be possible in the 21st century in the heart of Europe. Naturally, the first days were full of shock, horror, and chaos.?

When you wake up to the whistling sound of shells, you can think of anything but work. Everyone was taking care of their and their loved one’s safety.

We’ve been fortunate to work with incredibly thoughtful and caring clients who gave us all the time we needed to relocate to safe areas and set up new workspaces. Evolv, an AI-driven experience optimization platform, which we help to continuously upgrade and test, secured payment for all business days regardless of how many hours our teammates worked.?

Another client who was among the first to reassure our partnership stands is Change & Innovation Agency, whom we helped develop Current, an e-government welfare workflow SaaS used by public agencies across the USA.

Providing ample paid time off will allow your teammates to process the new reality, take measures to protect themselves, and come back with a calm mind and desire to continue working. Because work is an excellent remedy for disturbing thoughts - channeling your energy into a project might be the best way to stay sane.

Extend Responsibilities

While it feels natural to pull out of war-torn areas, it’s actually a good idea to do the opposite. When the COVID pandemic hit us, we didn’t lay off our employees. Instead, we hired all those talents who were hastily dismissed by conservative businesses and, as a result, significantly strengthened our team.??

The global business community can do the same: if you’re happy with the work your contractors from Ukraine deliver, why not engage them in other areas of your business??

For example, Redwerk specializes in developing, upgrading, and maintaining SaaS products, but we also have hands-on experience in making due diligence audits, UI/UX design, and SEO. QAwerk is mostly hired for our manual and automated testing expertise, yet we are skilled in penetration and security testing.

Make sure you’re aware of all the capabilities of the agency you’re working with and think of additional opportunities you can create for them.?

Winning new clients amidst the war is an uphill battle. If you have trustful, partner-like relations with your teammates from Ukraine, give them a chance to impress you even more.

Another reason to do this is that the Ukrainian job market now has some unemployed tech talent. Numerous product companies that worked exclusively on the Ukrainian market have lost income or collapsed and, as a result, laid off their employees, including IT experts. As an entrepreneur, I feel responsible for creating new jobs and livelihood opportunities for our fellow citizens. We сan employ these seasoned specialists as long as our foreign partners entrust us with more work and create new deliverables.

Since the beginning of the war, we’ve welcomed 11 new teammates, and soon our hiring needs will be met. So if you’ve partnered with an agency from Ukraine, give them more work, they’ll go hire some cool folks, and that’s how together we keep over 285K ICT experts and their loved ones well-fed, protected, and cheered up.?

Give Referrals

For us, referrals have always been one of the most effective sources of quality leads. As much as 70% of all new clients came to us by word of mouth pre-war. It took us almost two decades to build and maintain that image, which proves that winning the trust of B2B clients is an arduous task.?

Businesses are running away from the war because working with a war-affected country is risky. However, if you share your experience with your acquaintances, tell them how good your agency people are (provided you like their work), they may be willing to take that risk and feel proud of themselves.?

It costs you nothing to talk to someone from your network and introduce them to your agency. They may not be the right fit, yet they also may know someone who is.

Help With Logistics & Regulations

Financial assistance is paramount; there’s no denying that. At the same time, you can do so much more beyond sending a team bonus or donating to a nonprofit.

There’s hardly a business in Ukraine that hasn’t participated in collecting, sorting, and delivering military equipment, medicine, and humanitarian aid.?

If you run an e-commerce company, consider adding a free delivery option for those consumers willing to purchase items as humanitarian aid for Ukraine.?

Our partner Kazidomi, an organic goods delivery startup, went even further and grouped all the suitable items under one dedicated page.

Your teammates from Ukraine may need information about credible nonprofits, delivery services, or medical equipment suppliers operating in your country. A case in point, our client VirtaMed, an international provider of VR medical training simulators, helps our project manager search for tourniquet suppliers in Switzerland.?

Work With Ukraine

All things considered, the best thing you can do for the people of Ukraine is to continue working with Ukraine. Remote work, flexible scheduling, asynchronous communication - we’ve been doing this long before the war and even pandemic.?

IT services providers in Ukraine remain agile in software development and their business contingency plans, adapting workflows as the situation unfolds.

If you fear long-term commitments to an agency from a war-torn country, consider risk-free services, such as quality assurance, code reviews, and security audits. If you change your mind, there’s no time-consuming offboarding process like with the development where knowledge transfer is mandatory. You get your test cases, bug reports, due diligence, or pentest reports with clear steps to follow. Here the deliverables can be easily defined, with no strings attached. After all, inviting an independent party to inspect your software is what data compliance regulations across industries require businesses to do.

Bonus Tip: Search For Ukrainian Providers & Sellers?

I’ve recently found out that some entrepreneurs deliberately search for service providers from Ukraine. Our new client who turned to us for testing services revealed that he looked for a Ukraine-based agency on purpose because that’s a reasonable thing to do - you get a quality service and do a good deed simultaneously. A fantastic initiative indeed.?

What about the risks, you may ask. What if the city your team resides in is bombed, or if the electricity goes down? These are possible because we live amidst a full-blown war, and we sincerely acknowledge those. At the same time, they can be mitigated.

When choosing a service provider, ask if they work remotely and how distributed they are. Inquire precise locations of your would-be teammates and check if they are far from war-affected areas. Ensure all their infrastructure is in the cloud, and you’re good to go. I assure you, you will get excellent results from thankful and motivated people.

Another initiative I personally promote is #BuyFromUkraine. The idea is to purchase goods and services from individual sellers and gig workers. Book a stay in Ukraine on Airbnb, purchase artworks on Etsy, turn to copywriters on Fiverr, and who knows, maybe you’ll make someone’s day.

Lastly, look at the tools and services you’re using daily. Are there any Russian apps you’d like to get rid of or replace with better alternatives? If you are a Mac user, you can easily spot those with SpyBuster, developed by MacPaw, an app development company from Ukraine. Ditch Russian Tilda for Ukrainian Weblium or Horoshop, replace Roistat with Ringostat, and try Serpstat instead of Semrush. I can go on and on; the point is to stop sponsoring the aggressor and support Ukrainian product companies.?

Summing Up

For over a month, Ukrainians have been heroically withstanding Russian aggression. During the first week of the war, only 40% of my team could work full-time; now it is about 80%, and we keep hiring to improve our capacity further. Thanks to the global support and the unwavering commitment of our people to preserve our country and its economy, the tech sector in Ukraine remains the pillar of strength in our fight for freedom, democracy, and the right to exist as a nation and sovereign country.?

I’d love to know your experience of working with a Ukraine-based tech agency through the war.

What other tips do you have for managing tech teams during uncertainty?