Ukrainians have given a real boost to Poland’s economy.
At least that’s what Polish officials say.
And why wouldn’t it? An estimated 2 million Ukrainians who live and work in Poland – either officially or illegally – are expected to send $4 billion home this year. And these numbers will only grow along with Poland’s need for more workers.
The perception of Ukrainians abroad, however, is one of migrants who come to the European Union for temporary hard labor, such as picking fruit. But that’s not always the case. Some Ukrainians work there in top management positions.
Ciklum Poland
Oleg Shkuropat is one example. He has just recently moved from Odesa to Gdansk, a northern Polish city of 500,000 people on the Baltic Sea coast, to become a branch head of tech firm Ciklum. For him, Poland was a good career option, because it kept him in the same company, while moving up.
Shkuropat has been in Poland for three months only, and so he hasn’t met many Ukrainians in top jobs there. But he thinks he’ll find them.
“It might be connected with the general trend of big tech companies extending their business operations from Ukraine to Poland,” he said. “Tech companies do their best to keep good managers nowadays.”
Many international IT firms presented in Ukraine have offices in Poland, too. Shkuropat’s Ciklum as well as EPAM, SoftServe, Infopulse, Luxoft together hire 20,000 people in Ukraine, and as they run their operations in Poland, they sometimes need Ukrainian managers to help managing their European Union branches.
That’s why Ciklum relocated Shkuropat. Now at a new country, he has only started learning Polish, but the language isn’t a barrier for him, since typically all of the communication at tech companies is done in English.
Shkuropat thinks that Poles are “more mature, more professional” and better at being loyal to their employers. At the same time, it’s harder to find in them “this startup mindset every client is dreaming of.” But all of these differences are subtle as “Poles and Ukrainians have similar approach to business and life,” Shkuropat said.
EPAM Poland
Daria Gara, the head of tech company EPAM Poland has been in Poland for much longer than Shkuropat, but her career path looks similar. She was internally promoted and relocated to Poland, too.
The purpose in Gara’s relocation was to ensure that EPAM opens its branch in Poland with the same work principles and business patterns as the company already had in Ukraine.
According to Gara, EPAM needed not just a new branch abroad under the company’s brand — the business processes and the work culture had to be the same as they were in other existing locations such as Ukraine.
“They had to be unified,” she said. That’s why Gara moved and brought her Ukrainian team with her.
Having moved in 2015, Gara has easily adapted to the new country.
“People with Slavic roots don’t face any entry barriers (in Poland). Ukrainians, Belarusians, or Russians can easily communicate. All the rest is done by the organization that relocates you,” she said.
“Therefore, sometimes the change is much more abrupt for you when you start a new project in the same location,” she added.
Gara has the same feeling about Ukrainian top managers in Poland as Ciklum’s Shkuropat does: they are present here, but not more than any other nationality, especially from the post-Soviet countries the rest of Eastern Europe.
“I think it’s just globally a common thing — to move from East to West (for job opportunities).”
The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum and NIX Solutions. The content is independent of the donors.
