Companies are moving into a secondary phase of planning for displaced employees from Ukraine. They face hard choices about the next steps for these workers. Do they have enough internal opportunities to redeploy the employees? Are the employees able to return to work or will they need medical care and mental health support for an unspecified time? Will some need to be placed on temporary leave and if so, for how long and under what terms? And if the business is permanently withdrawing from Ukraine or Russia, will some employees need to be let go?

Companies also need to weigh the longer-term cost of losing skilled workers. There is no shortage of businesses and countries that, in addition to humanitarian motives, are keen to address skills and labor shortages with displaced Ukraine workers. Ukraine has a highly educated workforce, with 70 percent of workers holding secondary or higher education degrees. Ukraine has some 192,000 software development specialists, and the country’s IT industry exports are valued at $8.4 billion IT hubs in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Odessa have seen some of the fiercest fighting and devastating civilian attacks. Technology companies like Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and Google source IT and research and development work in Ukraine. Ukraine IT service providers are seen as especially strong in data management, telecommunications, cloud computing, gaming and e-commerce.

Insights for What’s Ahead

Companies are providing direct assistance for employees in a variety of ways. Many are helping with travel and organizing accommodation, often for a period of three months. Medical and trauma therapy, as well as parental support are also being arranged. For example, some companies are extending their private medical insurance cover or providing their own cover.

Companies are finding different mechanisms to support employees financially. These range from advance salary payments to ensure that employees have access to cash to switching sales staff to bonus plans from incentive plans.

And finding ways to let those who are able to, to keep working. Relocation assistance is extending to wider families, in some cases including grandparents and siblings. Some companies have opted for dedicated retention packages for employees who cannot be redeployed. At the same time, companies can hire displaced workers to work remotely from anywhere.

What companies can do to ensure they provide the best possible help

Ensure workers understand their full rights when they arrive at neighboring countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. Refugees who were permanently residing in Ukraine, and this includes nationals from other countries, qualify for help under the European Union Temporary Protection Directive. It grants access to the labor market and housing, medical assistance, and education for children. The protection lasts until at least March 4, 2023. Many companies are organizing free accommodation for their employees, often for a period of three months. It will then be important to help employees tap into relevant national schemes.

Help employees who want to travel further to other EU countries to join friends or family. Refugees have the right to keep transiting for a further 90 days to the EU country of their choice and to choose the member state where they exercise the rights granted by the Temporary Protection Directive.

Companies can provide travel assistance for employees and their families–although this often requires setting up additional insurance outside the normal employment package. Another practical step is to inform displaced workers of free transport schemes offered by individual countries. For example, all MAV trains in Hungary offer Ukraine refugees a free "solidarity ticket”, while Wizz Air is offering 100,000 free seats on all continental Europe flights departing from Ukraine’s border countries. Uber is also offering unlimited free trips between the Ukrainian border and Polish cities. Deutsche Bahn is offering Helpukraine tickets to allow refugees from Ukraine to travel to any station in Germany free of charge.

Ensure workers know that they have the right to open a bank account that will provide them with bank cards and the ability to deposit and transfer money, and enable their employer to pay salaries and extend other types of financial assistance. This can be particularly important when the company wants to support an employee’s spouse and children once they have left Ukraine.

The Conference Board members are opting for a variety of ways to provide financial assistance:

• Advance salary payments These are typically for three months, and often as bonuses or one-off payments to ensure employees have access to cash in case of emergencies.
• Hardship/solidarity funds Companies have extended existing schemes to family members where the (often male) employee remains in Ukraine. Companies have also extended the scheme to include employees in other regions with families living in Ukraine.
• Sales staff on incentive plans Those who can no longer sell have been switched to bonus plans.
• Permanent emergency fund One company has decided to form such a fund with considerable sums and mechanisms to enable local access to ensure that cash is available for future crises in any region where the company operates.

Arrange medical and psychological assistance Companies will need to assess displaced staff on a case-by-case basis. Members of The Conference Board say that some employees are keen to return to work (although this could be a short-term coping mechanism, and they may well need support at a later stage). However, other employees have been injured or traumatized by their experiences and need time for treatment and recovery.

Trauma-based therapy Companies are extending their private medical insurance cover (or in some cases, providing their own cover) and providing additional support as part of their Employee Assistance Program (EAP). A valuable resource is trauma-based therapy to help with post-traumatic stress, and other therapies to help refugees deal with the insecurity, stress and trauma from their experiences. If companies cannot offer specialist support through their EAP, they can link employees to organizations such as the Red Cross and World Health Organization, which has deployed mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) experts in countries such as Poland to coordinate the MHPSS response.3 Other options include specialized charities and NGOs, for example, the Refugee Trauma Initiative.

Parenting Support Some companies have provided parenting support and advice, recognizing that in many cases, children have also experienced trauma and may need considerable help to adapt to life in a new country. There are national initiatives families can access; for example, You Have A Friend In Me is a platform that connects Polish youth to act as friends and mentors to Ukrainian high school and university students.

Prioritize Ukraine staff for temporary internal vacancies in neighboring European countries. In the hope of resuming operations in Ukraine, some companies are retaining the Ukraine employment contract but making additional payments to reflect the cost of living in the host country.

Prioritize Ukraine staff in global roles for international assignments. Companies with international mobility processes in place can speedily enact such transfers. Companies should expect to make decisions whether to offer such transfers or relocations to spouses and children only, or to extend relocation support to the wider family. In discussions with our members, one company decided to extend relocation assistance to include the employees’ siblings and their children, parents and grandparents. Other companies have limited the number of additional family members to seven. One reason to extend the support is that some employees have left Ukraine with their nieces and nephews along with their own children.

Dedicated retention packages for employees who cannot be redeployed. Some companies have opted to keep paying all of their Ukraine employees, regardless of whether they are working or not. Some companies are developing retention packages for specific groups of workers, such as those in critical or customer-facing roles. As an example: sales staff who can’t easily transfer to other markets or business units, but who nonetheless have invaluable knowledge of the Ukraine market and strong customer relationships.

Letting some staff go. In circumstances where companies cannot provide jobs for their displaced staff, they can still offer practical assistance. As well as providing outplacement support, they can also link staff with the rapidly increasing number of recruitment agencies, international companies and national schemes being developed to support Ukraine workers.

The stakes are high, both for the business and for workers, who are naturally looking to their employer to provide critical economic and psychological support as they and their families escape the conflict. For the company, treating employees poorly could do untold damage to a reputation as a responsible and caring employer, and cause lasting harm to the engagement and loyalty of the wider workforce.