Helping Ukrainian Refugees Find Work

The emotional toll of having to leave her home, under such urgent circumstances, was enormous. However, rather than sitting idly by while the mayhem unfolded in Ukraine, Diana Yumasheva connected with the Poland LHH team to strategize how she could immediately support efforts to help other Ukrainian refugees.

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The war in Ukraine was just more than a day old when Diana Yumasheva made the most painful decision in her life: she grabbed a few belongings and emergency supplies, jumped in the car with her five-year-old daughter Mariia and decided to flee her home in Kyiv.

It was February 25, 2022, and Russian forces had started invading Ukraine a day earlier. Already, huge explosions were being reported in Kyiv as Russian artillery struck at airfields and military installations. For Diana Yumasheva, head of LHH business in Ukraine (and five other CIS countries) it was clearly time to leave the country where she was born.

The logistics of fleeing on that frigid February morning, however, were daunting.

The roads out of Kyiv and all routes to neighboring countries west of Ukraine were teeming with people fleeing the war.

Diana had decided to try and make it to Slovenia knowing that the route would be dangerous and uncertain.

There were so many vehicles on the roads out of Ukraine, gridlock forced them to stop for hours at a time. The lineups at gas stations were kilometres long. Military aircraft screamed overhead, and traffic was further hampered by Ukrainian forces moving artillery and other weapons towards the fighting. Air raid sirens were constantly going off, forcing all cars to stop and turn off their lights so they would not become bombing targets.

“It was very hard to focus on the trip, but I knew I just had to go on.”

Eventually, Diana and her daughter made it to the border with Hungary. The crossing was teeming with people but the border had been left almost unguarded to help those fleeing the Russian attack. After a brief time in Hungary, Diana relocated to a friend’s home in Slovenia.

The emotional toll of having to leave her home, under such urgent circumstances, was enormous, Diana said. However, rather than sitting idly by while the mayhem unfolded in Ukraine, Diana connected with the Poland LHH team to strategize how she could immediately support efforts to help other Ukrainian refugees. The impact has been profound, touching upon the lives of more than 2,500 people. 

In May, in close contact with the LHH Poland team, Diana has been able to take a leading role in managing two large projects that are providing job opportunities to Ukrainian. LHH had committed itself to a broad pro bono programs to help transition some of the refugees into new jobs. Given the uncertainty that Ukrainian refugees live with every day – many do not know if they will ever be able to go home – finding meaningful employment on an expedited basis was no small task.

“For many of the people we are working with, there are a lot of questions,” she said. “Can I find a similar job to the one I had in Ukraine? There are lots of job postings – why doesn’t anyone respond to me when I apply? These people don’t really know the job market.”

In all, Diana has been able to help LHH support more than 2,500 displaced Ukrainians. The two biggest projects Diana is helping to support two of the region’s largest and most important employers: JP Morgan, one of the world’s largest multinational investment banks; and PepsiCo, the iconic beverage and food company.

The work has been slow but steady, complicated by many layers of administration as the destination countries try to balance the needs of refugees with local laws and regulations governing work. “It’s a very complicated project,” she said. “Behind a lot of these decisions, there are a lot of barriers, stresses and fears. These are life decisions people are trying to make that could affect where they live and work in the future.”

For all of the LHH personnel involved in these projects, the work has been essential to help everyone maintain their mental and physical wellbeing. “Once I got here, it was vital for me to do something to maintain my resilience. Being able to jump right into this new story, into a new challenge with the other LHH people has been very important.”

Many days, Diana admitted she dreams of a day when she can return to Kyiv. She still has a lot of extended family in the city and the thought of them being in harm’s way is very emotional. However, she is confident that one day, she and other Ukrainians will be able to retrace their escape routes and return home.

“Every Ukrainian wants to go back. We all had great lives in a great country. The people and places that have taken us in are so wonderful, but being away from home, we now realize how good we had it. We just don’t know when we can return to normal. That absence of normal is the new normal for millions of Ukrainian people right now.”

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