Irina Milkovskaya, VIPOL: What you need to know when leaving for employment in Poland

Why is it worth consulting and collaborating with professional recruitment firms, what risks and pitfalls await Ukrainians when working in Poland, and how to prevent the employer from deceiving an employee.

Recruiting companies, which are engaged in the employment of Polish workers in Western Europe, were the first to feel the potential volume of workers from Ukraine after the introduction of a visa-free regime. The entry into force of the agreement opened the global European labor market for Ukrainians, and the EU gave access to enormous labor resources for businessmen. In 2019, the employment of Ukrainian workers became an business active line among Polish entrepreneurs: the number of such companies in the hundreds. Most firms are small businesses that are closed to communication.

But there are also large structural organizations that are always ready to talk about the features, subtleties and difficulties of finding employment in another country. One of it is the Warsaw recruitment company VIPOL. The company’ executive director, Irina Milkovskaya, told RAU what to prepare for and what to expect for Ukrainians who decided to try their hand as an employee of Polish enterprises.

– Tell us a little about your company. How many years have you been working in the market, what do you specialize in? It would be very interesting to know the firm history. How did you come up with the idea of ​​working towards employment in the Polish and EU markets?

– Our company began in 2010 as a small company specializing in the employment of professionals in Western Europe. These were engineers, builders, workers at assembly plants. Now we also support this cluster, however, the main direction for us is the employment of Ukrainian citizens in Poland. We specialize in professional selection of workers for European companies – pharmaceuticals, confectionery manufacturing, electronics assembly plants, laying fiber-optic lines for mobile operators. We also form teams of workers for American restaurant chains. Human resources management is the business main type in the company and all these years we have been developing just in this direction.

– How strong is the competition in this segment?

– The competition in the market is really very strong. There are top 5 largest recruiting companies that are mainly engaged in the employment of Polish citizens in Western Europe. And several hundred smaller companies are working, which recruit Ukrainians to work precisely at Polish enterprises, in parallel with its.

Competition for an employee is a reality which many cannot stand. This is due to the fact that recruiting companies often offer poorly trained personnel, “literally found on the street” – without the Polish language knowledge, without work experience, without structuring by projects.

Polish companies are extremely selective in choosing partners, so truly strong projects get to HR companies that offer the most high-quality and trained staff. Service and logistics companies, which are constantly opening its representative offices and factories in Poland are developing now most actively.

 – What does company VIPOL offer, unlike competitors, what are your advantages?

– Our company offers a high level of service and service in both directions, – both employees and corporate clients. The company is punctual, very aggressive in marketing, working training program is at the head of the processes. We have experience in call centers’ creating. We have our own hotline that serves employees and contractors in several languages, a CRM-system. We remember each employee by name.

Unlike many, we conduct training for our employees in our own language school, at enterprises already in the working process – more experienced ones teach young people. It often happens that a 25-year-old worker teaches a group of 40-50 year-old workers in several languages ​​at the same time.

Every year we carry out programs to employ students, help arrange children in schools and kindergartens. We are extremely interested in employing couples. Another important point is that we often act as a crisis manager of the employment market. We employ those who we just “abandoned”, that is, they didn’t meet in Poland, they didn’t offer the job for which the person came, they deceived with documents or pay, they simply dismissed him without the opportunity to replace the job.

Urgent employment is a service for those who are in a difficult situation and who need work and housing right now. For us, the main credo is to help. We care. We love our work and love people. This is the goal of the company’ work.

We are absolutely not afraid of competitors, we “read” them. We constantly monitor the competitive environment, independently conduct market’ in-depth studies in which we work. We constantly learn from competing projects, and therefore we strive to realize our product in the form of a more competent and modern version, in some cases, of an originally foreign idea. This is a Chinese business concept. It works.

– But are you not afraid that smart competitors will copy your model?

– Competition, as such, has not bothered anyone. It is the market blood. I believe that this is now the main marker of the company’ success. If it is not seen or heard by other companies, then perhaps it simply does not exist.

Opponents can spend time copying us, and at this time we add new products and directions for customers. While we are being copied, we are quickly moving forward and taking new market shares.

Competitors, quite possibly, will be able to reach our level in time, however, we will be further by this time.

And, it is important that for a competent work process you need a good team. Ours team is very good – stronger than many. We specially selected and prepared it. And this is also the time. And speed is the most important element in the Polish market. Anyone who does not understand this quickly leaves the market. We feel good about ourselves and position the company as the direction headliner, and our business- model is a system-based, proven in work brand, which is affordable and effective.

– Wow, it is very aggressive. And tell us more about your team. Who are these people?

– An international team works in our central office – Belarusians, Poles and Ukrainians. We selected professional executives into the team, with work experience in international companies, with knowledge of languages. Each in the office have a specialized higher education, some of the guys have European diplomas and an MBA. We are well prepared and understand professional skills’ value. The office is fluent in six languages.

The team is imprisoned for attacking actions, playing on contradictions, mistakes of competitors and can play for a long time.

For example, we like the production that our competitor has already managed to take. We will take the neighboring one, similar. And we show the result of the our staff’ work. Than we prepare an offer and come with it to a potential partner, after a while, when comparing the effectiveness of our employees and those of others.

We have never lost, our competitors are not happy when we show our presence somewhere in the vicinity. This is a direct signal that soon someone will be looking for a new job.

This is despite the fact that we always cost more than the average market. And we have no shortage of customers. Personnel–Product–Profit. This axiom underlies the work of our company. We understand that staffs decide everything, but real professionals are a rarity. We recognized this fact. But we accepted and that fact that a professional is expensive not because he is greedy, but because he is effective – this is about the level of our workers’ wages. We do not try to please everyone. You can only work with us if our vision of processes is shared by partners. And our main feature is that we always “strive to jump above our heads”. We are not afraid.

– Competitors. What is the matter with them? How strong are they?

– Many foreign companies really took the lead: on the number of employees in the state, on the coverage of the presence’ territory, which is not limited only to Poland. However, we believe that this is a temporary factor, which was due to the fact that they win the competition only because there was cleared territory around them according to EU laws. And they also had sufficient time for development in the absence of competent and fierce competition.

We have the right key management staff. And now we see in the market our own corridor of opportunities, along which we are moving forward.

It is needed to not only know more, work faster, but also think differently in order to succeed in today’s business environment. The one who first finds a non-banal solution to the problem will win. If before, competition took place at the level of products, services and solutions, and we competed for customers’ hearts, today we are fighting for partners and strong market players in business-ecosystems.

Many companies are repelled in its activities by not knowing of the market and not understanding of the task real scale – hence a large number of dissatisfied workers, negative reviews and stories like “I went to Poland, and I was deceived there”.

– What is the reason for the popularity of business in the employment of Ukrainians in Poland? How does a company make money on this? What is your main benefit to other companies?

– In Poland, job mediation is a very convenient type of business for everyone – both for the personnel company, and for the customer. This means that HR companies are not only involved in directing an employee to a specific employer and receive money for this. Quite the contrary, this type of service has practically “sunk into oblivion”. A one-time bonus is not interesting. The range of our tasks includes not only finding a suitable candidate for the project.

In fact, we take the necessary specialist to our staff in order to “rent out” his experience and knowledge to partner companies. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation.

We earn commissions for each employee’s hours worked. The partner- company receives a guarantee on the quality of the services and personnel provided, and just we, as a direct employer, are responsible for observing employee’ rights and working conditions. We guarantee the partner the quality of the performed work and integrity, also the availability of the required by parameters workers always, all the time. This is very important for the employer.

Especially it is important in the case when an actively developing production cannot afford downtime due to workers’ shortage, because the sales market is at its peak.

The partner-company saves time – we work much faster than any full-time HR department. The partner-company saves money – we are paying all taxes for the employee, we are paying his insurance, accommodation, in many projects even food. In addition, we guarantee the confidentiality of projects, salaries, conditions of cooperation. As a result, each company in the projects of which our employees work directly saves up to 30% expenses, which is due to Polish law’ peculiarities.

– And what is the benefit for your employees, who are employed in your state and work for other companies?

– Our employees are selected for specific processes, projects, production. And we choose higher paid directions than competitors: pharmaceuticals, professional security, confectionery, services’ sphere, construction, transportation, electronics’ production. We do not offer low-paid work and are paying all costs – housing, insurance. This all helps employee directly save, which means to earn even more.

– Tell us about the current trends in your business?

– The number of production sites in Poland is increasing. There is a lot of work and it becomes even more. Salaries are rising. Poland, as a trading and production site, is ideal. Domestic demand is on top.

The key trend in our segment is to increase the service’ level. Weak companies leave the market, often without even having time to pay off.

We constantly research the market, monitor the competitors’ movement, consider their work schemes, concepts and technologies. And after that we take our steps.

– What directions is the company developing? You are not going to stop only on personnel management, judging by the excitement?

– We have already outgrown the base agency’ level, which is engaged only in workers’ employment.  Our company activity’ spheres  are the hotel business, we will try our hand at retail and pharmacy business. We have created our own language school in which we teach employees Polish.

We are a customer-oriented company, we have created our own call- center, a hotline 24/7 serves our employees, who are already several thousand. We provide them with financial, tax, legal advice, and we are especially proud of the psychological assistance line. Our employees have the opportunity to directly contact the company management. There is no such service on the market. Offices are already operating in Minsk, Kishinev, Kiev and Berlin, in addition to the central office in Warsaw.

 – In fact, companies like yours are the main driver of reducing the working-age population in Ukraine. What are your feelings about this?

– On the one hand, we, as Ukrainians, regret that employment in Ukraine is at a rather low level. Enterprises are closing down, staff is being reduced, and salaries are being reduced. There is a technological degradation of Ukraine. Everything else is already derivatives.

But on the other hand, we, as businessmen, benefit from such a situation. We now need engineers and professional machinists. Specialists immediately receive an offer from the employer taking a language training course, receiving Eurocertificates that allow working in Poland. They are immediately provided with official work, a social package and perspective.

Our heart like Ukrainians hurts for what is happening with the country now. Our task is to give a good job and help a compatriot earn as much as possible. This money then amounts to the billions that flow into Ukraine. We try to be as useful as possible to society. Such is our social contribution to Ukraine.

 – What can you advise in the end for workers who want to find a job in Poland?

– Do not be scared. If there is no work in Ukraine, then it is abundant in Poland. The main thing is to correctly choose the companies checked by time and reviews. And have a desire to work. These two factors are fundamental. We will organize the rest.