Annoucements
Tuesday, March 7, 2022
Dear Ciellos Customers,
On this eve of International Women’s Day 2022 I am reflecting on how the crisis in Ukraine has taken us back to literally fighting for survival and safely for the families in Ukraine – it is so unreal that it came to that. Rest assured that we are doing everything possible to maintain that safety to the extent possible. To provide some context:
We are every day in contact with all team members and checking on their situation. We have managed to move all employees out of Kharkiv and most of our team have also left Kyiv. Everyone remaining in the country are sheltering closer to the western borders. Most are able to continue work in their current locations. For the team members taking leave to join the military we are also in contact with their families and continue to support them financially.
Ciellos has a channel within the Telegram Messenger that is highly active with help to employees on the move. We have also invited in team members from our customers that are in Ukraine. If you have smaller teams or individuals in Ukraine that you work with that could benefit from the Ciellos network on finding transportation and accommodation in Ukraine as well as current updates inside the country, please let me know. We will include them and assist.
We also have group of employees and their families that made it outside Ukraine in Poland, Germany, Moldova and Czechia. We are now relocating them all to Portugal and setting up a receiving group there for additional employees and families to join them. We are also preparing to receive spouses and children from our employees that are unable to leave Ukraine themselves. I am sure most of you are aware – general mobilization was implemented in Ukraine which means that all men between the age of 17 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country and could be called to help the military. Currently the Ukraine military has enough volunteers so we are not seeing requests for any employees to serve in the military.
I would like to extend to our customers – if any of you have individuals or smaller teams from Ukraine that have fled the country and need a place to setup – we will also help receive them in Portugal and get them setup with refugee status, work permits, school systems, healthcare and help with finding accommodation close to our community. Just let me know.
Here is how we currently support our Ukraine employees:
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24/7 support through the Telegram Messenger and phone for travel planning, accommodations, communication etc.
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Providing help with temporary accommodations inside and outside Ukraine.
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Organizing and funding travel to safety for employees and their immediate families.
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Organizing and funding initial accommodation in Portugal.
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Setting up Payoneer accounts for all employees as alternative payment sources if the banking system in Ukraine should fail.
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Offering salary advances for anyone in need, and continuing to pay salary to employees currently serving the military to support their families
Some of you have experienced that parts of your project work has been shifted to our teams in Albania, Canada, US and Brazil. We continue to monitor all projects to ensure continuous delivery to the best of our ability during this crisis.
If you have questions or anything I can help with please contact me directly or anyone else on my leadership team and your sales/account managers.
Thanks for your continued support
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Dear Ciellos customers,
Over the weekend more of the Ciellos team have moved away from the larger cities in Ukraine to western Ukraine. Our focus has been on getting everyone safely there and making sure that they have accommodation in their new locations.
We are continuing to have people relocating to western Ukraine this week too.
The beginning of this week we have focused on reorganizing any project work that had been impacted. At this point we have about 75% of people in Ukraine working from their current locations – and we are able to keep critical path for all projects.
Some employees are doing supporting work for the military and a few have requested leave to join the forces. We are fully supporting anyone in their path and making sure they and their families are taking care of.
The situation is going to be constantly developing – and we are keeping close with everyone on the team. The sentiment of the team is that anyone who is able to work in Ukraine are working – and everyone outside Ukraine are pulling extra hours to ensure project work is done - so projects and customers are there for the rebuilding after this.
I see so many heroes working through this difficult crisis every day – and we are doing everything to make sure we are here for them throughout and after this crisis.
As always please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have further questions.
Karina Nielsen
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Dear Ciellos customers,
We have seen an escalations in Ukraine overnight, Russian forces launched attacks on airports and military installations early morning Ukraine time. Civilian centers are not the current focus of attack, thankfully.
It is a devastating development but the Ciellos teams are ok for now. Communication infrastructure is intact and a lot of our team are continuing to work.
We are wanting to give our team time to make sure they are connected with their families and adjusting to the current situation – and we will be requesting to reschedule some meetings to Monday.
I will continue to communicate with you on any development and any impact to our team. As stated previously we have plans for project transition to other regions if/when necessary.
If you have questions please feel free to reach out to me directly or anyone else on my leadership team and your sales/account managers.
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Dear Ciellos customer,
I am sure you have all seen the latest developments with Ukraine and Russia on the news. With 65 of our employees located in Ukraine we are following things very closely and have implemented business continuity plans for different regions and situations.
Ciellos has offices in Kharkiv, Odessa and Kiev, and additional people working remotely in further western parts of Ukraine. None of our teams are currently in harms way. And it is important to understand that in the eastern part of Ukraine – specifically in the two regions Donetsk and Luhansk on the border of Russia unrest and conflict has been ongoing since 2014 with a large number of casualties – without getting a lot of media attention. So when some Ukrainians seem less concerned or eager to leave the country – it is because they have been living with a level of unrest and threat for many years. It is our believe that should the conflict escalate further it will likely not escalate much west of Kiev – leaving the western part of the country a safer place in that scenario. This is also why many countries have temporarily moved their embassies to the western parts of Ukraine.
We are monitoring the situation closely and my leadership team and I are meeting with our Ukraine regional managers daily to discuss every step of the development and how we react to it.
As a company we are continuing to invest in Ukraine, hiring and building out our team. We have created a business continuity plan and have identified specifics for each region in the Ukraine with instructions on how to react in an emergency situation, how to communicate and what to do if a person or a group want to leave Ukraine or just their current location and continue work in a different location, whether temporarily or permanent. We are taking measurements inside Ukraine to ensure internet/power in offices and are in parallel identifying alternative options for working conditions and payment measures inside and outside Ukraine.
Currently we have a portion of our Ukraine team relocated outside the country temporarily, and some relocated to the western and more safe part of the country. Part of our business continuity plan is also the possibility of project work transfer to our Dynamics team in Albania, Canada or US if any of our employees in Ukraine are impacted by the situation.
We are committed to keeping you updated on our team and if anything should temporarily impact any of our project work for you. Our first priority is that our employees and their families are safe and taken care of, and you can trust that we have continuity plans in place to secure all our deliverables. Every step of our plans serves the purpose of respecting the individual employee’s sentiment and their family situation – and securing the projects they are working on.
If you have further questions please feel free to reach out to me directly or anyone else on my leadership team and your sales/account managers.