6 Nuggets of Wisdom from Kyivstar’s Talent Personnel Development Manager
As Talent Personnel Development Manager at Kyivstar, Tatyana enjoys trying to get the best out of different people. Her passion for her role explains her love of travel. Because travel shows you how places have tapped into their unique beauty and potential.
“Berlin definitely left an impression on me. The variety of Berlin makes it special. The atmosphere is free and positive. It’s amazing complexity. I want to go back there,” exclaims Tatyana.
Walk around Berlin, and Tatyana says you’ll see it’s a place that’s embraced its complexity. As an article in The Guardian describes, Berlin is “engaged and vital, a reminder of the more messy, contradictory and organic qualities that all cities should have.”
That’s pretty cool, right?
Before you head off to Berlin (or perhaps you’re already there!), read on to learn about diving into the complexity and problem solving that is life. Tatyana has a lot of good advice…
1. Go from tax services to HR
Our career path can often feel like a complex and exciting journey through all sorts of lands. For Tatyana, this is certainly true.
Tatyana studied at the National Academy of State Tax Service of Ukraine. After school, she took a position at Alfa Bank in 2004 and worked there for nearly a decade. While there, she transitioned from tax and finance work to being a trainer, and then eventually took a role in human resources. She quickly became very motivated to become an HR expert.
“ I wanted to grow further and grow horizontally to get expertise in other areas of HR. I wanted to learn as much as possible,” states Tatyana.
It’s that ambition and desire for challenge that pushed Tatyana each day. It’s also why she came to Kyivstar.
When you ask Tatyana for advice on how to navigate your career, you’ll see why it’s vital to embrace the complex road ahead and seize opportunities.
“Trust your destiny. What’s happening is happening to the best. Before university, I wanted to be a translator and was really disappointed I had to go to the tax academy. I didn’t know what I would be. I’m really happy now with how my path has unfolded.”
2. Listen to the directions (but still make your own!)
It’s a big, complex world out there. And you can get lost if you’re not paying attention.
As a young child, Tatyana actually did get lost from her parents one day. It’s her earliest childhood memory, and lessons from that day have stayed with her.
“Now, that I’m older, I always try to be where I’m supposed to be,” declares Tatyana.
For Tatyana, being where you’re supposed to be at work means being there for your team members. She has a great sense of responsibility for them.
“My responsibilities involve development and engagement of employees, and making sure they don’t get lost in the organization! I take an active part in organizing the performance management process and cycle. I do a lot of operational work to ensure our employees can weave through the noise and be inspired to take action.”
Tatyana’s talent management work goes a long way in enabling Kyivstar to be an agile organization. After all, the company is continually aiming to “get rid of inefficiencies and maximize productivity.”
To get the most out of her team, Tatyana employs a unique strategy that combines a myriad of approaches, including looking at numbers and data.
“I speak with people. I listen to people. I like to look at market trends and new approaches, and combine and mix. I like to find new solutions and take calculated risks. I try to make it logical. It’s rationally created.”
3. Don’t freak out! Solutions are at your fingertips
Sometimes things can seem incredibly confusing, difficult, and/or messy. And, instead of trying to sift through the madness for an answer, you simply run away or scream!
Don’t do that.
Listen to Tatyana. She’s learned something from raising her daughter and helping her face problems in life.
“I’ve learned the value of staying calm. If you can stay calm, you can find solutions much more effectively. You must be solution-oriented in life,” attest Tatyana.
Tatyana applies this same philosophy to her work at Kyivstar. Because that’s how challenges don’t overwhelm you.
“I’m very happy leadership has a similar approach. They give us a lot of support. We have freedom to explain why we need to do something. Leaders aren’t afraid to risk trying something new and are always ready to create better solutions.”
The can-do environment and drive to solve tough problems is why Tatyana recommends others join the Kyivstar team. Because it’s a place where you can grow and improve.
“If a person has bright ideas and the inspiration and focus to implement them, then Kyivstar is the best place to do that. We’re really open and creative and innovative, and try to make the best for our people. It’s a great place to develop yourself, and you’ll find yourself really engaged.”
4. Play games!
Here’s a complicated question: How much data is there on the internet?
The right answer now will be less than the right answer by the time you finish reading this sentence. Wait, what?
The point is things are moving fast. You have to learn continually to keep up.
To make learning and development (L&D) suitable for today’s learners, Tatyana and her team at Kyivstar have implemented creative strategies, like gamification through The Future of Unia:
The Future of Unia is a business game that aims to develop team management skills, including communication, negotiation, leadership, and strategic planning skills (all things that are valuable in the age of AI). The game, which involves six weeks of playing online, immerses you in a new world: Unia. Your goal is to save that world, as it’s in danger.
That’s awesome, isn’t it? For Tatyana, the game has brought much value (and fun).
“Gamification through Unia has increased user engagement. To promote micro-learning and to enable step-by-step learning, we gave our employees free time to play the game.”
Kyivstar has made a point to continually transform their L&D initiatives to meet their employees’ styles and needs. As corporate talent experts note, after the arrival of e-learning, L&D evolved from online course catalogs to integrated talent management (personalized learning for career path). Following that, continuous learning became commonplace. Now, we’re seeing micro-learning become mainstream.
But what’s next?
Well, many L&D pros say it’s learning in the flow of work. This way, people will see the value of what they’re learning immediately (because they’ll be applying it as they work!).
“Employees aren’t the same as yesterday or five years ago. Employees don’t have time to learn for four hours. Micro-learning is the trend where you can learn small things on demand when you need. And, if it’s not engaging enough, turn to gamification and other methods to create sustainable L&D projects.”
Also, getting employees involved sometimes means just having fun and engaging with your team on a personal level. That’s why Kyivstar has days like DigiKids (bring your kids to work day). It’s good to have a good time — because that’s how you stay in the right mindset.
5. Just talk!
We’ve experienced an era of mind-boggling technological change. As digital gurus suggest, this makes it vital to hone skills that robots can’t learn as effectively as humans, such as communication and emotional competence.
At Kyivstar, Tatyana helps her team members navigate this complex technological world by developing both soft and hard skills. To improve L&D for such skills, she focuses on getting feedback, in addition to analyzing data (which is vital for hard skills especially).
“We began taking surveys in late 2016 when I came to the company. We saw an increase of 20 percentage points in employee engagement and happiness. But we also must go beyond surveys. We must engage and smile and laugh with people. We must get their honest feedback. Because then employees will go on to talk to others,” attests Tatyana.
This feedback, along with objective data, serve as Tatyana’s starting point for making changes to improve employee engagement and satisfaction. What she also wants is to get team members to enhance softs skills that great digital organizations need, such as collaboration, troubleshooting, and learning skills.
“We need inspiration to come back and continually learn. For instance, we created gamification to build a continual learning program. We consistently gather leaders, trainers, and HR (myself) to discuss how to boosting learning and development.”
6. Go to camp and see your potential!
Don’t get stuck in the complexity. From time to time, you have to step back in order to clear your mind and see what you’re capable of achieving.
At Kyivstar, Tatyana makes sure her employees do just that through the Innocamp Project, which is a retreat outside Kyiv.
“For the last Innocamp, we went to a relaxing complex for about four days. The time consisted of educational parts and inspirational parts, with nine total speakers from Ukraine and other countries. We combined teams and had them work on projects and tasks. For engagement, we had fun with parties. We also did sports. The idea is that this is a bonding experience, where team members can get close to each other without outside obstacles. People didn’t know each other before this camp. It was challenging yet amazing to see them work together and talk with each other,” describes Tatyana.
As you can see, Innocamp isn’t about doing nothing. It’s about personal growth.
“It’s an intensive camp. The tasks require late-night work and getting up for exercise early in the morning. Team members learned a lot about themselves and what they can do with a new team and limited resources.”
Innocamp is truly an exciting experience. Team members have seen the value of the project and have seen that their potential is greater than they imagined.
“They’re now more motivated to work with others and it gave them an opportunity to see themselves from a new angle. It was about giving them the right mindset,” asserts Tatyana.
Break free! The road ahead is clear and full of opportunity
Tatyana has not only given us wise advice on how to embrace complexity, but also how to not get bogged down by it. You have to seize opportunities, be solution-oriented, consistently learn from others, and absorb new knowledge. And you must see your true potential to stay motivated and engaged.
Before we conclude, let’s share some advice Tatyana would give her childhood self. It will inspire you to action!
“You have to trust the road ahead. Dream more and work for it and you’ll end up happy with where you go.”
