The Critical Role of Mobility in Ukraine Crisis

Companies Doing Business in Eastern Europe Turn to Mobility Professionals

Most of the two million people that have fled the violence of an advancing foreign army in Ukraine have had little support or advanced planning. While bordering countries have leaped to the assistance of these refugees, the sudden demand has been overwhelming. With each day, the number of refugees crossing borders from Ukraine grows, the physical and mental condition they arrive in grows worse, and local resources to provide needed aid diminish.

Those fleeing Ukraine with the assistance of employers have been truly fortunate, in contrast. Many companies called meetings before the invasion, disbursed advance pay, and offered immediate travel assistance out of the areas that appeared under imminent threat. Those companies most prepared had plans in place, ready resources, and a network of experts that have enabled the companies to react quickly to rapidly collapsing transit avenues and uncertain access to resources. But even then, nothing is certain.

SE Ranking

The image on the front page of the New York Times on March 6 was heart-breaking. A mother, her two children, and a family friend lying dead in the streets of Irpin just outside of Kyiv, their luggage scattered around them.

The fuller story of Ms. Perebyinis, 43, her two children, Mykyta, 18, and Alisa, 9, and a family friend was told in the NY Times on March 9.

SE Ranking, an SEO software company with offices in Palo Alto, California, and London, had been encouraging employees and their families to evacuate since the war began. Ms. Perebyinis, the chief accountant in Ukraine for SE Ranking, had delayed her departure as she made arrangements for her elderly mother. Ms. Perebyinis’ husband had been in Eastern Ukraine caring for his COVID-stricken mother when the Russian invasion cut off his ability to return.

Ms. Perebyinis spent her final days disbursing funds for other SE Ranking employees’ evacuations as she made final arrangements for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s, to evacuate.

Ms. Perebyinis and two children were headed to Poland, where her employer had already rented rooms for them. On foot, after they were forced to abandon the family minivan, and with only the possessions they could carry, the family was killed in the street by Russians as they attempted to reach Kyiv.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, SE Ranking noted the death of their colleague on the company website but, in Ms. Perebyinis’s honor, chose to tell the stories of nine women who continue to put their lives on the line in Ukraine today.

Fractal Analytics

New York-based artificial intelligence company Fractal Analytics with 3,500 employees, had 81 people in Ukraine when the invasion began. According to a March 8 story in the Wall Street Journal, Fractal held a town hall meeting for employees in Ukraine the weekend before the invasion and offered staff advance payment of their March salary in case financial services were interrupted. The company also offered to relocate employees outside of the country, to set them up with temporary accommodations in the Western region of Ukraine, or to simply provide them with cash in both Ukrainian currency and Euros if they intended to travel.

More than a dozen employees took the company on their offer to leave the country immediately and are now in at least ten different countries. Forty employees opted to relocate to Western Ukraine, and 20 were still in Kyiv as of March 8. Those who remain in Kyiv provide daily situation reports via Microsoft Teams or the encrypted messaging app Telegram. Many still attempt to work, though the company has offered indefinite leave throughout the crisis. Srikanth Velamakanni, the company’s chief executive officer, believes the work has some value for his employees as a distraction from the war closing in around them.

The Exodus from Russia and Belarus

Many international firms opted to cease all business operations in Russia and Belarus this week.

Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal are just a few reported in TechCrunch. RedHat, an open-source software company headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, followed on the heels of its parent company IBM and halted all sales and service in Russia and Belarus, and discontinued business relationships with companies headquartered in those countries.

Paul Cormier, President and CEO of RedHat, formed a cross-functional team to contact every affected employee to provide support and resources. The team has relocated employees, spouses, children, and family members from the region in every way imaginable to include chartered buses and even personal cars of staff in bordering countries.

Employees for these companies who did not evacuate quickly are contending for seats on flights and trains with increasing numbers of Russian citizens. Many are leaving Russia out of protest on the invasion, concern for suddenly deteriorating living conditions in an increasingly isolated country, or worry that Russia will once again close its borders.

NEI Global Relocation

“Trying to get them to a situation that is more than day-by-day” is how Michelle Moore, NEI Global Relocation’s Chief Global Mobility Officer describes the work they are doing for people in the region employed by NEI clients. The needs of people are unchanging—housing, workspaces, healthcare, childcare. But in crises such as this, people who need immediate access to medications may not have prescriptions or a doctor they can reach. One family needed to find a nanny for their children in a temporary location when a pre-flight COVID check prevented one parent from boarding the evacuation flight.

The call to relocate these employees out of Russia all came this week, and Moore expects many more to come. “Initially, when the offers to relocate were first extended, some of the people in Russia—particularly Russian nationals—thought that the crisis would not impact them or their daily life,” says Moore. “As this week has gone on, many have realized that there isn’t going to be anyone in Russia whose life won’t be impacted and they are making different decisions—difficult decisions.”

Many are leaving their homes, leaving their things behind. They don’t know what’s going to happen locally, but they also don’t know what will happen if they leave.

“Right now, we are just dealing with safety and security concerns, but it seems increasingly likely that people are going to want to leave Russia,” says Moore, looking to the likely long-term implications. “Most clients aren’t confronting long-term decisions like that today—no one takes these operational decisions lightly—but if it keeps going the way it has, it’s just a matter of time. It becomes a duty of care decision.”

“Moving people in and out of Russia has never been easy,” says Mollie Ivancic, Vice President, International Services with NEI. “It is one of the most difficult places to manage relocations with restrictions and currency.” The current crisis has only increased the magnitude of difficulty.

“When we get drawn into these things, for me personally, we know the checklist,” says Ivancic. “We know what we have to do, who we have to identify—we have great partners in parts of the world, and we rally the team. It’s a crisis management situation.”

NEI had executed on emergency evacuations similar to this in the past when there were bombings and families needed to get out. The tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011 was another example Ivancic recalls first-hand. “Something had happened, and you had to get people out of that immediate situation,” she recalls. “In some ways—so far—this is similar, and there is immediate need to get people out of Russia and Ukraine. But coming off of COVID, there is a heightened awareness of what comes next, where might this flow to and affect people in other countries and become a global event.”

The team is in constant contact with partners around the world so that as relocation requests come in the team has current information on where furnished housing and hotels are in specific markets, where locations are reaching capacity, and where regulations are changing. COVID also continues to add complexity to travel as vaccines provided in some countries are not approved in others.

While the human tragedy of the crisis weighs on them, they clearly view this as a challenge they have been preparing for and are equipped to handle when the phone rings. Succeeding here can save lives. “If this is the one small thing I can do to help someone, in my role, that’s what we do.”