HR in War“Our employees are doing everything they can to contribute to Israel’s success.”
HR in War
“Our employees are doing everything they can to contribute to Israel’s success.”
Pentera’s overall operations have not been affected by 7/10 - but Israel-based employees are getting all the support they need.
“We are doing our best to ensure the well-being of every employee,” said Tzurit Golan, Chief People Officer at Pentera. “Our managers are in constant contact with their teams and not only from a work perspective. We’re putting a lot of faith in them to understand the needs of their individual team members and counsel us on what each needs to navigate this situation.”
10% of Pentera’s Israeli workforce has been called up to IDF reserves. With that comes the pressure of schools being closed and workers balancing remote work and children at home. To combat this, the company has put into place several steps to help with morale and workload. Additionally, Penetera’s workforce is taking extra steps to help the country outside of work.
“Like many across the country, our employees are doing everything they can to contribute to Israel’s success,” she continued. “We have organized a high volume of donations and our employees are volunteering with civilians and army units, through initiatives we organize as well as on their own. Additionally, our non-Israeli employees have also sent donations to help support Israel’s cause and are helping us a great deal with warm messages of support.”
HR in War is a new series exploring how companies in Israel are adapting in unusual times. At CTech we believe the world should know about the atrocities committed on 7/10 while at the same time highlighting the continued resolve and resistance of the Israeli tech ecosystem.
Company name: Pentera
Your name and title: Tzurit Golan, Chief People Officer
Names of founders and upper management: Dr. Arik Liberzon, Founder & CTO. Amitai Ratzon, CEO. Tzurit Golan, Chief People Officer. Ran Tamir, Chief Product Officer. Aviv Cohen, Chief Marketing Officer. Morgan Jay, SVP Sales, EMEA & APAC. Patrick Guay, SVP Sales, Americas.
Field of activity: Cyber
Number of employees: 330
Office location: Petach Tikvah, Israel. Boston, USA. Singapore. London, UK. Hamburg, Germany. Dubai, UAE
On a scale of 1-10, how much did the war disrupt operations at the company?
Two. After going through Covid, we developed efficient work-from-home protocols, so while being out of the office isn’t ideal, it’s also not as impactful to business as it would’ve been prior to that experience. At this stage, people are used to working remotely and have the necessary practices to allow for efficient teamwork.
From a manpower perspective, roughly 10% of our workforce has been called to reserve service. Unlike smaller Israeli startups, almost half of our staff is based in the USA, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East - outside of Israel. We have a strong global team that functions independently and at full capacity to support us while our Israeli team is going through these trying times.
What consequences have you experienced from these disruptions?
We are dealing with the reallocation of people and resources to have our global team fill in for the Israeli team wherever needed. As said above, the impact on our business at this stage is minimal due to the way we structured the company as a truly global one.
What are the two major challenges you are coping with these days?
Understandably the spirit among our Israeli team is lower than it usually is. Our small country has suffered a tragedy, and at this point, almost every person in Israel knows someone who has been directly affected. On top of that, with many children learning from home, parents have their kids around all day while needing to work. This adds to the stress of a stressful situation to begin with.
What support do you provide to employees?
We are doing our best to ensure the well-being of every employee. Our managers are in constant contact with their teams and not only from a work perspective. We’re putting a lot of faith in them to understand the needs of their individual team members and counsel us on what each needs to navigate this situation.
We are offering mental and physical support to any employee in need, as well as to the families of team members who have been called up for reserve duty. To them, we offer babysitting services and invite them to any online or physical event we organize for our employees. Our special hotline offers psychological assistance in Hebrew, English, and Russian.
Employees have been granted time off to be with their families and recover from the recent events. If additional time is required, Pentera will support that.
Additionally, we are providing some benefits to help make it a bit easier for our employees. We increased their monthly food benefits (CIBUS) amount because employees are at home with their families, we provide yoga lessons, activities for kids, and training to managers. Next week we have a resilience workshop for all of our Israel employees.
Our Human Resources team keeps close contact with the different teams in Israel, making sure we identify any individual issue early on and provide the necessary support as early as possible.
Do you have employees with foreign citizenship who asked to work from another country? If so, has movement been requested/approved?
Requests from employees who choose to relocate their families to another country temporarily are being accommodated so that they can continue working from their new locations.
How do you communicate the situation to customers? Do you see hostility or support?
We’ve been very fortunate to have amazing customers reach out to us in these sad times. Many have reached out to lend emotional support, but a few have gone even further, to the extent of wanting to donate to Israel. Given the operational teams we have outside of Israel and our proven work-from-home practices, we keep serving our customers and partners with the same dedication and excellence that they are used to. That being said, the sentiment of the communication we received from our customers is really touching.
In the event employees feel they encounter hostility, how do you guide them to respond to the situation?
As our CEO said, “We don’t want anyone’s pity, but as human beings we expect empathy”. We always take pride in our diverse and inclusive culture, respecting our employees' different religious beliefs and other personal preferences, however, we have a zero-tolerance approach for endorsing terrorist propaganda, and we don't hesitate to act as needed. As an individual, we would instruct the employees to avoid any hostilities and not confront anything problematic, but to report it to management who can review and respond appropriately.
Startups only: How do you communicate the situation to investors, and how are they reacting?
With the publicity of this war, the investors did not need to be informed of the situation. Our investors have been incredible. We are lucky to have Insight Partners, Blackstone, K1 Investment, and Evolution Partners as our investors. They were quick to respond with emails of support and encouragement during these difficult times, some already announced their donations to Israel homefront organizations.
