HR in War“The feeling of grief and sadness accompanies us all.”
HR in War
“The feeling of grief and sadness accompanies us all.”
MedOne has described some of the emotional and logistical challenges of running a company in the aftermath of 7/10.
“In the professional aspect, our employees today enjoy the flexibility of working from home or the office, at the hours that are convenient for them,” explained Yifat Ashkenasi Kotovski, Head of HR at MedOne. “This both allows employees to be in the family environment and also considers employees who are afraid to walk around on the road during this time.”
Established in 1997, MedOne provides carrier-neutral colocation, interconnection, and hybrid cloud services to global cloud and content customers, multinational technology companies, and leading local enterprises and government entities. The company confirmed it has contributed to the soldiers and residents of the Otef [Israeli area beside the Gaza Strip] in recent times, which strengthened the cohesion of the employees in times of trauma.
“In the personal aspect, we sent packages to the families of the recruits to encourage them, and we follow the employees closely - at the management and human resources level, each employee and his needs,” she added.
Company name: MedOne
Your name and title: Yifat Ashkenasi Kotovski, Head of HR
Names of founders and upper management: Shay Livnat Chairman of the Board Ronnie Sadeh CEO
Field of activity: Data Center and Cloud
Number of employees: 60
Office location: Hod Hasharon, Petah Tikva, Tirat Carmel, Tel Aviv
On a scale of 1-10, how much did the war disrupt operations at the company?
One. In the company, seven employees were called to serve and one employee was evacuated from Otaf. Some of the employees came to the offices and some worked from home. We all continued to help each other whenever it was needed - including nights or Saturdays. There is no doubt that there is more workload during this period with a lack of manpower, but everyone is harnessing for the cause.
Beyond that, there is also emotional difficulty and severe feelings of loss and grief among the workers after such a brutal attack. We talk about it and share with each other and that is part of dealing with this difficult event and processing it.
What consequences have you experienced from these disruptions?
The feeling is that there is cohesion on the part of all the company's employees to contribute and do everything to bring about the success of various projects and tasks. Everyone works for each other. The feeling of grief and sadness accompanies us all, but in terms of the work, an extraordinary job is done here by everyone.
What are the two major challenges you are coping with these days?
- Our goal is to provide our customers with the service they are used to, even though our manpower situation is lacking, we work day and night to meet all our goals.
- To give our employees support in these complex days - each according to his needs.
What support do you provide to employees?
In the professional aspect, our employees today enjoy the flexibility of working from home or the office, at the hours that are convenient for them. This both allows employees to be in the family environment and also considers employees who are afraid to walk around on the road during this time.
In the personal aspect, we sent packages to the families of the recruits to encourage them, and we follow the employees closely - at the management and human resources level, each employee and his needs. We are attentive to needs and difficulties. We conduct command conversations and at the company level, accompany an employee and his family who were evacuated from the south. In order to conduct ourselves efficiently, we have opened a folder on the corporate portal that includes information that helps to deal with the situation, sessions for children, emergency phone numbers, and more. In addition, all the company's employees were invited to a lecture given by an organizational psychologist who is an expert in the field of resilience. In this lecture, we received tools and a lot of hope for the future.
Do you have employees with foreign citizenship who asked to work from another country? If so, has movement been requested/approved?
We do not have employees with foreign citizenship who asked to leave
How do you communicate the situation to customers? Do you see hostility or support?
Our company is built, among other things, on providing emergency service. In fact, our customers' emergency times are our normal days and on these days our activity takes expression and meaning. Therefore, the customers feel the firmness of the company, its activity, and support in every aspect that is required. We get extensive support from anywhere.
Our customers and shareholders in the United States support us and share in our sorrow. We feel empathy all around us.
In the event employees feel they encounter hostility, how do you guide them to respond to the situation?
So far we have not encountered such a situation, but in general, our employees know that if there are unusual cases in any matter, they are welcome to consult and we will assist in any situation that arises.
Startups only: How do you communicate the situation to investors, and how are they reacting?
The company has investors from the United States. We shared the difficult feelings and the complex days we are going through. They support and accompany us closely.
