Welcome to the 2021 Women in Technology and Data Awards winners interview I have with
me today Elena Rusakova who is head of HR that is human resources at Exactpro Systems.
She won the wellness work-life balance vender category in this year's awards. So welcome Elena
and congratulations on your win.
Hi! Thank you. It's a pleasure to me to be on the list with all the winners.
Women who made such an incredible impact on the area no doubt lead by example.
So getting this award made this year International Women's Day very special for me personally.
Good-good. Well, thank you for joining us.
Now before we get into exactly how Exactpro promotes its healthy work-life balance within the organisation.
Perhaps you can tell me a little bit about what your role entails on a day-to-day basis.
Sure-sure, well, I would say that over the course of my career there hasn't been a day that was like another.
When I joined Exactpro it was a fast growing promising startup and main focus was on recruiting ans also I needed to build
every single process from the ground up.
So after four years in 2015 the company was acquired by London Stock Exchange Group
and they let the integration process.
Together with my team we implemented new corporate procedures in recruitment talent and development, I-team,
HR operations and many other areas actually.
Later in 2018 the company was bought by its management, I mean bought out at this point.
The main focus was on keeping the inherited practises that were like a good fit for us and rebuilding everything else.
We could no longer to use their established LCG infrastructure experience and facilities.
And after the buyout we needed to create new processes and open new offices.
Yep.
So that's how we came to the idea to expand our operations in the UK, the US and Georgia.
And speaking of our Georgian office, we opened, this is actually the last office we opened, and it is currently quite fast
growing. So a lot of my effort is put into that .
And you know about probably, you know about 2020, it was the covet pandemic, and that grabbed everyone's attention.
Yes.
Well, to sum up the context has been constantly changing but my key objective is always is to support the company in this
rapidly changing environment.
Okay.
Good. All right. Well, let's continue on the theme about 2020, covid, etc. So let's talk about Exactpro as a company,
and it's wellness work-life balance, kind of strategy, was that always in place? Was that always kind of an integral part
of management's thinking? Or did that come about as a result of the covid pandemic?
Okay. Yeah. Sure.
If you don't mind I will give some context here as I have some kind of view on the question, and would be great to share with you.
Okay.
So our people work with complex DLT and AI based systems, and deliver high quality software testing services to the clients
Global Mission Critical Market infrastructures and other financial institutions worldwide.
Many of our clients are regulated entities, and they have like a wide number of compliances obligations they must meet.
It often requires related system changes, and what it means for us, is that there is no way we can move the planned deadline,
or like, it also means that the work must be done with an outstanding level of quality, which sometimes
requires over time working.
And what's more, at Exactpro we strongly believe that there are no outstanding results without effort and hard work.
This is kind of one perspective, another perspective is that IT systems become more and more complex year after year,
and our key objective is to create next generation testing tools that will have logic architecture and capacity to perform
the testing of such systems.
And if we look in to this situation we will probably see that this is not a sprint, like I mean creating these testing tools
and we are achieving our strategical objectives, it's even not a number of sprints, but it's more like a marathon.
And actually wellness and work-life balance are not about avoiding overworking and complexity per se,
it's about the fact that not only we needed to allocate time for resting but also need to manage it,
like focus on healthy lifestyle and do the things we love, and when we have a balance in this areas, we have enough resources
and energy to run out strategic marathon and increase the impact of our work.
Well, and answering our question from the very beginning, we have had a comprehensive health insurance plan in place,
we offer it co-paid sports memberships and monetary vacation schedules to make sure people take time off.
But the covid pandemic significantly changed the way we as a company think about wellness and what we do to manage it.
Like one of the important things we understood during 2020, is that wellness area doesn't exist separately from the company's
other processes.
It's strongly linked to their organisational habits.
How well their internal processes are organised.
How transparent the communication in the company is, and also on learning and development perspectives.
So if all this works as a system, people feel more engaged and motivated, and the work itself gives them the resource
and energy to grow professionally and personally.
So the idea is that the wellness area includes not only particular wellness instruments, but if functions as a part of a larger system.
And as a company we have always invested our time and effort in al of their above mentioned areas.
Okay.
Now let's focus again on the covid pandemic. So as a business did Exactpro did a change any of its employment policies
and/or work practises as a result of covid pandemic and obviously the stresses that are placed on its employees?
So that they were able to maintain a healthy wellness stroke work-life balance.
Were there any changes you implemented?
Yes. Yes, Victor. We made a lot of changes actually, and starting from 2020 we launched a number of projects to support our people
during pandemic and to support them, I mean, in terms of their physical and emotional state, to improve lifestyle and habits
we ran a number of sport challenges, we conducted online fitness classes where we did sports together,
organised different socialising activities such as random coffee, this is an example, it is kind of talks, like 30 minute coffee meeting
with colleague, where we talked about almost, I don't know, anything and everything.
Right.
Yes, and there were also mathematical, like, group discussions, and I would say that we stayed together when we actually were on the
différent parts of planet, and I would say we became even closer.
Okay.
Yeah, but that's not only all we did.
Let me put this to you the Elena, and let's talk a little bit about the business benefits of focusing on employees
wellness life-work balance issues. As a business is Exactpro, do you try to measure the business benefits of having a happy staff?
And I suppose the corollary of that question, the next one is-
In your opinion is a happy staff a productive stuff?
Well, our experience confirms that wellness and work-life balance are the crucial elements on productivity workplace engagement
and also the quality of our work.
Like, every year we are, like, we do engagement surveys and check the level of engagement of our team.
So when people are engaged and they're full of energy they generate interesting and creative ideas that move them and the
company forward.
So just also focusing on wellness promote simply loyalty and commitment to the company, that's also something that we can
masure, like I mean, retention and all these measurements.
Well, and just to sum up all this means that we better achieve greater results and that's important. Yeah.
Okay. So let me go back to one of the earlier points and talk a little bit about again covert, because obviously covert is a key
kind of component to wellness work-life balance issues across the globe right now.
So was there anything that Exactpro learned during the covid pandemic, that is actually implemented?
With respect to wellness work-life balance issues within the business. You know, were there any lessons that you learned
along the way?
Yeah. Definitely.
There were many interesting findings during the pandemic, and some of them actually were always there.
But the comet pandemic brought them forth
One of them is,I would like to share two main, so and one of them is that our problems don't appear in, like, just in a work environment.
In fact most of them appear outside of work. I mean these are different personal issues, relationship with the partner,
family, lifestyle, habits, like we can tell a lot about that, right?
So therefore we started focusing not only what is happening at work but also on what's behind the sense by raising people awareness
of the wellness area and also we tried to give them instruments and ideas on how to manage work and personal life,
and how to find this balance we're talking about, how even to interact with their family members.
So they can apply this outside of work and have a better quality of life.
And another important conclusion that we have is that work and life balance and wellness is everyone's personal responsibility.
There is no company that will resolve all personal issues and make one happy, right?
So our wellness and happiness is something that we should care about.
We have an interesting observation during the covid pandemic, like, it seems that the pandemic caused two completely opposite types
of behaviour. Some people started taking better care of themselves, they learned new habits that supported their physical and emotional
state, and tried to organise their life and work.
And the other group wasn't ready to work on adapting to the new normal, and in fact they might lose the benefits that
previously had when they were staying in a social environment, you know.
Okay.
And well..
So those two groups kind of moved in opposite directions?
Yes, right, so and there are not a lot of people who are on the middle, you know.
Most of us are, like, everyone, almost everyone is on the one side or on the other side.
Yes, there is something on the middle.
Yes, and just to add here our plan is to continue improving communication and interaction within the company
Yeah.
Implement new educational programs. We also will continue definitely promoting the ideas of a healthy lifestyle,
and last but not least, personal responsibility.
Okay. Well, that almost kind of pre-empts my final question to you, and that is what I wanted to put you, Elena
before we finish off is, you know, how important is healthy is the wellness work-life balance going forward?
And to what extent is Exactpro kind of looking further down the line and thinking about new systems procedures, strategies
to ensure that its employees are happy and healthy and loyal to the company, stay at the company are motivated, etc.
Cause those are really key issues are going forward, right?
Yes, right. And that is why we plan to support all aspects of well-being, social, physical, emotional and financial.
We already plans different courses for this year, like, emotional intelligence, of couse about teamwork, and some other.
Some other courses, well, and we have just finished an internal time management course aimed to teaching
us to use our time in a more efficient way. And during three weeks people visited lectures and they did tasks that helped them to
put new approaches into practice and even integrate them in their daily routine.
And this year hopefully we will have a chance to get back to the office.
And after almost a year of remote work this might be another challenge for everyone, you know.
Our plan is to conduct activities that will help me mitigate potential social barriers as well as to find a new balance
by switching from the established policy of regularly visiting the office to something more flexible that will actually
fit the concepts of the new reality.
And you might actually also end up with a happier workforce as well?
When you give them greater autonomy, greater flexibility, you might end up with, and certainly this is what we've what I found in
conversation with a number of companies, is you end up getting greater buy-in from your employees as well, right?
Yes, exactly. Because it's, you know, it's not great to stay at home all the time or probably to go to the office every day,
but if it's something flexible, something that you can manage, this is actually, this adds a lot to our life, so when we have this.
Yeah, yeah.
Opportunity to chose.
Yeah, yeah, I agree, absolutely
Okay then, let's leave it there. Thank you again for making the time to chat with me today. Good luck to you and to all your
colleagues at Exactpro. And hopefully, fingers crossed, you will be seeing everybody in the office at some point in the future.
But as you say not every day, and it's an exciting opportunity for lot's of people to find out where that balance is whether, you know,
how much time they're spending in the office of how much time they're spending at home, etc. And I suppose it's kind of
that's gonna be up to everybody to find out exactly how that kind of plays out, but thank you for your time,
I do appreciate it and I look forward to catching up with you in the future.
Thank you, it was a very interesting conversation. Have a nice day.