Since the first days of the full-scale invasion, Bayer has adapted quickly to the changing circumstances and never has stopped working. Our employees have proven high levels of flexibility, responsibility, and commitment: working, organizing logistics, maintaining business processes, and even growing and producing seeds – all this under a lot of stress, on the move, in new locations – often in bomb shelters – throughout the country and abroad, and during fuel shortages. In February and March 2022, many employees moved from Kyiv and other endangered regions to the West of Ukraine or countries abroad.
Bayer provided extensive financial and non-financial support for the employees and their family members, including psychological assistance. By September, most of them returned to their homes. During all this time, virtually all employees worked remotely. Only a few people were visiting the Kyiv office and offices in the safe regions of the country. The exception was the Bayer seed plant in the Zhytomyr region, where people have to maintain continuous production of corn seeds for Ukrainian farmers and exports. So, by the start of targeted Russian attacks against energy infrastructure, we had quite an experience ensuring business continuity in challenging circumstances.
With the overwhelming power outages, often accompanied by the disruption of communication, office employees and sales teams were forced to balance their worktime between the offices and homes, or to shift their working hours, depending on the outage schedules. To make their planning more convenient and for even more extended outages, we purchased portable power stations for the offices, ensured an uninterruptible power supply for the internet connection, and secured additional internet channels. Soon, a generator will be installed in our Kyiv office. Meanwhile, we rented several workplaces in a coworking space with a continuous power supply nearby the Kyiv office for employees performing jobs crucial for business continuity.
The seed-producing team also had to adapt its work schedules to the schedules of power outages. Fortunately, the boiler house of the seed plant, which provides the most crucial heating energy to dry seeds, operates on production waste – corn cobs. Another excellent example of the importance of sustainable energy sources!
