NIBULON is a vertically integrated Ukrainian company and a leader in the domestic agrarian market. It is one of the largest agricultural commodity producers, investors, and exporters. On December 5, 2021, the company will celebrate its 30th anniversary. Established in 1991, when Ukraine declared independence, NIBULON, together with the country, continues to improve and to become stronger.NIBULON’s team helps the company to achieve success. The company offers the following benefits: stable work, competitive wages, and a guaranteed social package. Despite the complicated situation on Ukraine’s labour market, the company does not experience staff shortage. Larysa Buryk, Deputy General Director of Personnel, tells us about NIBULON’s history and its staff, the ways to get a job at NIBULON and to make a career, as well as about the company’s expectations from its employees.- Larysa Buryk, you have been working at NIBULON for a long time. What are your feelings on the eve of the company’s anniversary? – I feel pride. I clearly remember the company’s development. We were a small like-minded team, jumped into the unknown, guided by our leader, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy. Yes, we were experienced in a bread product system, had persistence and desire to work and to build a new country. During the first two or three years, our team worked like volunteers, without wages. Was it easily and joyfully? No, it was not. It was risky to create a private business since the very beginning of Ukraine’s independence, to develop market conditions without legislation, rules and practice. Every day we had to solve a lot of problems and issues which is hard to imagine nowadays. Today we are still overcoming challenges. – NIBULON is an agricultural company. It is engaged in many activities, isn’t it?- Today NIBULON is a leader in shipbuilding in Ukraine; it owns Ukraine’s most modern fleet built from Ukrainian metal at its own shipyard; the company has a well-developed network of elevators. NIBULON is one of the largest domestic producers and exporters of agricultural commodities, supplying grain to more than 75 countries worldwide.The company has a well-developed infrastructure; it has created a new logistics chain, redirecting cargo flows from road to river. The company was engaged in agricultural activities, but it was clear that it is just the beginning for NIBULON. The company’s development was dictated by the market and the necessity to move forward to achieve success. Oleksiy Vadaturskyy is a driving force behind all the company’s processes. In 1991, he decided to open the first production branches in various regions across the country on the basis of the former destroyed collective farms to preserve farming and working places for villagers, to grow high-quality grain, and to control the entire production process. The next important stage was the construction of the high-tech transshipment terminal in Mykolaiv in 2003, responding to the corrupt domestic ports shipping grain for export. By the Decree of the President of Ukraine in 2008, the company’s team was awarded the State Prize for Architecture for this project. Having constructed the high-capacity transshipment terminal, the company started to build a network of elevators from 2007 till 2008 – the modern complexes to receive and ship grain by railway and road transport, thereby enabling agricultural commodity producers to reduce distance from a field to an elevator. In 2009, the company reached a new stage – a large-scale national investment project to revive the Dnipro and the Southern Buh as transport arteries. There were many skeptics among businessmen and officials at that time, as our investment project was really impressive. Supported by the world leading financial institutions, the project provides the development of NIBULON’s own modern fleet and a number of high-tech transshipment terminals, in particular river ones. At present the company’s elevator network comprises 27 modern facilities, 13 of which are river terminals and the transshipment terminal in Mykolaiv. The company started to build its fleet by ordering a number of tugs and non-self-propelled vessels at other shipyards. NIBULON then continued to revive the domestic shipbuilding by purchasing and reconstructing NIBULON shipbuilding and repair yard. In October 2012, NIBULON purchased and completely modernized the shipyard to make Ukraine a marine state, rather than a country at the seaside. This enabled the company to build and launch NIBULON’s flagship in 2019 – the unique NIBULON MAX 140-m self-propelled floating vessel which is the longest vessel built since Ukraine’s independence and the largest in the shipyard’s history. Due to the shipyard, we build modern high-tech river-sea vessels from Ukrainian metal, designed by Ukrainians. The vessels are environmentally friendly. Our fleet is one of the largest in Ukraine and comprises 82 vessels. At that time when many employees did not understand the final aim, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy definitely knew it. He never gives up. Challenges and obstacles prompt him to act. – What was the most important thing in the company’s development? – I repeat again that it is Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, Hero of Ukraine and a leader. He set the pace to move forward, being ahead of his time and overcoming obstacles. When interviewing the youth, I always stress that it will be interesting for them to work, but they have to keep NIBULON’s working standards and the company’s pace. Your work pace is really impressive. Can everyone keep such a pace? – Not everyone. Some people can keep NIBULON’s pace of development, others choose another activities or change their lives completely. Nowadays we have the right to choose our lifestyle, the right to risk and the right to try. Certainly, we thank people who worked with us and contributed to the company’s development, and we are proud of those who are still working with us. Today NIBULON is the best team of professionals united by a common aim – to develop strong and powerful Ukraine. – Does NIBULON’s team consist of fighters and leaders? – No, it does not. Our team is not only leaders. Actually, it is impossible in real life. Various players work at our company headed by a real leader. Consequently, this enables the company to be a real force, rather than leaders who compete with each other. Oleksiy Vadaturskyy can see people’s skills. There are many employees at NIBULON who started their career by occupying ordinary positions, and now they are top managers. Sometimes people completely change their activity direction.We can name many examples of fast career growth, such as Volodymyr Slavinskyy whose interview was published in the Agroprofi newspaper as part of our information project. Volodymyr underwent practical training in 2010. He showed himself to good advantage and applied for a job having completed practical training. Volodymyr successfully passed an interview and got a job at trading department. His knowledge, honesty, responsibility enabled him to become deputy head of trading department; he then was a wholesale manager (trader). Since 2017, Volodymyr Slavinskyy has been holding the position of NIBULON’s Deputy General Director on Trading. The career story of Bohdan Muzyka, Deputy General Director of Economy, is also motivating. He started his career working as a mechanical engineer at NIBULON’s branches across Ukraine. Bohdan received the second higher education in economy and worked as the branch director for 6 years; he then was transferred to the central office, with great practical experience. Mykhailo Zavorotchenko, NIBULON’s shipping company director, does not stop learning and moving career steps. Having graduated from the educational institution, he held a position of a laboratory technician; he then became a specialist of the audit department and a head of the department. Mykhailo has radically changed his activity directions by studying and self-improving constantly. The company is not a static structure; it is a living and complicated organism. Thus, we can implement any staff redeployment, changing the activity direction completely. – What is the secret of success of your employees? – We have trained many professionals. Although it sounds banal, the main secret of success is honesty and desire to work. Initiative people are bound to be successful.- NIBULON is acknowledged as the best employer in most regions where its facilities operate. What does it mean to be an employer? What are the criteria of the best employer? – To be an employer is not just to be a company hiring physical entities. To be an employer is to be responsible to the state, to follow the law, to protect employees, and to be responsible to people who trust you. When searching for a job, every person is interested in a company itself and the opportunities provided by a company. The employer’s brand, its principles, values and working conditions play an important role in it.NIBULON is a model company having gained a reputation of a reliable and sustainable employer for more than 30 years of open, transparent, and socially responsible activities. Thus, we are proud that the company manages to preserve working places, to ensure competitive wages, to develop new activities, and to support the welfare and health of its employees in these difficult time. As a socially responsible business and a patriot of its country, NIBULON has done much for both its employees and Ukrainians, fighting COVID-19. The company spent about UAH 100 million to support the healthcare sector in Ukraine. The company created a completed chain to fight the coronavirus in Mykolaiv region – from diagnostics to treatment of adults, children, people from the region and the city, as well as people with chronicle diseases. Hospitals in various regions of Ukraine were provided with all the required equipment, protective means, express tests, and others. The company created modern medical centers to help our employees. To be the best means to be acknowledged by people. – The gender equality is an important issue in our society. Do you hire mostly men or women? What is your attitude towards gender discrimination? – The rights of men and women are equal nowadays, but older generation considers a woman to be a family protector who devotes her time to family, bringing up children; development and self-fulfillment is rather a whim for her. Nowadays a woman is not only a successful manager or specialist, but also a beloved wife and mother. Our company gives equal opportunities for both male and female; it concerns positions, wages, and other conditions. – NIBULON is famous for hiring recent graduates. Why do you hire youth with no experience? Why are recent graduates important and valuable for the company? – Firstly, the youth has a new view and principles of operation. Secondly, young people are skillful and want to learn, to move forward, and to improve. Today we cooperate with 32 leading higher educational institutions across the country. The diversity of the company’s activities enables NIBULON to hire recent graduates of various occupations, such as welders and seamen, agronomists and engineers, financial experts and economists with a high English level. We invite responsible and hard-working people who can not only work but also study, who are ready to overcome obstacles and disappointments, supported by our experienced employees. The company hires young people who have a desire to work and develop. A program to create a staff reserve has been implementing by NIBULON for more than 16 years so that future employees can feel the company’s work pace. Students from higher educational institutions of various accreditation levels undergo practical training at the company. We officially hire students by a fixed-term labour contract during their practical training; we pay wages meeting all the social benefits. Why do we do this, as in compliance with the legislation, students can undergo practical training without getting wages? It is a chance for both the youth and the company to get to know each other better. When third-year students call us and ask to undergo practical training, and they then fill in an employment form to get a job at NIBULON, I realize that our efforts worth it. We achieve success working with youth, and we are not going to stop these programs. Please note the following figures: 32% of the company’s employees are former students who underwent practical training at NIBULON. Thus, our team is very young; an average age of employees is 39 years old. – Your figures and programs are really impressive. It is easy to hire young and active people in Mykolaiv. What is the staff situation in villages where the company’s production branches are located?- I am not going to tell you that the company does not have any problems with staff recruitment in villages. We live in Ukraine facing economy problems since its independence, and the military conflict as well as the occupation of Crimea and the parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions have made things worse. We face the problem when many employable people want to work abroad. How do we cope with this situation? As a world-renowned company, we provide our employees with high-quality, modern and safe working conditions, stable wages, and benefits established by the legislation. People see the advantages working at NIBULON, rather than abroad. They stay with their families and see their children grow up not via Viber but in real life. In particular, the company offers corporate accommodation or compensates rental payment to young employees without accommodation. It is a very important help for the recent graduates and a solid argument to work in the village. – Accommodation is a great initiative, but it does not solve all the domestic and social problems in the village…- Yes, we have many problems, namely the absence of proper infrastructure, roads, kindergartens, schools, and medical institutions. Unfortunately, we don’t expect them to be solved soon. Thus, NIBULON not only builds facilities but also allocates funds to develop the village/town infrastructure. The company builds or repairs roads, finances kindergartens, schools, medical and obstetric centers, arranges recreation areas, and many other things. We are experienced in building treatment facilities and water pipelines, as people often do not have drinkable water in the village.We often face the situation when local communities think that the very NIBULON must solve all the social and domestic problems in their villages. The company is an employer and a prompt taxpayer. The settlement development depends on the local community and the rational use of money received from the budget. We still hope that not only taxes paid and workplaces, but also NIBULON’s production standards demonstrate good business doing that will promote people to develop the village. We always support the communities in development issues. – What is the company’s future?- The company does not give up and always moves forward. Highly qualified specialists, leadership, constant development and improvement are our main values. I have no doubt that the company will be developing.http://www.agroprofi.com.ua/statti/1971-30-2