- Gulzhan, Atasu Group has been on the market for 23 years. Very solid experience. What does the company look like today from the position of an employer? How attractive are we in the labor market?

- I believe that our company as an employer is very attractively positioned in the market, in the field of logistics, in particular. How do I evaluate this? First of all, according to the state of our team. We have minimized staff turnover, employees have the opportunity to build a career and grow in the company, most of the employees have been working for 10-15 years or more. This indicates that they feel stable here, they see that they have prospects. Many of our managers have grown out of simple assistants, slingers and handymen. At the same time, we can not say that only after working here for 10 years, success and high positions are possible. There are many examples when people show a good result in less than a year and achieve a promotion. We provide a decent and competitive salary. I can also assess our position as an employer in the market by the fact that today, even without posting vacancies on the website, applicants ' requests constantly come to our mail, people bring their resumes directly to the office, that is, people want to work with us.

- And what kind of applicants are they? What is the general situation in the market today with professional personnel in logistics?

- With high-quality cadre in logistics, everything is relatively good. But the fact is that good employees do not "walk" around the market without doing anything. According to the company's policy, we do not poach employees with wages. In Atasu Group, such concepts as the value of an employee, his achievements are important. We are well aware that a specialist who was once taken away for a salary may also prefer material things in the future and leave the company. This is not a very good indicator for us. Of course, if a person who chooses a place of work suddenly says-I am ready to work for free and without days off, this is at least strange. But in our company, we try to create such an environment that a person really loves his work, his colleagues, his leadership. This is important for us. So, by attracting good personnel, we also pay attention to human qualities, how much this applicant will be able to get along with colleagues, whether he will be able to be loyal to the company, whether he will be able to support the management in difficult times.

- But at the same time, we also do not refuse very young cadres who have just come from the student bench? Do novice specialists have the opportunity to get a job in the company?

- Yes, there is such a possibility. It happens that applications for a vacancy come when an employee is urgently needed and when the manager cannot spend time on training, then, of course, the vacancy is closed only by an experienced specialist. But even in this case, we still train, because each company has its own specifics and requirements. At the same time, we very often open vacancies when the head is ready to train a person, take, as you said, from the student's bench and already prepare him for himself, for the company. But the knowledge that the guys from universities come with now, of course, there is something to learn there, there is very little practice, we have few teachers who actually practiced transportation in a commercial company. There you need to train.

- As far as I know, there was a special Academy at Atasu Group, where the company trained its specialists?

- The Academy was working, but its activities were suspended due to the pandemic. We, with our training instructor, are now thinking, considering what options there are to start teaching in a different format. Previously, this happened in this way: people stayed after work in the evening, fully studied the purpose and mission of the company, that is, they had the opportunity to study everything from scratch, understood the structure of the company, how it works, who is responsible for what. Now, I repeat, because of the pandemic, this work has been curtailed. During the period of orientation and familiarization with the office, we briefly, literally casually pass this stage. But perhaps now we will implement this training in an online format. Now is the time when it is undesirable for people to sit in the office for 2-3 hours in the evenings, you need to change the approach. But this idea itself, our initiative, is very effective. At the Academy, we trained not just logisticians, we trained good employees who understand all the company's standards and are ready to follow them. We trained specialists who are able to fully organize and plan their work.

- Gulzhan, you have already noted that it is very important whether an employee will be able to work together with colleagues. It turns out that a healthy atmosphere in the team should be created already at the start, when forming this team?

- That's right. Creating a pleasant, friendly atmosphere in the team is a goal that is pursued not only by the HR department, this is the position of our first head of the company, Marat Zhuman. No matter what a superprofessional is, if he does not know how to work with a team, if he does not know how to communicate with colleagues and constantly causes certain disorders and inconveniences, we will work with such employees, we will try to explain that this should not happen, but if this happens again, we part ways. This is our policy. We may lose other effective employees who get negative at work because of one person. Therefore, both the heads of departments and the employees themselves make sure that there are no such moments.

- It is believed that another criterion when choosing a place of work is the possibility of a balance between work and personal life. What do you think about this?

- Now it is not so much important, but probably fashionable. Given that we work in the field of logistics, unfortunately, we cannot provide such a balance, at least for production workers. At 18.00 hours, cars and cargo do not stop, they also do not stand on holidays, they do not wait, logistics involves round-the-clock work. Here, as an employee, he organizes his personal life, relatives and will be able to work efficiently at the same time. There are people for whom this is categorically unacceptable, I believe that they need to immediately choose such a specialty, when you are not tied to the workplace and can afford not to answer calls outside of working hours. But even I, an HR specialist, answer calls around the clock, because something can always happen to an employee, and you need to be aware.

- Gulzhan, again returning to what you have already said, do you really think that an employee and a manager can become friends? How does this process work in the Atasu Group?

- The relationship between the manager and the employee in our company is a confirmation that this is possible. It is thanks to this format that people's dedication to the cause, to the first manager, to the company is born. And this is the main reason why a person stays for a long time in the Atasu Group. I am sure that such specialists as ours are constantly receiving job offers, despite the fact that they are not looking for. But people stay here and, as they say, are not led to the proposed high wages or other buns that they are promised. There are companies where they pay for fitness, take you home, and provide meals, we do not provide much of this list. But our employee can always come to the manager with a problem – a personal problem, with health questions, other issues that bother him today. And he will always be heard - at a difficult moment in his life, or, on the contrary, joyful. I often come across the fact that a person leaves the company if he is not paid a salary for a month or two. Now, during the crisis, this is especially common. I am absolutely convinced that if there are difficulties in our company, God forbid, and we ask employees to wait for wages, people will stay and wait out this crisis together with the head.

- You speak with great love about the company, about your work, it is very felt, it is read in every word of your…

- I have been working at Atasu Group for the fifth year, and I have been in the profession for almost 11 years. Yes, I love my job very much, I like working with people. When I chose the field of HR, first of all, I focused on this-communication. The company gave me a lot in terms of experience, here I passed the appropriate training to become a good specialist and bring more benefits. There are always new tasks here, the management is developing and developing the company very quickly, it never happens that you are absorbed in routine and nothing changes for several years. Every month there are new tasks, new ideas, new projects in the direction of business development, when you constantly need to keep your finger on the pulse, study something. And I really like it.

- What is the current staff of the company? How high-quality is this composition? What kind of specialists are you looking for today?

Today we employ over 1,500 people. The main backbone of people was already there at the time when I first joined the company. As for the quality component, we have fulfilled the tasks that the management set for us by more than 80%. I'm talking about the fullness of the staff, its training, motivation and incentives. We have implemented all the necessary projects, and they show results. And our doors are always open to people who are ready to help us develop. Today we are looking for logistics specialists, for the organization of railway transportation, multimodal, auto and container transportation, with knowledge of Chinese and English.

- Thank you for the conversation, Gulzhan. Good luck!