Brightfin has reduced 30% of its specialists in Ukraine. What management and employees say (UPD)

On May 18, the Ukrainian representative office of the American IT company brightfin, a provider of financial management software, was cut. DOU learned about this from three sources in the company.

Brightfin marketing director Keith Jensen also confirmed the dismissal of employees. According to him, we are talking about reducing 30% of employees from Ukraine. DOU sources said that they are aware of the dismissal of about 50 specialists.

According to three brightfin specialists from Ukraine, who spoke with DOU on condition of anonymity, on May 18, they lost access to work tools, in particular to accounts in Microsoft and Teamwork programs.

"I was working in a standard rhythm, I had a call with my manager, then I realized that I no longer had access to my account, because I was completely thrown out of all Microsoft applications. Two hours later, HR wrote to my personal email with a copy of the director of brightfin, she made a meeting and said that this was my last day in the company," says the source DOU.

According to the company's employees, the motivation for the reduction of staff was that "the war in Ukraine is still ongoing", as well as the unwillingness of customers to provide access to Ukrainian employees due to the security situation.

A letter about breaking off cooperation and signing severance pay, which was received by some employees of the company

The DOU source noted that we are talking about the reduction of about 50 employees from Ukraine. At the same time, our interlocutors note that the Ukrainian management was not warned about the dismissal.:

"My direct manager didn't know. There was a normal relationship in the team, and we are both in shock."

"We were cut, a lot of people. I was just informed today and my access rights were taken away without providing any information."

The American management of the company confirmed the reduction of specialists in Ukraine — according to representatives of brightfin, we are talking about the dismissal of 30% of employees.

"Unfortunately, the ongoing Russian invasion [of Ukraine] has forced us to reduce our team in Ukraine by 30%. As soon as the invasion began, many of our international clients demanded that we attract resources outside of Ukraine. We have implemented a business continuity plan by hiring additional employees in other countries, including the United States. In the absence of a projected date for the end of the invasion, we simply could not afford to keep 100% of the Ukrainian team and at the same time hire additional employees in other countries. Ukraine will continue to be a strategic Center for brightfin, and we are proud of the 140 Ukrainian employees who remain in our team.

All affected team members received severance pay, and we invite them to contact brightfin again if there are any new vacancies in the future. Even despite the cuts, today we employ more Ukrainian employees than a year ago, and we do not plan any additional cuts. We continue to hope for peace and are inspired by the courage and strength of the Ukrainian people."

Updated from 23: 25 on May 18 with updated data, the number of reduced employees is about 50 people, and not 15, as previously reported.

Update from 09: 35 on May 23

DOU managed to contact another former brightfin employee, who wished to remain anonymous. According to him, the CEO warned the project team about future cuts, starting with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on February 24. At the same time, according to the source, brightfin has stepped up hiring specialists from the Philippines and India.

"The company did not provide any additional funds for relocation, because they said that there was no budget for this. They asked us to leave [from Ukraine], and every day they sent us a list of people who left. According to the latest check-in, about 70 people left the territory of Ukraine," the source claims.

The source also said that we are talking about the dismissal of 77 people out of 190 specialists of the Kiev office of brightfin, and the reduction, according to him, was prepared in advance. Severance pay for dismissed employees amounted to 1 month of compensation.

"Regarding the security aspect [of dismissal], this is all complete nonsense, because we worked with VPNs and Amazon WorkSpaces, so the servers were not in Ukraine. Therefore, there was no threat to the security of any data," the source says.

A former brightfin employee claims that even those Ukrainians who relocated to other countries were cut. According to him, first of all, the company dismissed leading specialists with the highest salaries.

"The dismissal took place together with the accountant, they took out a salary statement and reduced first of all those who had the highest salaries from [my] department. That is, now there are people with salaries at the level of Filipino and Indian."