UAFM in the faces of Svitlana Masalykina, co-owner of the Yugos company, is convinced that in the current stressful realities, a healthy psychological atmosphere in the team, and its high team spirit is an important guarantee of its life activity

Furniture company Yugos from Kropyvnytskyi is a family business of spouses Svitlana and Gennady Masalykin. It has a lot of furniture experience because it has been operating since 1997, so it confidently occupies a leading position among the furniture enterprises of the region.

“Yugos” is a company with comprehensive customer service, which develops in such areas as furniture manufacturing services for furniture makers of the region, production of cabinet furniture both to order and serial, and wholesale and retail trade in accessories and accessories for furniture.

The management experience of Yugos management and the team cohesion of the team became the determining factor in the fact that after a week the factory resumed its furniture production activities – unlike many colleagues who needed a month, or even more, to overcome psychological and organizational confusion. And the work of the store and the fulfillment of obligations to partners did not stop for a single day. Office workers were at their workplaces, finished orders were sent to furniture makers, and new ones were accepted.

The first production weeks during the war were volunteer furniture: it was not about making any profit at all – it was a collective desire to quickly satisfy the urgent need for furniture of the local territorial defense units, which were usually located in rooms unsuitable for this purpose. The help was not limited to this – they helped with clothes and products. Factory workers who joined the ranks of defenders were equipped with everything necessary at the expense of the company. It should be noted that the Yugos team continues to participate in charitable actions even now when the volunteer boom of the first months of the war has become more structured and coordinated. For example, after the liberation of Kherson, charity cargo was formed for the Ukrainians of the burnt-out south.

The Masalykin’s family turned their factory into furniture a business when it became clear that their region had not become a frontline. We started to restore contact with traditional customers, with pre-war customers: where are you? how are you? pre-war cooperation, agreements remain in force? And as positive answers were received, the execution of the suspended contracts began. In accordance with the conditions of the martial law, Ms. Svitlana said, with the life difficulties that he caused, the factory’s operating mode was also adjusted so that the employees could have time to put their family affairs in order and work a shift at the factory productively.

– Currently, it is not enough to take care of purely business daily concerns, – Ms. Svitlana’s story about the company continues, – in communication with employees, it is necessary to fill them with optimism in order to maintain the traditional team cohesion of the team, so that people do not give up in difficult circumstances.

Now we are finding opportunities that were previously unattainable, so to speak, to organize training for employees for well-coordinated interaction between departments, and to improve technical and technological literacy in order to minimize the impact of the human factor on processes. For this, we involve relevant specialists. Moreover, we are currently developing a whole program of improvement and reform of the company’s activities in order to gain opportunities for its development even in the current circumstances, and even more so in the post-war period, when the furniture industry will become one of the leading forces in the reconstruction of the country.

In our industry, there are many companies – Yugos among them – which, although the war did not cause direct damage (destruction, destruction of equipment, warehouses, etc.), still suffered from it. If we talk specifically about Yugos, some clients who found themselves in the occupation or war zone, companies that were actually destroyed by the war, did not have time to settle with the company. “We understand that such a loss of funds is irreversible, but we have no moral right to make any claims to their owners,” Ms. Svitlana notes.

Suffered losses, thank God, did not turn out to be critical for the company. As well as the loss of part of the suppliers of materials and components that were under occupation. Even in the first months of the war, the Yugos company was able to fully settle with all its partners, and suppliers, and fulfill all pre-war obligations to customers. Therefore, as they say, without breaking away from production, optimizing organizationally and technologically in accordance with the existing circumstances, continues to produce products, provide furniture services to colleagues and provide them with furniture components. For this, the store has developed a minimally necessary warehouse assortment program, which they try to maintain under warranty.

Ms. Svitlana ended our conversation with the words she addressed to fellow furniture makers: “For those of us who have stayed in our places and are able to work, it is important to strengthen the country with work. And to the extent of one’s abilities, to do everything so that those of our defenders who will return with victory, could be realized in peaceful professions. We can do it. For them. For us. For our children. For Ukraine”.