Why HR’s Work Goes Unseen with Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia and Gala Grigoreva
HR’s work can go unnoticed when supporting others becomes routine and the connection to business results is left unexplained. Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia and Gala Grigoreva join Ksenia Izotova to discuss why HR professionals can struggle to recognise their own contribution, how everyday improvements become projects worth sharing and what teams can learn from the Island People Excellence Award in Cyprus.
Guests: Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia and Gala Grigoreva
Host: Ksenia Izotova · Co-Founder and Director of Studies at UnifyHub
Guests: Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia and Gala Grigoreva
Host: Ksenia Izotova · Co-Founder and Director of Studies at UnifyHub
29 October 2026
26 minutes
About the Guests
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia chairs the jury of the Island People Excellence Award. Her work focuses on building and scaling People & Culture functions in international organisations. In this conversation, she explores why HR professionals can overlook their contribution and how sharing practical projects can make that work more visible.
Gala Grigoreva is the founder of Integrated Professional Growth and a corporate wellbeing trainer. She is also a member of the Island People Excellence Award jury. She brings a business and wellbeing perspective to the discussion of recognising everyday achievements and explaining the contribution of people projects.
Gala Grigoreva is the founder of Integrated Professional Growth and a corporate wellbeing trainer. She is also a member of the Island People Excellence Award jury. She brings a business and wellbeing perspective to the discussion of recognising everyday achievements and explaining the contribution of people projects.
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Short Notes
Why can HR’s contribution remain unseen even when the team is solving problems every day? Anastasiia and Gala discuss the habit of giving others credit, the difficulty of recognising achievements in routine work and the need to connect people initiatives to business priorities.
Using examples from the Island People Excellence Award in Cyprus, they explore how teams can describe what changed, share what they learned and recognise their own contribution. The conversation covers retention, building HR processes during growth, relocation, AI support for repeated questions and onboarding through games.
Using examples from the Island People Excellence Award in Cyprus, they explore how teams can describe what changed, share what they learned and recognise their own contribution. The conversation covers retention, building HR processes during growth, relocation, AI support for repeated questions and onboarding through games.
Key Takeaways
- Make time to recognise everyday improvements: supporting other people can leave HR professionals with little space to reflect on their own contribution.
- Explain the business problem your work addressed and what changed, rather than relying on a list of completed activities.
- A useful project does not need a large team or budget. Look for relevant measures and feedback from the people affected by the change.
- Give the context behind the work. Growth, retention, relocation and multicultural management shape the examples discussed in Cyprus.
- Share the learning as well as the outcome, including what did not work at first and how the team improved the solution.
- Use other teams’ experiences as ideas to examine and adapt, rather than assuming that one approach will work everywhere.
- Recognise the work involved in balancing business performance with people and culture, and create opportunities to share it with peers.
Why Does HR’s Work Go Unseen?
In the guests' view, HR professionals can overlook their own contribution because much of their work is spent helping other people succeed. Hiring, supporting managers and solving employee problems become familiar routines. Teams may give others credit for the outcome without recognising the improvement their own work made possible.
Anastasiia also connects visibility with business understanding: it is difficult to explain the value of HR work without understanding how the organisation makes money and what it needs to achieve. Gala notes that people who spend their time supporting others may have little time to reflect on their own achievements. These are perspectives shared in the conversation, rather than a single explanation for every organisation.
Anastasiia also connects visibility with business understanding: it is difficult to explain the value of HR work without understanding how the organisation makes money and what it needs to achieve. Gala notes that people who spend their time supporting others may have little time to reflect on their own achievements. These are perspectives shared in the conversation, rather than a single explanation for every organisation.
How Can HR Teams Make Everyday Improvements Visible?
Start with a recurring problem and describe the change made to address it. Gala gives examples such as new employees struggling to understand expectations, inconsistent performance conversations and career progression that depends on becoming a manager. A project can begin with an attempt to improve one of these situations, even without a large budget or a formal project title.
The guests suggest looking at changes in relevant measures and at what people appreciate about the solution. Explaining the starting point, the approach and the outcome helps other people see the contribution behind routine work. A small HR team can have a useful story to share.
The guests suggest looking at changes in relevant measures and at what people appreciate about the solution. Explaining the starting point, the approach and the outcome helps other people see the contribution behind routine work. A small HR team can have a useful story to share.
What Makes the Cyprus Context Important for HR Projects?
The guests describe a business environment that combines established local organisations, international companies and growing technology businesses. These organisations can have different management practices and employee expectations.
Their discussion highlights retention, relocation, multicultural teamwork and the transition from technical expertise to people management. For an HR case to be useful to others, it helps to explain these conditions alongside the intervention. An approach developed for one company cannot be assumed to work in the same way elsewhere.
Their discussion highlights retention, relocation, multicultural teamwork and the transition from technical expertise to people management. For an HR case to be useful to others, it helps to explain these conditions alongside the intervention. An approach developed for one company cannot be assumed to work in the same way elsewhere.
Which HR Contributions Become Clearer Through Award Submissions?
Anastasiia describes applications about retaining talent, scaling companies and establishing HR functions from the beginning. These cases include putting processes, policies, management practices and organisational structures in place as a business grows.
Putting these changes into a case gives peers something concrete to examine: the problem, the work involved and the approach taken. Anastasiia also discusses an AI example and organisational change in game development companies. These observations concern the applications discussed in the episode, rather than the whole Cyprus labour market.
Putting these changes into a case gives peers something concrete to examine: the problem, the work involved and the approach taken. Anastasiia also discusses an AI example and organisational change in game development companies. These observations concern the applications discussed in the episode, rather than the whole Cyprus labour market.
How Can AI Help With Repeated HR Questions?
One example involves an unnamed company using AI bots to answer recurring questions about job architecture, performance reviews and career development. Anastasiia highlights the team’s learning process: the case describes mistakes and improvements as well as the solution itself.
The episode does not provide independently verified savings or evidence of staffing reductions. Its practical example is the use of an AI tool for a recurring information task, together with learning from how the tool performs.
The episode does not provide independently verified savings or evidence of staffing reductions. Its practical example is the use of an AI tool for a recurring information task, together with learning from how the tool performs.
What Can HR Teams Learn From Relocation and Onboarding Projects?
The conversation includes a project that developed relocation and migration processes from the beginning. Anastasiia says reviewing it helped her learn something useful for her own work. The broader point is that describing an operational process can help peers discover possibilities they did not know about.
Another example turns onboarding into a board game. Participants work through practical questions about company procedures and life in Cyprus. The discussion presents this as one team’s approach to making information more engaging, rather than a format that every new employee or company will prefer.
Another example turns onboarding into a board game. Participants work through practical questions about company procedures and life in Cyprus. The discussion presents this as one team’s approach to making information more engaging, rather than a format that every new employee or company will prefer.
How Can Events Help Colleagues Connect Across Cultures?
The guests discuss internal events that bring colleagues together through sport and shared traditions. The relevant question is what the activity helps people do: meet one another, adjust to a new place or understand colleagues from another background.
The episode provides examples of activities, without comparative evidence that a particular event improves retention. When presenting an event as an HR project, the useful story is the need it addressed and the change the team observed.
The episode provides examples of activities, without comparative evidence that a particular event improves retention. When presenting an event as an HR project, the useful story is the need it addressed and the change the team observed.
How Can Sharing HR Work Support Recognition and Learning?
Reviewing another team’s work can reveal an approach or practical detail that would otherwise stay inside that organisation. Anastasiia describes learning from applications herself, while the discussion of the jury shows how different professional perspectives can contribute to feedback.
For HR teams, sharing a case is also an opportunity to describe work that has become easy to overlook. Gala encourages people to reflect on their daily contribution, while Anastasiia highlights the work of balancing business performance with people and culture.
The organisers also describe plans to bring selected practices together in a white paper. This is a plan discussed in the recording, rather than an already published resource. The value of sharing can extend beyond winning an award: it creates material for discussion, learning and professional recognition.
For HR teams, sharing a case is also an opportunity to describe work that has become easy to overlook. Gala encourages people to reflect on their daily contribution, while Anastasiia highlights the work of balancing business performance with people and culture.
The organisers also describe plans to bring selected practices together in a white paper. This is a plan discussed in the recording, rather than an already published resource. The value of sharing can extend beyond winning an award: it creates material for discussion, learning and professional recognition.
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We should be proud, really, that we are every day finding the right balance.
Timestamps
Transcript
Ksenia Izotova: Welcome to HR Unwritten by UnifyHub, where we have open conversations with HR leaders about the realities of work. I'm Ksenia, co-founder of UnifyHub. Today, we are talking about why HR professionals can find it hard to recognize the value of their own work and how people and culture projects can be made visible, shared and connected to real business needs. I'm joined by Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia and Gala Grigoreva, who are behind the Island People Excellence Awards in Cyprus. We will discuss how everyday improvements can become projects worth sharing and what HR teams can learn from the examples submitted for the awards.
Anastasiia, Gala, welcome to the show.
Gala Grigoreva: Hello, thanks a lot for having us.
Ksenia Izotova: So you said it can be hard to convince HR teams that their work is worth sharing. Why do HR people sometimes hesitate to talk about what they have achieved?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: I think there are a combination of factors. First of all, maybe psychological, because as an HR, we constantly serve others and try to please them. So we are modest, neurotic a little bit. That's why, oh no, no, it's not on me. It's not my achievement. I'm just doing it's on you. It's because of you. You are a superhero. I'm just your babysitter, daycare specialist or something like this. And also, HR is not considered as a key factor of success. Some people definitely have a reason to win some business achievements, but it's never set like that in a business context.
Only billionaires’ series showed that HR person might be differentiator of the business from pop culture. Another thing, HR is kind of creative, but at the same time, an algorithmic job. We're just hiring, firing, motivating, do similar things every day. It's really hard to understand where something interesting is happening. One conversation is a project. No, one hiring is a project. No, I do similar things every day. What's interesting, I'm just doing my job and trying my best. One guilt is on us. We also, as a function of business, don't really understand how our business makes money.
Yes, that's why it's hard for us to find something really valuable for business. We should start thinking as a business from where money comes, right? And it will give us an overview on what matters and what not.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you. So when does this minor change in everyday work become a project worth submitting?
Gala Grigoreva: I'd love to share my opinion that normally you start with the problem. When you see the problem and you think that it's kind of inevitable. For example, new employees repeatedly struggle to understand expectations or managers handle performance conversations very differently. Or perhaps people progress only when they become managers, even when it was not the right path for them. So there shouldn't be even a budget dedicated or some specific title for the project or a timeline when you actually realize, okay, let's make a project and it will be something really big. But let me just start with the problem.
When you realize, okay, we have an obstacle to progress, to reach our business goals, or we have HR metrics decreasing and something is happening with engagement, with retention. All that stuff, then let's do something about it and let's try this and these solutions. So when you see the solution and when you want to test it, no matter how big your team is, it can be just one person or a couple of people in the HR team.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Just maybe two criteria, as Gala said, probably changes in metrics. So we can easily identify area of problem and how it was solved and an elegant manner, something like this, business outcome or more kind of HR approach to find a project for what exactly people said thank you to you.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you. That makes it very clear. And when is the deadline for submission and how many cases do you already have?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Probably submission time is passed during the Island People Excellence Award. We have interesting mechanics inside of our award when we rely not only on our jury and their judgments, but also ask the opinion of the general public of people for whom we usually work as HR. So we will publish all cases. They show a description on our web page and kindly ask everyone to join and choose the best project, the most interesting project in each category.
Gala Grigoreva: Yeah, yeah. We are given a month for voting and then we close the voting process to summarize and to prepare for the conference, which will be on the 27th of November, where you will have an opportunity to listen to all the cases and to interesting panel discussions. And then the award ceremony comes on the 28th of November, which will be a solemn celebration of HR achievements and victories.
Ksenia Izotova: That sounds like an amazing, absolutely amazing celebration. Anastasiia, would you like to add something?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a little bit. Even from my side, we received more than 20 cases. So for the very first award for HR, we're proud to have an international project from different companies with Russian roots, with Israeli roots, local Cypriot cases. So an interesting bench of different styles of HR we received.
Ksenia Izotova: You guys mentioned the jury. Let's speak about them. So do they all have different backgrounds? And how does it help you be really effective in judging the cases?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Oh, yeah. We try to find proper experts from the HR field and strengthen expertise of jury from different perspective. We have external vendors, for example, Polina Kapitonova, who is the CEO of a recruitment agency, Headshot. We have Mike Finkelstein, he's an expert in leadership development and organization development. We have the president of Cyprus chapter of ICF, Yury Zachek. So we also have proper in-house managers, Vitaliy, mostly software engineer who believes in people and helps leaders to develop the leadership skills in JetBrains company. We have Olga, HR director at the biggest international company Tribe with headquarter here in Cyprus. And we have our heart and brain of the ceremony of the organization committee and invaluable part of jury Tatiana Kolombet, who is the leader of HR community, HR breakfast, trainer and also coach. So I'm really honored to be part of jury and I'm sure that all participants will win not only a trophy, but also feedback from such a professional jury.
Gala Grigoreva: Yeah, I would say that I represent business here, but also act as a well-being trainer. And I understand that there should be a balance and I believe in the balance between performance and a healthy approach to how this performance is managed and how the business outcomes are achieved.
Ksenia Izotova: Thanks Gala. So what's different about working in HR and in general doing business in Cyprus compared with other places, you know? What is special about Cyprus?
Gala Grigoreva: Well, I would say Cyprus has its own specifics for sure. And we also have a mixture of very different structures and very different approaches because here we have established local businesses, international companies and their branches here, their headquarters in some cases, growing technology, startups, but their approaches to management, to development and employee expectations and experience can be very different. And in many cases, we see that the faster organizations are growing, the more challenges they are facing in regards of people management, development and retention.
And retention is a big problem here in Cyprus, but also there are multicultural teams and many managers who were skilled in managing their own culture team, for example, in the past. Now they have to deal with a lot of cultures and they have to be more educated about that, more trained in this domain as well. For many technically skilled people to grow, to manage a position would be challenging as well. And they would need soft skills, for example. So Cyprus has its own specifics and there are a lot of relocated employees and that's another part of HR field, which is very complicated.
And to deal with local organizations, administrative bodies would need some more specific skills as well from HR leaders. So yeah, that's why we thought that that would be great to connect applications with the Cyprus context for sure.
Ksenia Izotova: A quick note from UnifyHub. Language isn't the whole story when it comes to remote engagement, but it can make it harder to speak up at work. UnifyHub is a corporate language learning platform for tech teams. We combine assessment, role-specific programs, platform access, live practice with international educators and progress reporting for HR and L&D. The learning is built around real work, from meetings and written updates to feedback and client conversations. You'll find more in the show notes.
What topics keep coming up in the applications?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: We have a lot of applications which we can call Staying Power. They are united by this nomination. Staying Power, as Gala said, the retention of great talents on a small island is a big challenge for HR professionals. A lot of nominees explain the way how to work with people. We have a special group of cases about scaling a company. When HR came as the first HR in the company and developed the function from scratch, the main challenge was to organise everything from the very beginning. Structure, main policies, main processes, managerial competences, and set some bar and standards.
Also, part of Cyprus a specific because we explained that we have a lot of startups and they scale and nobody ready and HR should wear the superhero uniform and build everything very quickly. We also had one of my favorite cases about AI technologies, how to integrate AI to employee relations and using AI, answering repetitive questions of managers and employees. Unfortunately, it was surprising that we received not so much cases about recruitment, attraction, selection, but probably the era of active recruitment has passed and now it's time to retain and develop the talent problem.
Ksenia Izotova: That sounds really interesting. Maybe you could give us a couple of examples with the company names.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: I have my favorite ones. I already started to explain the case about AI integration, one of the biggest international players. Unfortunately, they prefer to keep the name kind of off the book.
They sent us the case when they created AI bots to answer questions about job architectures, performance review, everything related to professional and career development. Instead, it's a huge part of HR job to answer repetitive questions. That's why we are so obsessed by policies because it's a playbook for every HR to answer in the same manner to similar questions. Instead of that, the company replaced the HR workforce to AI agent. Elegant, smart, innovative, and the case showed some mistakes and fails and how the company learned from them and improved the experience, improved and strengthened the AI bot, which is one of the favorite tool right now. Really cool case.
Case number two is very niche. Gala already mentioned occasionally that migration and relocation is a big part of HR job here in Cyprus. One of the cases showed how from scratch the function developed the process of relocation and migration. What I love is that I learned some new things from this case. It's beneficial for me personally as also a chief people and operation officer to read all cases and know something new, what's going on in Cyprus. For example, case explained that currently you can apply and prolong residence permit online, not necessarily to go by yourself physically to immigration office. You can do it remotely. So it was very new information for me. That's why this case is also one of my favorites. Gala, you have your favorite ones.
Gala Grigoreva: Not yet. I wouldn't actually uncover any details. So let's see who will win.
Ksenia Izotova: Are all the cases related more or less to AI? Or there are some human-based, surprisingly not AI cases?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Not at all. We have only one AI-related case.
Ksenia Izotova: You mentioned that there were also cases with events, again related to people retention. What kind of events were nominated?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Probably the biggest fan of different types of events is INEX. A group is the biggest developer in Cyprus. They build real fancy offices and living spaces, apartments here in Cyprus. They do a lot of internal events for their own employees to try to entertain and adopt people here in Cyprus. They have a special program about sport events. We live on a sunny island and it's a big advantage to go outside and spend time outside. That's why they do a lot of paddle competitions.
They celebrate Maslennitsa, during carnival time they cook pancakes. It's a Russian tradition and share it with more than 19 countries. I also liked one of a project which transformed the onboarding process to board game. We have a lot of software engineers and tech startups here. Usually, maybe it's biased, but based on my observation, it's the truth that software engineers love board games. The company catches this idea and they create onboarding game. They just wander through the game field and solve different life challenges and tasks. I don't know where to find barber, how to book a a holiday trip in the company, or how to find a doctor in Cyprus.
Through this game, they learn internal policies and specific rules of Cyprus. It's fun, it's a team game and I really love the gamification idea.
Ksenia Izotova: I'm sure that was not the only gamification idea, right? Any more cases on gamification or just this one?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Only this one, but I forgot to mention one of jury member Marat Atnashev. He is co-founder of MetaGames company and they exact specialisation is gamification of training, leadership training. You're right, regarding the Game Dev Company, we have a lot here in Cyprus. It's kind of hub for Game Dev. If you participants represent this industry for them, as I learned from the applications, the main challenge is constantly adjust organisational structure. Due to the high dynamic of industry, they need to find the right balance between heaviness of process, cost and efficiency.
So two projects from Game Dev companies represent their org changes, how they transform department structure, HR role within a company. So I also expected some fun things from them, but they were very hard HR projects, representing the deep understanding of architecture and org design.
Ksenia Izotova: Maybe because 2026 is already a year when there is less fun, but more focus on business effectiveness, on restructuring, on budget efficiency and so on.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: 100%, 100% not the best time for fun, but the best time to show your business skills.
Ksenia Izotova: Yeah, there is always room for fun, right? But it's from what I can hear from you. The balance of applications, the number of entertaining applications and the number of business focused applications. I think this balance also tells us something about the current trends and about the current year.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Maybe as a ceremony, it will be the right place to relax and enjoy elegant way of events here in Cyprus. So time for HR to be proud of their work and enjoy the weather, the nature and beauty of the sea. So it's what we want to have on our awards ceremony.
Ksenia Izotova: Before we wrap up, please tell us what happens next with the Island People Excellence Awards. So after the ceremony, are you going to collect the cases in a white paper?
Gala Grigoreva: We are planning to create a white paper, combining the best HR practices of Cyprus 2025. We're going to call it like this. So all the applications that would win will be included in this white paper. And we can also include different interviewers and articles dedicated to HR trends in Cyprus, because I'm sure there is a lot to talk about. So yeah, this is our plan for the beginning of 2027.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you very much. Nice plan. After seeing all the projects, please finish the sentence. HR should be more proud of…
Gala Grigoreva: I would add, of course, of their work, of what they are actually doing on a daily basis, because quite often it becomes just a routine. And since I'm also a facilitator of the I Am Remarkable workshop, I see a lot of people who have never reflected on their own achievements. And people just burst into tears when they just start thinking about it. And coming from the marketing background, I could say that marketers, they are used to presenting their results, to get more investment, to showcase what they are doing, to prove that they are worth existing in the company, that their work is worth and brings a lot of value to the company.
But that doesn't relate a lot to the HR function, because they spend a lot of time on supporting people, and they just have very little time to reflect how much they're doing. So, yeah, they should start valuing their work, their daily work,not on the achievements, but what they actually do on a daily basis.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you. Anastasiia, what would you like to add?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: I would add that HR should start to be more proud of their ability to find the right balance between performance and business results and people and culture, because it's the biggest challenge for the function to balance between two palaces. And as a function, as a professional, we have to master our flexibility on a daily basis. We should be proud, really, that we are every day finding the right balance.
Ksenia Izotova: Anastasiia, Gala, thank you for joining me and sharing the stories behind the Island People Excellence Awards. This conversation is a reminder that HR projects can begin with a real problem and that the everyday work of supporting people deserves to be seen and valued.
Thanks for listening to HR Unwritten by UnifyHub. If you know a people or culture project others could learn from, share it with us. And follow the show for more conversations about HR and the workplace. See you next time. Bye.
Anastasiia, Gala, welcome to the show.
Gala Grigoreva: Hello, thanks a lot for having us.
Ksenia Izotova: So you said it can be hard to convince HR teams that their work is worth sharing. Why do HR people sometimes hesitate to talk about what they have achieved?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: I think there are a combination of factors. First of all, maybe psychological, because as an HR, we constantly serve others and try to please them. So we are modest, neurotic a little bit. That's why, oh no, no, it's not on me. It's not my achievement. I'm just doing it's on you. It's because of you. You are a superhero. I'm just your babysitter, daycare specialist or something like this. And also, HR is not considered as a key factor of success. Some people definitely have a reason to win some business achievements, but it's never set like that in a business context.
Only billionaires’ series showed that HR person might be differentiator of the business from pop culture. Another thing, HR is kind of creative, but at the same time, an algorithmic job. We're just hiring, firing, motivating, do similar things every day. It's really hard to understand where something interesting is happening. One conversation is a project. No, one hiring is a project. No, I do similar things every day. What's interesting, I'm just doing my job and trying my best. One guilt is on us. We also, as a function of business, don't really understand how our business makes money.
Yes, that's why it's hard for us to find something really valuable for business. We should start thinking as a business from where money comes, right? And it will give us an overview on what matters and what not.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you. So when does this minor change in everyday work become a project worth submitting?
Gala Grigoreva: I'd love to share my opinion that normally you start with the problem. When you see the problem and you think that it's kind of inevitable. For example, new employees repeatedly struggle to understand expectations or managers handle performance conversations very differently. Or perhaps people progress only when they become managers, even when it was not the right path for them. So there shouldn't be even a budget dedicated or some specific title for the project or a timeline when you actually realize, okay, let's make a project and it will be something really big. But let me just start with the problem.
When you realize, okay, we have an obstacle to progress, to reach our business goals, or we have HR metrics decreasing and something is happening with engagement, with retention. All that stuff, then let's do something about it and let's try this and these solutions. So when you see the solution and when you want to test it, no matter how big your team is, it can be just one person or a couple of people in the HR team.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Just maybe two criteria, as Gala said, probably changes in metrics. So we can easily identify area of problem and how it was solved and an elegant manner, something like this, business outcome or more kind of HR approach to find a project for what exactly people said thank you to you.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you. That makes it very clear. And when is the deadline for submission and how many cases do you already have?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Probably submission time is passed during the Island People Excellence Award. We have interesting mechanics inside of our award when we rely not only on our jury and their judgments, but also ask the opinion of the general public of people for whom we usually work as HR. So we will publish all cases. They show a description on our web page and kindly ask everyone to join and choose the best project, the most interesting project in each category.
Gala Grigoreva: Yeah, yeah. We are given a month for voting and then we close the voting process to summarize and to prepare for the conference, which will be on the 27th of November, where you will have an opportunity to listen to all the cases and to interesting panel discussions. And then the award ceremony comes on the 28th of November, which will be a solemn celebration of HR achievements and victories.
Ksenia Izotova: That sounds like an amazing, absolutely amazing celebration. Anastasiia, would you like to add something?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a little bit. Even from my side, we received more than 20 cases. So for the very first award for HR, we're proud to have an international project from different companies with Russian roots, with Israeli roots, local Cypriot cases. So an interesting bench of different styles of HR we received.
Ksenia Izotova: You guys mentioned the jury. Let's speak about them. So do they all have different backgrounds? And how does it help you be really effective in judging the cases?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Oh, yeah. We try to find proper experts from the HR field and strengthen expertise of jury from different perspective. We have external vendors, for example, Polina Kapitonova, who is the CEO of a recruitment agency, Headshot. We have Mike Finkelstein, he's an expert in leadership development and organization development. We have the president of Cyprus chapter of ICF, Yury Zachek. So we also have proper in-house managers, Vitaliy, mostly software engineer who believes in people and helps leaders to develop the leadership skills in JetBrains company. We have Olga, HR director at the biggest international company Tribe with headquarter here in Cyprus. And we have our heart and brain of the ceremony of the organization committee and invaluable part of jury Tatiana Kolombet, who is the leader of HR community, HR breakfast, trainer and also coach. So I'm really honored to be part of jury and I'm sure that all participants will win not only a trophy, but also feedback from such a professional jury.
Gala Grigoreva: Yeah, I would say that I represent business here, but also act as a well-being trainer. And I understand that there should be a balance and I believe in the balance between performance and a healthy approach to how this performance is managed and how the business outcomes are achieved.
Ksenia Izotova: Thanks Gala. So what's different about working in HR and in general doing business in Cyprus compared with other places, you know? What is special about Cyprus?
Gala Grigoreva: Well, I would say Cyprus has its own specifics for sure. And we also have a mixture of very different structures and very different approaches because here we have established local businesses, international companies and their branches here, their headquarters in some cases, growing technology, startups, but their approaches to management, to development and employee expectations and experience can be very different. And in many cases, we see that the faster organizations are growing, the more challenges they are facing in regards of people management, development and retention.
And retention is a big problem here in Cyprus, but also there are multicultural teams and many managers who were skilled in managing their own culture team, for example, in the past. Now they have to deal with a lot of cultures and they have to be more educated about that, more trained in this domain as well. For many technically skilled people to grow, to manage a position would be challenging as well. And they would need soft skills, for example. So Cyprus has its own specifics and there are a lot of relocated employees and that's another part of HR field, which is very complicated.
And to deal with local organizations, administrative bodies would need some more specific skills as well from HR leaders. So yeah, that's why we thought that that would be great to connect applications with the Cyprus context for sure.
Ksenia Izotova: A quick note from UnifyHub. Language isn't the whole story when it comes to remote engagement, but it can make it harder to speak up at work. UnifyHub is a corporate language learning platform for tech teams. We combine assessment, role-specific programs, platform access, live practice with international educators and progress reporting for HR and L&D. The learning is built around real work, from meetings and written updates to feedback and client conversations. You'll find more in the show notes.
What topics keep coming up in the applications?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: We have a lot of applications which we can call Staying Power. They are united by this nomination. Staying Power, as Gala said, the retention of great talents on a small island is a big challenge for HR professionals. A lot of nominees explain the way how to work with people. We have a special group of cases about scaling a company. When HR came as the first HR in the company and developed the function from scratch, the main challenge was to organise everything from the very beginning. Structure, main policies, main processes, managerial competences, and set some bar and standards.
Also, part of Cyprus a specific because we explained that we have a lot of startups and they scale and nobody ready and HR should wear the superhero uniform and build everything very quickly. We also had one of my favorite cases about AI technologies, how to integrate AI to employee relations and using AI, answering repetitive questions of managers and employees. Unfortunately, it was surprising that we received not so much cases about recruitment, attraction, selection, but probably the era of active recruitment has passed and now it's time to retain and develop the talent problem.
Ksenia Izotova: That sounds really interesting. Maybe you could give us a couple of examples with the company names.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: I have my favorite ones. I already started to explain the case about AI integration, one of the biggest international players. Unfortunately, they prefer to keep the name kind of off the book.
They sent us the case when they created AI bots to answer questions about job architectures, performance review, everything related to professional and career development. Instead, it's a huge part of HR job to answer repetitive questions. That's why we are so obsessed by policies because it's a playbook for every HR to answer in the same manner to similar questions. Instead of that, the company replaced the HR workforce to AI agent. Elegant, smart, innovative, and the case showed some mistakes and fails and how the company learned from them and improved the experience, improved and strengthened the AI bot, which is one of the favorite tool right now. Really cool case.
Case number two is very niche. Gala already mentioned occasionally that migration and relocation is a big part of HR job here in Cyprus. One of the cases showed how from scratch the function developed the process of relocation and migration. What I love is that I learned some new things from this case. It's beneficial for me personally as also a chief people and operation officer to read all cases and know something new, what's going on in Cyprus. For example, case explained that currently you can apply and prolong residence permit online, not necessarily to go by yourself physically to immigration office. You can do it remotely. So it was very new information for me. That's why this case is also one of my favorites. Gala, you have your favorite ones.
Gala Grigoreva: Not yet. I wouldn't actually uncover any details. So let's see who will win.
Ksenia Izotova: Are all the cases related more or less to AI? Or there are some human-based, surprisingly not AI cases?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Not at all. We have only one AI-related case.
Ksenia Izotova: You mentioned that there were also cases with events, again related to people retention. What kind of events were nominated?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Probably the biggest fan of different types of events is INEX. A group is the biggest developer in Cyprus. They build real fancy offices and living spaces, apartments here in Cyprus. They do a lot of internal events for their own employees to try to entertain and adopt people here in Cyprus. They have a special program about sport events. We live on a sunny island and it's a big advantage to go outside and spend time outside. That's why they do a lot of paddle competitions.
They celebrate Maslennitsa, during carnival time they cook pancakes. It's a Russian tradition and share it with more than 19 countries. I also liked one of a project which transformed the onboarding process to board game. We have a lot of software engineers and tech startups here. Usually, maybe it's biased, but based on my observation, it's the truth that software engineers love board games. The company catches this idea and they create onboarding game. They just wander through the game field and solve different life challenges and tasks. I don't know where to find barber, how to book a a holiday trip in the company, or how to find a doctor in Cyprus.
Through this game, they learn internal policies and specific rules of Cyprus. It's fun, it's a team game and I really love the gamification idea.
Ksenia Izotova: I'm sure that was not the only gamification idea, right? Any more cases on gamification or just this one?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Only this one, but I forgot to mention one of jury member Marat Atnashev. He is co-founder of MetaGames company and they exact specialisation is gamification of training, leadership training. You're right, regarding the Game Dev Company, we have a lot here in Cyprus. It's kind of hub for Game Dev. If you participants represent this industry for them, as I learned from the applications, the main challenge is constantly adjust organisational structure. Due to the high dynamic of industry, they need to find the right balance between heaviness of process, cost and efficiency.
So two projects from Game Dev companies represent their org changes, how they transform department structure, HR role within a company. So I also expected some fun things from them, but they were very hard HR projects, representing the deep understanding of architecture and org design.
Ksenia Izotova: Maybe because 2026 is already a year when there is less fun, but more focus on business effectiveness, on restructuring, on budget efficiency and so on.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: 100%, 100% not the best time for fun, but the best time to show your business skills.
Ksenia Izotova: Yeah, there is always room for fun, right? But it's from what I can hear from you. The balance of applications, the number of entertaining applications and the number of business focused applications. I think this balance also tells us something about the current trends and about the current year.
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: Maybe as a ceremony, it will be the right place to relax and enjoy elegant way of events here in Cyprus. So time for HR to be proud of their work and enjoy the weather, the nature and beauty of the sea. So it's what we want to have on our awards ceremony.
Ksenia Izotova: Before we wrap up, please tell us what happens next with the Island People Excellence Awards. So after the ceremony, are you going to collect the cases in a white paper?
Gala Grigoreva: We are planning to create a white paper, combining the best HR practices of Cyprus 2025. We're going to call it like this. So all the applications that would win will be included in this white paper. And we can also include different interviewers and articles dedicated to HR trends in Cyprus, because I'm sure there is a lot to talk about. So yeah, this is our plan for the beginning of 2027.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you very much. Nice plan. After seeing all the projects, please finish the sentence. HR should be more proud of…
Gala Grigoreva: I would add, of course, of their work, of what they are actually doing on a daily basis, because quite often it becomes just a routine. And since I'm also a facilitator of the I Am Remarkable workshop, I see a lot of people who have never reflected on their own achievements. And people just burst into tears when they just start thinking about it. And coming from the marketing background, I could say that marketers, they are used to presenting their results, to get more investment, to showcase what they are doing, to prove that they are worth existing in the company, that their work is worth and brings a lot of value to the company.
But that doesn't relate a lot to the HR function, because they spend a lot of time on supporting people, and they just have very little time to reflect how much they're doing. So, yeah, they should start valuing their work, their daily work,not on the achievements, but what they actually do on a daily basis.
Ksenia Izotova: Thank you. Anastasiia, what would you like to add?
Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia: I would add that HR should start to be more proud of their ability to find the right balance between performance and business results and people and culture, because it's the biggest challenge for the function to balance between two palaces. And as a function, as a professional, we have to master our flexibility on a daily basis. We should be proud, really, that we are every day finding the right balance.
Ksenia Izotova: Anastasiia, Gala, thank you for joining me and sharing the stories behind the Island People Excellence Awards. This conversation is a reminder that HR projects can begin with a real problem and that the everyday work of supporting people deserves to be seen and valued.
Thanks for listening to HR Unwritten by UnifyHub. If you know a people or culture project others could learn from, share it with us. And follow the show for more conversations about HR and the workplace. See you next time. Bye.
Frequently asked questions
Who is this episode for?
This episode is for HR and People & Culture professionals, team leaders and business owners interested in why HR contributions can be overlooked and how teams can explain their work. Its practical examples are particularly relevant to international organisations and teams in Cyprus.
Where can I find current information about the Island People Excellence Award?
Visit the official award website for current information. Dates and plans mentioned in the conversation reflect the time of recording, so check the organiser’s latest announcements before making arrangements.
Does the episode identify the company behind the AI example?
No. The company is not named in the conversation. Anastasiia discusses the approach and the team’s learning without identifying the organisation.
Is the white paper mentioned in the episode already available?
At the time of recording, the organisers describe the white paper as a future project. The episode does not announce its publication. Check the organiser’s channels for any subsequent release.
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UnifyHub is a Corporate Language Learning Platform for Tech Teams. We help international IT and technology teams develop workplace English through assessment, role-specific programmes, platform-based learning, live practice with international educators and progress reporting for HR and L&D.
The learning focuses on communication people use at work, including meetings, written updates, feedback and client conversations.
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The learning focuses on communication people use at work, including meetings, written updates, feedback and client conversations.
How UnifyHub works
Browse all HR Unwritten episodes