Encouragement and opportunities to grow. Head of People and Culture Olga Skorochodovienė reflects on her journey at Staticus
Starting as a People Partner in 2019, Olga Skorochodovienė has ascended to the role of Head of People and Culture at Staticus. In this position, she finds herself driving our cultural evolution and turning phrases on a poster into lived behaviours.
She spoke with us about her journey at Staticus, what excites her most about her role, how the company’s supportive environment has helped her personal growth, and why people leaders are the true architects of a company’s culture.
Please could you provide a brief overview of your career at Staticus.
At the start of my career, I worked in a recruitment agency where I had the opportunity to work with many companies from different industries. Honestly, construction companies were not at the top of my priority list for my own career back then – there were a lot of stereotypes around.
Then I received a proposal from Staticus, and I decided to reconsider. I already knew a few people in the company, and the more I dug into what they were about, the more my mind changed.
It was clear that, from an HR perspective, Staticus was not a typical company. HR topics weren’t just a support function, they were genuinely shaping the company’s direction. People strategy had a real voice at the highest level, and that meant a lot to me. So in 2019, I joined Staticus as an HR Business Partner. Later, I was promoted to Senior HR Business Partner, and since last autumn, I’ve been in the role of Head of People and Culture.
Our team covers the full employee lifecycle, from talent attraction and onboarding, through engagement, development and performance, all the way to exit interviews. We also have ownership of Staticus’ culture, ensuring it is something that is actively nurtured and built, rather than just happening on by itself.
Separately, Staticus’ Workplace Experience Manager is also within my team, handling the day-to-day office environment.
What factors have helped you to progress your career at Staticus?
Having really great leaders around me. That is not just my line managers (who support me, of course) but also other leaders and specialists in the company. They have always been supportive and encouraging, listening to my ideas and creating a space for me to try things. Whenever I have an idea about training that could be interesting for colleagues, or some initiative, I always receive encouragement. Or, if my suggestion is not realistic, they give me very precise arguments about why not, and when we could come back to that topic.
I have always been given possibilities to broaden my responsibilities and try something new. For many years, one of my main activities was working with our agile project teams, so I was acting more as an agile coach than an HR person. That flexibility motivated me to stay in the company and grow. At Staticus, you really can try something new, expand your responsibilities, and show yourself in your best way. And this is definitely something I want to continue and strengthen in my current role.
This mentality of curiosity and diving deeper starts from our CEO. Her message is that we should all think about the best version of ourselves as professionals, and together we will create a company we are proud of.
What excites you most about your role as Head of People and Culture?
I am excited to have culture as one of my responsibilities. Right now we are going through a kind of evolution of our culture. In practice, this means putting the behaviours we want to see in the company into the right words, and then scaling, enhancing and strengthening them. This is a top priority for the company at the moment, and my role is to support the organisation on this journey.
Probably what excites me most in my role is having purposeful work. In HR, you feel the purpose of what you are doing very directly. With recruitment, we help the right people find the right company, enabling them to fulfill their potential. And for the rest of the employee cycle, we are creating a place where people feel good and can find that sense of purpose for themselves.
I am also excited to work in a very international company. When I joined Staticus, the majority of colleagues were still from Lithuania and our main language was Lithuanian. Now, with colleagues from all over the world in different positions, it is a completely different situation. As an HR team, we need to be knowledgeable about different countries in terms of practicalities like employment law. We also need to invest a little more into understanding people’s ways of working and their expectations of the company, managers, and HR. Because in different countries these things can be very different.
With every step of the company’s growth, we as professionals need to broaden our knowledge and gain new skills. I am very happy to have that opportunity within this company.
What personal aspirations do you have for this role? How do you hope to evolve as a professional?
Of course, personal growth and development is a motivation for me in general. I love that feeling of improving as a specialist and gaining knowledge.
In this role, I am very motivated to strengthen my leadership skills. Throughout my career I have been near managers, team leaders and people leaders. I have helped them manage people more efficiently and create a positive and psychologically safe atmosphere within the team.
Now, for the first time in my career, I have my own team, so I am excited to strengthen those skills and help my own team members grow. What excites me most is seeing results come from the team itself – that kind of impact feels different from anything you achieve on your own.
One specific personal aspiration I have relates to employee well-being. Some time ago we invested substantially in the area of mental health, and I want to continue this focus, given the current situation worldwide, and the amount of tension people experience, and the dynamic work environment we are all in. Psychological resilience, psychological health, and emotional intelligence are just as important as professional skills, and will help our employees to thrive and be successful.
How do you help bring Staticus’ culture to life within your team, and how does this culture show up in your everyday work?
Cultural transformation is at the top of our priorities as a company. We have worked really hard to define our culture and behaviours, and we don’t want them to just be posters on the wall.
So we decided to scale those behaviours through our managers and people leaders. They should be the ones who, first of all, demonstrate those behaviours and act as our cultural ambassadors. So as a People team, one of our goals is to strengthen those managers and leaders to ensure they have the skills and tools needed to support their team members and create an environment where each employee can grow and develop. In an organisation with hundreds of employees, people leaders are the ones who create that growth culture and deliver results through their teams.
Overall, because we are responsible for nurturing and developing our culture, we as a People team should embody the four behaviours we want to see in our organisation. Never settle, because we have a growth mindset and take on new challenges. No brilliant jerks, because this is a team effort. Cut the noise, because we focus on real and concrete transformation, not nice sounding words. And extreme ownership, because each individual needs to step up and try their best for this transformation to truly happen.
Tell us a bit about your life outside Staticus.
I am a family person. I have an 11-year-old son, and I love spending time with my family. I also love to travel and explore new places. I am also quite fond of picking up new hobbies. For a time it was photography, then painting, and right now my main hobby is dancing. I spend my evenings in dance studios, enjoying all the Latino vibes and culture, especially salsa and bachata.