An employee of the Russian company MTS was given a choice: to return back to the Russian office from another country where she worked remotely, or to be "dismissed under the article." The woman chose to quit. She told The Insider about this, asking to remain anonymous.
The woman worked in the company for more than 15 years, and after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, she decided to leave Russia. Initially, there were no problems, since the employee has been working remotely for a long time and before that she often performed her duties from abroad. According to the interlocutor, despite the fact that the contract contained a clause prohibiting work from outside the territory of the Russian Federation, none of the management paid attention to such cases. In March, the president of MTS claimed at a general video conference that “many people left,” but the company will not do anything about it yet.
In August, the employee decided to notify the employer of the impending change in her tax residency. A few days later, management informed her that further cooperation was not possible. The manager called and asked her to name the conditions under which she agreed to quit. The Russian woman replied that she was ready to leave by agreement of the parties, and asked to pay her several salaries.
In response, she was sent a message by phone and office mail stating that access to the corporate network is carried out from the territory of a foreign state, which contradicts the concluded agreement. The employee was required to appear at the workplace within a few days and provide an explanatory note, otherwise promising dismissal for absenteeism. At the same time, before the war, there were no problems due to remote work from the territory of other countries.
As a result, the Russian woman decided not to return to the country and quit the company herself. She was not paid any compensation after 15 years of work, she received one salary and money for unused vacation.
On October 12, the We Can Explain project, citing a source in the Otkritie Broker division of the bank, reported that the Otkritie structures would call on all employees who work remotely from other countries to return to Russia within 24 hours. Otherwise, they will be denied access, which will mean dismissal. According to the interlocutor, the employees plan to announce this on Friday, October 14.
Earlier, Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov admitted that Russia is experiencing a shortage of 170,000 IT specialists, with a total of 1 million people employed in the industry. Specialists began to leave the country en masse after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions. At the end of March, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree on deferment from military service for IT specialists, however, as practice shows, some of them still receive summons. In September, Sota reported that Vasily Malinochka, a Krasnodar IT specialist, was mobilized as a shooter, despite the strabismus and the fact that he formally falls under the Ministry of Digital Protection.