Humans of Kent: Yelena Kashirskaya, HSSEQ Associate Business Partner, Kazakhstan

Yelena is currently an HSSEQ Associate Supervisor based in our operational sites in Tengiz, Kazakhstan, and has been part of the Kent team for 18 months.

Yelena, tell us a bit about you
I was born in 1987 in Kazakhstan in the city of Uralsk to a family who were not wealthy. My family includes my mother, father, my older brother and me; at 33 years old. My brother also works in Tengiz for Denholm Zholdas.

I have a daughter who is 2 years and 9 months old and she goes to kindergarten in a Kazakh group. I love learning the Kazakh language and have attended language school to learn more. My husband is a Russian citizen and he works in Moscow in Welding. I also recently received Russian citizenship and plan to live in Moscow one day.

Share with us your career path to Kent
I finished 11th grade at school and then studied at the Humanitarian Academy for 4 years as a child teacher and psychologist. Upon graduating, I entered the Academy with a degree in Law. At that time, I worked in the Criminal Police Department. Then in 2013, I began working at the Karachaganak field in Kazakhstan as an HSE Administrator. I realised that that this was work I really enjoyed doing so I started a degree in HSE. I continued my studies and I became an HSE Site Engineer, working with Abiroy Technical Training, until April 2019.

During that time, I had heard a lot about Kent as an employer and sent my resume several times. After three years a suitable vacancy came up. I remember the day, April 22, 2019 that I got a call from the Kent team and here I am today.

What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?
Life is movement. The earlier I get out of bed, the bigger my day is. I look forward to a productive day with my family or at work. My dream is to buy my own apartment in Moscow and take NEBOSH training, so every day I wake up and strive for this.

What is your daily inspiration?
Smiling and laughter. Firstly, I see my daughter every day and that makes me smile. I also smile because I am a happy person. On project sites, smiling and engaging with people builds relationships and encourages others to be supportive. At work, I find this brings benefits to others and brings me a sense of joy which is why I smile.

What do you find most rewarding about the work that you do?
Just recently, one of my HSE Managers gave me an interesting job and said “Yelena, we are depending on a good result here, I believe in you and you can do it.” The fact that this job was not my original area of responsibility, but I was given the opportunity to show my other qualities and my manager believed in me, that was very rewarding for me. Working in a team with different people is also very rewarding for me.

I love my job and I always get satisfaction from doing it. When there is an opportunity to receive new training, successfully complete audits or do something new where I can implement my ideas to support other employees, I do it. And every evening, when the working day ends, I say thank you to my colleagues. Thanks to their hard work on the site, I get to do my job well. They smile at me and I get satisfaction. I love to hear words from colleagues like “Thanks Yelena…for helping us do our jobs safely”.