Leadership Interview - Rick McInnis

Over a year ago, Greiner Bio-One North America was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time. What challenges did you see back then and how did Greiner Bio-One meet them? With the COVID situation evolving, how did the challenges and measures change?

The beginning of the pandemic was really an unknown for us because it is nothing we have ever faced before in our business world at Greiner Bio-One North America. In the United States, we were trailing behind the scenario that was taking place in Europe and Asia. Luckily, Greiner as a whole took a very proactive stance by establishing what I would call a Coronavirus Committee within Greiner AG in Austria. They developed guidelines within the various divisions and shared them with all Greiner affiliates worldwide. We implemented that strict protocol, including handwashing, wearing a face mask, social distancing, and temperature checks when employees and visitors entered our site. Also, we limited the outside access to our facility. We only allowed technicians to enter the facility for maintenance purposes as necessary. We modified the interviewing process for potential new employees. We installed a COVID questionnaire that everyone had to complete before entering the facility, including questions such as: ‘Have you been exposed to anybody diagnosed with COVID?’ or ‘Have you recently traveled to an area that has a high risk for infection?’. We kept these interviews on file to facilitate contact tracing.

As we implemented those corporate guidelines early on, we were well prepared, but we still had a constant learning experience and had to adapt to new developments constantly. Anyone who was able to work remotely was encouraged to do so. Many of our office staff were working remotely. However, production workers, warehouse clerks, and quality control had to be in the facility. We wanted to ensure that these individuals could perform their jobs safely. Our close monitoring of the situation includes reporting the numbers of people working remotely, the number of employees that were unable to work, the number of positive cases, the number of active cases, and the number of closed infections to Austria.

In a later stage of the pandemic, we worked closely with the local health authorities, namely the Union County Health Department, to make vaccines available as quickly as possible for our employees since we are considered an essential manufacturer. We were able to schedule appointments for our workers who needed to come to our facility in person before being available to the general public.

After having lived during a pandemic for a year, what has worked well, while you have never thought they were possible, especially from an HR perspective?

We had to implement some things that we would never have thought of in a normal situation, so we had to think outside of the box. During the pandemic, we still had a large number of vacancies open – and we still have. Because of the pandemic, it was hard to impossible to structure a regular interview process. To tackle the situation, we started conducting drive-thru job fairs. In fact, we have already had three of them so far. Individuals were able to drive up to our facility, instead of a first phone interview, we could meet them in person, and they did not have to leave their car. We kept everyone safe by wearing a face mask while asking them the usual questions. In general, the labor market is challenged at the moment. While companies are coming back and production is continuously normalizing in various areas of the economy, the competition for workers is growing. Yet, all in all, we have managed to grow during the pandemic, so we have survived very well.

On an internal view, the number of team members that will be able to work from home has increased. I personally am very old-school and like a brick-and-mortar setting and being able to come into the office for work. But in a situation that could be life-threatening and potentially harming our business, it is good to understand that the technology exists to have individuals performing at least the essential functions of their jobs remotely. By sending people home, we could free up office space to enable distancing at the workspace. Hence, we only have 31 individuals in the company that ever tested positive, and none of these cases has led to a community spread at our facility. I did not think it was possible to keep a business running when employees worked remotely.

What learnings and takeaways do we get from the COVID pandemic? How will it change the way Greiner Bio-One’s does business in the future?

I hope that we are seeing the beginning of a return to normality right now. I don’t think anything will ever be quite the same as before COVID. But the sooner we get back to normalizing our processes, the better. However, now that we have learned that working remotely is an option, even a fairly successful one, the question will be if we need to have every employee back at the office at a certain point. I would not think so. I think people will be returning to the office in the near future, but as we continue to increase our number of employees here in North America, working space becomes a concern. As a result, we might be implementing more rotating schedules to be in the office, so team members might on-site only some days of the week, and workspaces become shared. Maybe employees will share their desks or have a common area where they are working. That might be something we might see in the future just because of the limitation of available workspaces. I think the demand for workers in the region will continue to be high. Traditionally, Union County has one of the lowest unemployment rates in North Carolina. One of the negative aspects of the pandemic in recruiting workers is that the government’s economic support, such as an extended period and amount of unemployment, paid when individuals lose their job. Benefits are very high at the moment, and it is almost like an incentive not to work because individuals can replace the income they had from working. As these supplements are fading out, for example, in South Carolina, workers are required to look for employment again. Obviously, it is a terrible situation if a worker loses their job, a company has to shut down, or lay off workers. Still, when things turn around, we need people to return and help the economy grow again. So, at the moment, we can clearly feel the impact of those measures, but I expect that this effect will have faded by late summer to fall. Luckily, we did not have to reduce our workforce during the pandemic. In fact, in December, we had 376 employees, and as of last week, we had 417 employees, and we still have about 40 positions open to fill, which is why we have implemented new ways of recruiting. For example, the drive-thru job fair, advertising on social media, and an updated employee referral program.

COVID seems to come close to an end in the US (while other parts of the world still struggle massively). What is your outlook on the next months?

I think it will be an evolving situation as we are dealing with something unknown and unprecedented. We cannot predict how life will return to normal. In the normal business world, I was accustomed to meeting people in person, either inside or outside the office. To have lunch or even a handshake has not existed in over a year. Last week, I met someone for the first time in a year for a business lunch. Yet, we were both wearing masks and not shaking hands, so the normal protocol is somewhat distorted. Especially with Greiner being a global organization, many of our employees traveled to Europe frequently for meetings. As this was not possible in the pandemic due to travel restrictions, we have shifted to a virtual environment using Microsoft Teams to conduct our meetings. I regard this as something positive as it will help us reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to being more sustainable. Besides that, I think that this will adversely affect our company culture. There is a clear difference between talking to individuals via Teams, a phone call, or emails compared to walking down the hall to someone’s office and sitting there and chatting for a few minutes. It is also more of a challenge to train individuals who join the company remotely than in person on-site. To sum it up, there will be some challenges in the future, but there will be more positive effects that we can learn from and making us even better prepared for the future.

So, we talked about taking the business world online has taken away closeness between coworkers. However, when talking to Greiner employees, they often tell me that one thing they appreciate most about working here is the closeness, the family-like atmosphere, and the sense of belonging where they are. Do you think we have to put a lot of effort into rebuilding this atmosphere, and how could we do that?
I believe so. Because to me, especially with the tremendous growth of Greiner Bio-One that I have seen in the past twenty years, it has become a bigger challenge to know all colleagues. For instance, when I was starting, twenty years ago, we had 47 employees, including field-based salespeople. So, I think we have to work harder on continuing and implementing that atmosphere. Because Greiner is a large organization, the fact that it is still family-owned means that they did something right in 152 years of growing the business. I also think that the thing that is so attractive about this company to me is the family atmosphere, and hence we want to make sure that we continue that family aspect for a long time. I feel like that it is one of the successes that Greiner can benchmark against: Does it still feel like a family organization?

Is there anything that I did not ask you about that you would like to add?

What must be added is that we are concerned about the current pandemic situation. Although we see the pandemic as a challenge and a great learning opportunity, we don’t want to become reckless. Even though the pandemic might be over soon and it seems that everything will resume we don’t think we will be in that type of situation. We want to continue to do everything possible to make sure that our employees and their families stay in a safe and productive environment. We can only do what we do because of our employees; they are our largest and most valuable asset. And as a board, we discuss how we can incentivize our employees to get the vaccine. Even though we do not require them to be vaccinated, we acknowledge that everyone will be better off if we reach the level of herd immunity, and the restrictions that currently exist can be eased.