Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. A little over
Speaker 1: a month ago, I checked in with this incredible roundtable
Speaker 1: of senior executives from a broad swath of industries to
Speaker 1: talk about how work continues to ship because of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And among them was Jennifer Weber. She's senior vice president,
Speaker 1: chief human Resources officer at Archer Daniels Midland, as you know,
Speaker 1: a d M and integral part of the global food chain,
Speaker 1: so they were crucial during the pandemic, one of the
Speaker 1: world's largest processors of agricultural commodities, founded over a hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, and like many companies, taking a hard look
Speaker 1: at how we work through the pandemic and making shifts
Speaker 1: to reflect that. So let's bring in Jennifer, who joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Chicago. Jennifer, it is so
Speaker 1: great to have you back with us. How are you?
Speaker 1: I am doing well. Carol, it's nice to be back.
Speaker 1: How are you doing doing well? Doing well? Your your
Speaker 1: contributions and your story during that panel really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: You know, you actually had started at the company during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Correct, I did. I started in September of
Speaker 1: right right in the thick of it and in the
Speaker 1: heat of the pandemic. So talk to us about you know,
Speaker 1: you came in and all of a sudden, you guys
Speaker 1: were dealing with so much and you know, issues that
Speaker 1: I think as employers we didn't necessarily think a lot
Speaker 1: about potentially UM in terms of our employee base, but
Speaker 1: all of a sudden we had to, and we were
Speaker 1: talking about them at the open, whether it was mental
Speaker 1: wellness or juggling families and juggling work hybrid work. Tell
Speaker 1: us about the lessons that you guys have learned at
Speaker 1: a d M and things that are staying with you
Speaker 1: when it comes to how we work, sure, absolutely well.
Speaker 1: I think I think that UM a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One thing is just from a from a background or
Speaker 1: a context standpoint. At a d M, we have roughly
Speaker 1: forty employees and half of them and they're we're very global,
Speaker 1: So are are in the United States UM, and half
Speaker 1: of our workforce works in our manufacturing facilities, and so
Speaker 1: given the nature of the role that we play in
Speaker 1: the global food supply chain, we had a high percentage
Speaker 1: of our colleagues around the globe that UM needed to
Speaker 1: be in day in and day out, and so and
Speaker 1: then the balance of our employees are even either in
Speaker 1: office settings or lab settings. We have innovation centers around
Speaker 1: the world. Uh So, so throughout the pandemic, our our
Speaker 1: our colleagues kept that vital role we play in the
Speaker 1: global food supply chain, moving along at quite a bit
Speaker 1: of string, right because as you might imagine, we had
Speaker 1: a number of people who had to go out and quarantine.
Speaker 1: We monitored and tracked those things very very closely, and
Speaker 1: and I think we learned a lot about ourselves. So
Speaker 1: so to your first question, what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that we've learned through this um SO, one thing
Speaker 1: is we I think we gained a lot of confidence
Speaker 1: as an organization on our ability to deliver on our commitments,
Speaker 1: deliver on our commitments to customers, to our producers, to
Speaker 1: our shareholders UM and really make uh adjustments. We had
Speaker 1: to make significant adjustments to the way we conducted our
Speaker 1: work um uh, particularly across our office settings. UH and
Speaker 1: we had to do it in a way that we
Speaker 1: didn't miss a beat in terms of delivering. I think
Speaker 1: the other thing that we learned is there was a
Speaker 1: very healthy UM individual by individual, person by person, family
Speaker 1: by family reassessment of values. Right. And I would say
Speaker 1: a discussion about these things more openly. UM. I think
Speaker 1: for some people there were deep personal impacts that were
Speaker 1: felt as a result of covid UM and it placed
Speaker 1: great strain on their mental health and well being. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know, we had we had some colleagues
Speaker 1: who said, boy, has this been refreshing to reconnect with
Speaker 1: with family, hunker down with family, shelter in place and
Speaker 1: um and and do so together through a through an
Speaker 1: incredible period of uncertainty, and so you know, and then
Speaker 1: I and then I would say, we we, as an
Speaker 1: employer step back from this and said, boy, you look
Speaker 1: at this time, it's been extremely isolating. UM. We've had
Speaker 1: we've had parents of young children who have had to
Speaker 1: balance the demands of UM work commitments along with you know,
Speaker 1: young children in the home who sometimes their school has
Speaker 1: been interrupted. So you know, so we we we stepped
Speaker 1: back from all this and said, Okay, as we think
Speaker 1: about UM, the ecosystem of support we provide to our colleagues,
Speaker 1: how is this changing our thinking? Right? And and um
Speaker 1: and it's I think it's changed us in indelible and
Speaker 1: profound ways, and and and and in many permanent ways.
Speaker 1: That's been a healthy reset for many, many, many companies.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to our guest, Jennifer Webber,
Speaker 1: still with us, senior as president and chief human Resources
Speaker 1: Officer at Archer Daniels Midland still bid us on the
Speaker 1: phone in Chicago. Hey, Jennifer, we're talking about work shifting
Speaker 1: and the impact the pandemic has had on how we
Speaker 1: work and maybe what stays with us. One of the
Speaker 1: things that came up during the panel that we did
Speaker 1: was blue collar versus white color. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of workers who are in manufacturing facilities who couldn't do
Speaker 1: their job at home. How do we need to think
Speaker 1: about how we change policies work policies because I see
Speaker 1: companies struggling with well, unless we can do it for all,
Speaker 1: we can't do it for some. Because you're gonna have
Speaker 1: people saying, well, why does this person get to work
Speaker 1: home when I'm not able to? How do you manage that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that's a it's a really tough one, Carol.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. We We have discussions about this
Speaker 1: quite a bit and it's and it's important that we
Speaker 1: do so right because we uh, well, one thing, one
Speaker 1: thing I will say is we we call our employees
Speaker 1: colleagues for a reason, and that means that we are
Speaker 1: all colleagues. Whether you're in a manufacturer facility, you're an
Speaker 1: office setting, you're in an innovation lab, you're a you know,
Speaker 1: you're a you're a PhD and food science, or you
Speaker 1: are critical UM in one of our milling operations. We
Speaker 1: are all called colleagues with each other and and in
Speaker 1: this together. I think, what I think, what we what
Speaker 1: we stepped back and had to do is recognize that UM,
Speaker 1: this that covid um was creating a high degree of
Speaker 1: uncertainty for all of us UM, and the needs varied
Speaker 1: and how we meet the needs of our different colleagues
Speaker 1: varies depending upon where you sit in the organization, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, so we there were there were many times
Speaker 1: when we would pause and say, okay, given what we know, now,
Speaker 1: what do we need to adapt to more directly support
Speaker 1: our manufacturing colleagues, more directly support some of our office colleagues.
Speaker 1: And so just to just to give you some some
Speaker 1: examples of that, you know, we you know Throughout the
Speaker 1: course of this our focus has been on keeping our
Speaker 1: colleagues safe and healthy, and that's both physically and mentally.
Speaker 1: And so one of the one of the challenges in
Speaker 1: our manufacturing environments is UM is communications and the ability.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not somebody sitting behind a computer where
Speaker 1: we can reach them with a lot of educational resources
Speaker 1: and hey, here are you know e a P services
Speaker 1: that you're eligible for. It's just that's not that's not
Speaker 1: their day to day life. And so we needed to
Speaker 1: come up with other ways to make sure that we
Speaker 1: were arming our our leadership teams within our operations, that
Speaker 1: we were reaching our our early colleagues to make sure
Speaker 1: that they had the information that they needed to know
Speaker 1: how to access various resources to help them manage through
Speaker 1: this very very uncertain time. So that would be one
Speaker 1: example UM as it relates to UM. Other things that
Speaker 1: can be done, I would say with continued advances in
Speaker 1: UM manufacturing technologies UM, but also UM just different ways
Speaker 1: of thinking about the scheduling of work UM. Uh. So
Speaker 1: that uh that we're that that in our in our
Speaker 1: goal of of you know, delivering, you know, delivering on
Speaker 1: the commitments to our customers that we that we manage
Speaker 1: work in a way, we schedule work in a way,
Speaker 1: and we structure in a way that allows people to
Speaker 1: you know, to manage your work in life. And so
Speaker 1: you know, we have had to take a step back
Speaker 1: in some of our manufacturing facilities and say, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: how what do we do now and how do we
Speaker 1: help support these plant managers and maybe thinking about new
Speaker 1: and different ways of of scheduling and the way work
Speaker 1: can get done. So I think there's going to continue
Speaker 1: to be more and more pressure on on doing that,
Speaker 1: UM to follow through on a commitment that we have
Speaker 1: again and that's keeping everybody healthy and safe. UM. So
Speaker 1: it's in mental it sounds tricky, I gotta say. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about your job. I think this came
Speaker 1: up to that. I had mentioned that we saw it
Speaker 1: after the crisis where the CFO position really changed because
Speaker 1: they had to figure out how to keep companies financially
Speaker 1: alive in you know markets that had just you know,
Speaker 1: seized up. And during the pandemic. You know, HR wasn't
Speaker 1: just about wait, I gotta change my filing or you know,
Speaker 1: became crucial to getting companies through it. How has that
Speaker 1: job changed forever. Oh gosh. Uh well, UM, I would
Speaker 1: say that Uh. One of the ways is uh in
Speaker 1: you know, the the investment in the development of our
Speaker 1: people leaders. Uh. That's always been That's always been a
Speaker 1: really important focus. But I think this pandemic has placed
Speaker 1: additional strain and pressure on the role of the people
Speaker 1: leader to UM to understand, to know how to be
Speaker 1: empathetic and to meet colleagues where they are, given what
Speaker 1: they are going through, given the way in which they
Speaker 1: are internalizing this. And so I think that UM, the
Speaker 1: role of HR in advising and coaching leaders and making
Speaker 1: sure that there are approaches to development in place that UM.
Speaker 1: That that that makes sure that leaders understand how important
Speaker 1: that is. UM. That's taken on I think a new
Speaker 1: significance and meaning. I would say, you know, the the
Speaker 1: from an HR standpoint, even the strategy around how do
Speaker 1: we make sure that this UM. I would say convergence
Speaker 1: of both physical and mental health is something that we
Speaker 1: pay UM far closer attention to. You know, in the past,
Speaker 1: UM it may have been enough to say, are we
Speaker 1: offering the right benefits? Are people? You know, are people
Speaker 1: taking care of themselves? Um? Uh? Do they are benefits?
Speaker 1: Competitive now with with kind of emotional mental health and
Speaker 1: well being and the role that we know that plays
Speaker 1: in the in the way in which people are feeling
Speaker 1: about their work in life. It's critically important. And what
Speaker 1: what makes it tricky? And and the paradigm of success
Speaker 1: that many organizations are our premised tonight where it's you know,
Speaker 1: steff upper lip, carry on, you know, um uh that
Speaker 1: that becomes and and and and doing so you will
Speaker 1: get more responsibility, you'll get quoted. We have this paradigm
Speaker 1: of success that many organizations are founded on, and that's
Speaker 1: whereaking down a bit, right, because we need definitely to
Speaker 1: be willing to have these tough conversations. Hey, Jennifer, I
Speaker 1: have to jump in just very quickly twenty seconds. There's
Speaker 1: a headline that just said the FDA set to approve
Speaker 1: a third dose for you know, compromised tomorrow. That's coming
Speaker 1: from NBC. Very quickly twenty Are you concerned a little bit?
Speaker 1: Are you concerned a little bit about another wave? Just
Speaker 1: quickly yes, us we are, okay, you were quickly, Um,
Speaker 1: please come back. I would love to check in with
Speaker 1: you again, especially since I know there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on certainly in your area. Jennifer Weber, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Senior VP, chief Human Resources Officer at Archer Daniels Midland,
Speaker 1: a giant of course, in the food supply chain. On
Speaker 1: the phone from Chicago,