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