For many years I have worked with the people that initially started the HyLife food company from farm to plate and watched them develop their operation and system. When I read this company information released by the CEO Grant Lazaruk, a personal friend, it impressed me from developing a protocol to look after their people, animals, communities, and of course, the company’s best interests now owned by people outside of Canada.
HyLife, one of Canada’s leading pork producers, sent out information reassuring the public during the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 the company takes its obligation to the employees, animals, customers, and their communities seriously.
“As community partners, we rely on the trust of our communities and are working non-stop to find creative solutions to the problems presented by today’s current events,” said the company CEO Grant Lazaruk. “Throughout our history, we have operated under strict safety policies and procedures, along with effective biosecurity programs to protect against viruses. We plan to use these strong habits to develop the measures needed to keep everyone safe from COVID-19.”
Lazaruk said as an essential service, providing communities with food, their teams continue to fulfill operational needs. HyLife began these measures weeks ago as information about the outbreak surfaced. The company continues to evolve and adjust these measures to meet and protect the needs of their teams.
The company has set-up a COVID-19 Response Team, a combination of leaders from across the company, dedicated to planning and implementing new preventative measures for the company.
“We have contracted a Public Health expert to join our staff to provide science-based support to our employees and monitor and hold our teams accountable to the highest health standards,” said the HyLife CEO. “We have created a work from home plan for as many of our employees as possible, and where it isn’t possible, we take extra precautions to make sure we are social distancing.”
Lazaruk said they’re creating new spaces at the Neepawa processing plant site, increasing space available for employee breaks to help maximize social distance where possible. Working on rearranging our shifts at the processing plant to have fewer people at the plant at a time, and also minimize interactions at shift changes to maximize social distance as much as possible.
HyLife has suspended all company travel. They have asked all employees to cancel personal travel outside of their home countries and working with employees on a case-by-case basis to minimize the financial impact of cancelling their travel.
“We require all employees who are returning from international travel to self-isolate for 14 days, assisting with the pick-up of employee’s friends and family from the airport to minimize interactions with people who are travelling internationally,” said Lazaruk. “We have restricted all third parties from entering HyLife workplaces.
Here are more steps:
*Eliminated in-person meetings unless required and are empowering our teams to use technology to facilitate as many of our peer-to-peer conversations.
*They are taking measures to minimize paper transactions across the company.
*Placed extra cleaning in common areas.
Lazaruk said HyLife is providing additional payments to employees required to stay home while ill or self-isolated as an incentive to ‘do the right thing’ and not feel pressured to come to work for financial reasons.
“We are continuing to educate our staff through internal communications regularly with ongoing prevention messaging, details on self-isolation, and how to reach out for help when experiencing symptoms.”
He said they’re happy the Canadian government announced the need to continue commerce between Canada/US border.
“Our transportation, distribution, exportation, and warehousing are working together to minimize any potential disruption to our supply chain, allowing us to continue to move forward,” said Lazaruk. •
— By Harry Siemens