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  4. Return to the New Normal; How fostering an entrepreneurial workforce is a necessary aspect of returning to work during the COVID-19 pandemic

Return to the New Normal; How fostering an entrepreneurial workforce is a necessary aspect of returning to work during the COVID-19 pandemic

July 30th, 2020

Authors: Charles Golub – Market Development Manager Saint-Gobain Medical Components

                 Dr. Julia DiCorleto – Saint-Gobain Research North America Center Director

 

Finding a new work normal is a challenge for both employees and companies.  The framework of the hierarchy of controls (https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hierarchy/default.html) provides some reference for how to mitigate risks such as a virus, but it doesn’t give the updated picture needed for today’s requirements.  In helping to facilitate a safe return to work, companies must also consider many uncertain risk factors.  Each step of the hierarchy can help to guide the proper policies companies should instill, but further actions may be required to ensure a safe return to office.  Saint-Gobain Research North America, one of Saint-Gobain’s largest research & development centers, employs over 300 researchers and engineers across a diverse campus that includes laboratory space and open-concept offices.  The center has done an impressive job of outlining safe return to work steps and instituting procedures that ensure sustainable and safe office practices.  To understand more about what steps were taken to safely bring the staff back to office, we sat down with Dr. Julia DiCorleto, the director of Saint-Gobain Research North America.

Your employees are your biggest asset, so ensuring they are comfortable in their work atmosphere is critical to their return to work.  Organizing cross-functional teams within the organization is one way to ensure people’s concerns are being heard in a constructive manner.  “At Saint-Gobain Research North America, we assembled a team from many different business units and job competences to look into “the new normal”, Julia mentioned, adding that the center executive committee had reviewed guidelines from the, CDC, and local and federal governments. “The guidelines set forth by these agencies were used to create the outline of engineering and administrative controls.  Then, the “new normal” team was tasked with taking these guidances and implementing a tangible action plan to eventually bringing the full staff back to office. This engages multiple levels of the organization into being active in the safety and wellbeing of their fellow coworkers.”

The culture of the workplace needs to be enabling of an entrepreneurial spirit to help foster a safety culture in the current environment.  The R&D center not only has resources, but also resourceful people that used available technology, such as 3D printers and injection molding machines, to quickly make face coverings that were distributed to the workforce. “We were early adopters to require face coverings at all times while indoors,” says Julia. They had a team of engineers quickly identify a design and start molding comfortable face coverings within weeks of the pandemic reaching the region, which was greatly helpful at the time when administrative controls such as face coverings were not widely available since they were being used as PPE in hospitals. 

You may find your employees have some creative ideas that could help the overall health and safety of the workplace.  At the R&D center a variety of teams work under the same roof on a wide variety of projects with a broad range of technical expertise from analytical chemistry to application specific knowledge for given business’ needs. While working with different groups sharing a single location lend themselves well to a culture of innovation, it does not make planning and maintaining space during a pandemic an easy task, so additional administrative controls were required.  Again employees of the R&D Center had a plan, a group mentioned they could build a custom capacity tracking app that would look at who is in each workspace and ensure there was not overcrowding.  As the app was being built certain risk parameters that had been defined, such as how many workers could be in a given area, were easily integrated into the app. While people signed out workspace (whether it was offices or labs), capacity constraints could be taken into consideration. Additionally, the center used the app to assist in their ongoing contact tracing program. “We have had folks log where they are each day, and we also have badging data [doors throughout the center require a badge to enter].  Those, combined with interviews by HR, have allowed us to quickly determine who may have had contact that would put them at risk.  Close contact is defined by the CDC as within 6 feet for 15 minutes or more.  We err on the side of caution and consider anyone in the same lab (even at more than 6 feet) to be at risk,” Julia mentions. “The app now helps us manage occupancy and gives a great starting point for contact tracing; we also use badge data and interviews.”  The team designed and built the app within a weeks and it was live shortly thereafter.

“Controls” are often thought to be top down initiatives, and best practices, come from sharing ideas cross functionally -  both of these concepts need to be integrated into your return to work action plan.  There has to be both in order to meet the needs of the current and future workplace environment.  Controls need to be put in place for the safety of employees, but harboring an innovative environment where coworkers take extra steps to ensure their fellow coworkers feel safe; that requires empowering the individuals and is ultimately the path towards sustainably returning to work during uncertain times.

Charles Golub - Market Development Manager for Saint-Gobain Medical Components

Charles Golub is the Market Development Manager for Saint-Gobain Medical Components focusing on finding the unmet needs of future customers and providing them with Saint-Gobain’s creative solutions.  Prior to joining the medical marketing team, he spent 12 years in Research and Development and has an expertise in bringing innovative solutions to market. He has technical expertise in polymer materials and blends as well as analytical methods of analyzing them and he holds over a dozen patents.

Dr. Julia DiCorleto - Director of Saint-Gobain Research North America Center

Julia DiCorleto is the Director of Saint-Gobain’s R&D Center in Northboro, MA. Dr. DiCorleto previously held the position of General Manager of the Tape Solutions Business, a world leader in specialty tapes for bonding, protection and insulation. Dr. DiCorleto began her career in Saint-Gobain in Research & Development. Over the years, she held various positions of increasing responsibility in R&D and business activities.

Dr. DiCorleto  holds a B.S. in chemical engineering & materials science from the University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT) and a PhD in Polymer Science/Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA). Prior to her industrial career, Dr. DiCorleto spent two years at the JJ Thomson Physical Laboratory at the University of Reading (Reading, England).

About Saint-Gobain

Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which are key ingredients in the wellbeing of each of us and the future of all. They can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure and in so many industrial applications.

 

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics' group of businesses gather solutions to save energy, provide protection, improve comfort and sustain the environment for a variety of markets.

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Saint-Gobain’s medical products are distributed exclusively to medical device manufacturers for use in the manufacture, assembly or distribution of their medical devices. Saint-Gobain cannot authorize the sale of its medical products directly to device user facilities (e.g. hospitals, surgery centers, nursing home, clinics, etc.), nor directly to end users (e.g. patients, patients’ caregiver, prescribing physician, nurse, pharmacist, etc.), including distributors serving device user facilities and end users directly. In accordance with every jurisdiction globally, Saint-Gobain’s customers are responsible for determining that any medical device they manufacture and market that incorporates a Saint-Gobain’s medical product, is compliant with each country-specific medical device regulations and has received proper country-specific clearance, certification or registration authorizing the sale of this medical device.


Saint-Gobain’s medical products offer covers:
- Medical Components [21 CFR 820.3(c)], intended for processing or use in the manufacture or assembly of medical devices before the finished medical device is packaged/labeled; Medical Components are intended to be included as part of the finished, packaged, and labeled device [21CFR820.3(c)].
- Finished Devices [21CFR820.3(l)] made on behalf of medical device manufacturers [21 CFR 807.20(a)(2)] under contract-manufacturing agreement. In accordance with the United States’ jurisdiction, Saint-Gobain complies with the FDA’s requirements for contract manufacturers of finished devices.

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