Joel Delph: Here at Polytech, we want to care for people in a way that honors God. We want to make incredible products that solve problems for our clients each and every day. We want to be the best in our industry at that, and I really do believe we are. But the reason why we do that is so that we can care for people in a way that honors God.
Ron Kuehl: So we have 370 people roughly. We are 75 to $80 million, and we service clients in the aggregate energy and mining markets. Primarily, we are an injection molder of screening media panels, so we mold synthetic rubber and polyurethane to make panels to size rocks. The easy purpose of this company is that we are serving our customers with excellence so that we can make a lot of money so that we can care for people in a way that honors God. And that's been a foundational piece of who we are for many years. It's our true north. The result of the shift and the execution of faith in the workplace for us is that people feel cared for and they feel valued.
Julie Haneline: It's really a part of who you are. When you love Christ, that's a huge part of you. And to be able to share that at work is so important.
Sue Glossop: Well, it's very unique here. I've worked in a lot of publicly traded companies or private equity run companies, and what's cool about being here at Polydeck is that you're allowed to have faith. You don't have to have faith, but you're allowed to have faith, and you're allowed to be that part of your persona.
Susan Ballantyne: To me, my faith requires my work to be a part of my worship. I can't just come to work and just work, 12 hours a day and go, okay, that's for a buck, and now I'm at home and now I get to be a Christian, or now I get to display my faith. And here at Polydeck, it's been such a gift to be able to work for a company where not only is faith encouraged, but they provide opportunities for you to express your faith.
Joel Delph: Consistency over time builds trust. And I think what happens is when we intentionally do some things, the fruit of that is exponential.
Julie Haneline: And so my job title, I'm a caring specialist, and then I report to the caring manager and we fall under the HR umbrella. But here at Polydeck we call it employee care. It's incredible what this company does.
Joel Delph: So here at Polydeck, we care for people in five main ways. We call them the five Cs: crisis, career, community, calling, and celebration.
Ron Kuehl: I mean, just organizationally we have "caught you caring" nominations. So there's several different core values that we have, and we challenge the organization to look for those core values throughout the month. And if people find other people taking care of other people and living out a core value, then we reward those behaviors.
Julie Haneline: Every employee is allowed to go on one mission trip per year. It's a full week, it's paid.
Sue Glossop: I think we have stronger bonds, like I've gone to Nicaragua twice now, and that group that I shared those experiences with, that's a much stronger bond that you can get in any sort of corporate team building thing because you're really out there helping people and reminding yourself of how blessed you are too.
Julie Haneline: That's unheard of. I get a whole week to go serve. I don't have to take vacation, and everything's paid for.
Ron Kuehl : The courtyards that we have. We have some fountains out there. There's another courtyard that you haven't seen yet, but it's a place for people to go and meet and connect with other people and build relationships. We open meetings with caring concerns. So does anybody have anybody that's going through a struggle throughout the organization? After that, we would pray. Peter likes to call it his boss's office. So the owner of our company, Peter Freissle, he's right over here. We have a chapel that he built. It was 15 years ago around the time of the retreat that he went on, and that's open for anybody at any time.
Julie Haneline: Our huge thing is generosity. I feel like, like that's the main way that we show Christ through others is generosity.
Ron Kuehl: We take one and a half percent of our revenue and apply it towards caring. That's one of the principles of the company. We split that up into the employees, the families, and the communities. So we're pretty intentional about the communities and we're budgeting money to go make a difference in the communities and listen the communities.
For us, we're a global company. We have a plant in Chile, we have distribution center in Peru. We have people all the way from North and South America. We're allocating money to go make a difference in all the communities that we play in. And so the sales team has money because they're spread all over the country and again, North and South America, that we are trying to find opportunities to connect with every community that we're in through our actions and donations and helping people that are in need.
Susan Ballantyne: What a gift to be able to work for a company that wants to care, that believes that the greatest commandment is to love God. But then the second greatest is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Joel Delph: I think there's something powerful when you can authentically be who God's called you to be. And we live in a world that's really good at making us put on masks. We put on masks when we go home, we put on masks, we go to work. When we're at the store, we're at the gym, and the culture of the people that we're entering in determines what mask we pull out. And when we can have an authentic area where people can be who God's called them to be, and it's okay, then I get to bring my best self to work.
Ron Kuehl: And I will tell you that in the last five years, I think the stats for us at Polydeck is 50% of the workers here have come in the last five years. And a significant chunk of those people are here because of the faith in the workplace and the environment that we've tried to create from that. And again, I want to highlight the fact that we are not beating people over the head with the Bible. We're just trying to love people, and that's it. And then hopefully through our actions and behaviors, they see a opportunity and then God will step into their life and God will do what only God can do.
Sue Glossop: I'm very thankful because I'm able to use both my skills, my professional skills, and then my faith skills at work in the same place. So I'm very thankful that it's a very unique opportunity, really.
Ron Kuehl: How do I reach more people where they are? Because you can't convert Christians, so all you can do is try to reach the people that you touch. And work is one of the biggest opportunities that we have. And I think several people in the past have said that the workplace is the new church. And so it becomes, it's really not about for me, is it worth it? It's just part of the journey and it's the next step when you're ready to take that step. It's a wonderful opportunity to continue God's mission for us, which again, for me is just loving people.
