b'I wasnt sure how thisglobal pandemic? Having a dedicated team is a crucial, would all work out in thesays Ver Helst.beginning, but we areWe took a hard look at our business and where the able to carry out veryholes would have been if we would have had an out-effective remotebreak, what we would have had to do in that situation. audits and inspec- We started by following all of the Center for Disease tions. I myselfControl measures that had been put in place. We took a have done threelook at the daily traffic patterns in our laboratory, where or four lab auditsour personnel were moving around, so we could easily remotely, makingtrack them if we did have an outbreak, she says.use of the techno- Contact tracing was important. We put mask man-logical tools thatdates in place and started doing daily temperature moni-we have to facilitatetoring. We helped staff to understand that if they didnt that. Depending onfeel well, that they were to stay home. We were able to how things progressoffer some additional benefits to aid in that as well.with future waves of theSuch careful measures have led to long-term benefits coronavirus, the remotefor SGS, she adds.option is going to remainWe saw a significant decrease in sicknesses across the viable for the foreseeableboard. Well definitely be relying more on virtual commu-Amanda Ver Heist future. nication with clients as time goes on as well.Amanda Ver Helst experi- Scott and the Seeds Canada team have seen the same enced the same need for flexibil- benefits.ity. The director of operations for SGSI havent been sick and a year-and-a-half; its amazing based in Brookings, South Dakota, oversees the worldswhat wearing a mask and washing your hands more often largest independent seed testing laboratory looking atcan do for you. I find with remote audits and inspections, seed germination, measurements, vigour, purity, specificIm able to do more than I could if I had to travel. When traits, and many other metrics used to measure seedyou travel physically, you lose a day getting there and a quality. SGS also has an analytical chemistry laboratoryday getting back home. I can easily see there being more where staff analyze components of grain feed and otherremote activity that becomes a permanent part of our commodities. job, Scott says.The high-throughput laboratory in Brookings com- You cant do it all remotely all the time, of course. prises about 68,000 square feet and employs about overThere are times when you have to be there physically, but 100 full-time people. virtual communications definitely have their place in what When COVID first began there were a lot of concerns.we do. Obviously, we couldnt just switch all our staff to remote work. People cant just build a lab in their home. So, we had to address that situation right away, Ver Helst says.First, SGS looked to see what jobs it could move to remote setups to keep staff as safe as possible. That meant analyzing each individual role. For those who had to remain in the lab, safety protocols were developed in the event an outbreak took place.We had to ask ourselves what would happen if there was an outbreak in our lab, and what we would need to do in that situation. We ended up splitting our staff into two separate shifts, which didnt have physical contact with each other. That way, if we did have an outbreak on one shift, we had another shift to come compensate for that, she says.There was a lot of navigating work-life-family bal-ance. With schools being shut down and kids at home, our staff had to have the flexibility to manage their personal schedules as well during that time. At the same time, we had to keep our business open and operating atCheck out our Seed Speaks videofull capacity. interview on this very topic! But how do you keep a business running during agermination.ca/playing-it-safeNOVEMBER 2021 GERMINATION.CA 5'