Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Sustainability Officer, Gentex
Search every verified Scott Ryan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Scott Ryan, vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary, and sustainability officer at Gentex, has spoken publicly about the company's talent strategies and the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. In 2022, he discussed Gentex's "Limited English Proficiency program," which converted manufacturing line segments to support Spanish-speaking employees, offering free English classes and bilingual leadership. He described the program as a response to a labor shortage and a way to be inclusive, stating that it was "important to be inclusive and we wanted to engage a segment of the population and help them become part of the Gentex family." Ryan also noted that Gentex expanded its equity program to include all U.S. employees and left decisions about remote work to individual vice presidents, as manufacturing roles cannot be remote while some engineering roles can. He encouraged young professionals to prioritize in-person engagement, saying, "If you're a young person coming out of college... I'd say really focus on that personal engagement in the workplace." In 2021, Ryan criticized Michigan's COVID-19 work-from-home order, arguing that it was "stifling innovation and hampering new product development." He stated that "all business cannot be conducted over a video conference call in the long term" and that the order put Michigan businesses at a competitive disadvantage compared to other states. Ryan added that many employees were "dealing with depression and feelings of isolation" and that the "novelty of working from home has long worn off." He said Gentex had implemented COVID protection protocols and that a "flexible process" acknowledging the costs of the orders was necessary.
“We are a West Michigan company even though we do have a global footprint and global distributions right now we have about 5,400 employees that's down from about 6,000 pre-COVID. We are a technology company and probably most known for our auto dimming technology mirrors in your cars.”
“We had to come up with different things to engage the available labor market. One of the things we did was the Limited English Proficiency program, where parts of our manufacturing lines are set up for Spanish-speaking only employees with very limited to zero English speaking capabilities.”
“We guaranteed our hourly workforce 32 hours of pay regardless of hours worked during the early COVID shutdowns to ensure some level of income despite uncertainty in customer orders.”
“We expanded our equity program to include every single U.S. employee, including hourly manufacturing employees, giving them stock option awards as a retention and recruiting tool. This aligns with our culture that the employee wins when the shareholder wins.”
“We struggled with signing bonuses because it created a cultural issue where new hires received bonuses while employees who stayed through the pandemic did not. Our stock option program was designed to balance recruiting incentives with rewarding loyalty.”
“We offer English as a Second Language classes at no cost to employees to help develop their skills for personal benefit or to move into other parts of the company.”
“Work from home is complex for us because manufacturing roles cannot be remote, but software engineers can. We left decisions about remote work to each vice president to manage based on their teams, holding them accountable for productivity.”
“We have bilingual leadership and bilingual teams in manufacturing, HR, and security to ensure that Spanish-speaking employees have the same experience and opportunities as everyone else in the company.”
“The Limited English Proficiency program started with the mantra of one shift, one language, one line, and expanded to cover all three shifts with about 130 people involved, including those who have developed English skills and moved to other parts of the company.”
“Our quarterly profit sharing bonus matches our public earnings release, so every employee participates and receives a percentage in their quarterly bonus, reinforcing that the employee wins when the shareholder wins.”
“We've really been trying to be creative. It's a challenging time. Everyone's struggling with it across the board both on the hourly side from manufacturing all the way through technology, engineering, salary positions as well.”
“We started about a year and a half or two ago what we call our limited English proficiency program. We converted segments of our manufacturing process to support people that did not have English skills, focusing on Spanish speakers, restructuring facilities to support individuals with only Spanish-speaking skills.”
“It's important to be inclusive and we wanted to engage a segment of the population and help them become part of the Gentex family, especially when tackling a labor shortage.”
“During the pandemic, morale was a challenge. The stresses from shutdowns and personal life combined with workplace pressures required us to work with people understanding all these external stresses beyond just the workplace.”
“It's great to have these events back in person. Zooms and video conferences served their purpose but there's really no way to replace actually sitting down, sitting across the table from people and engaging in conversations face to face.”
Scott Ryan, vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Gentex. (June 14, 2022)
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