About Scott Ryan
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.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Scott Ryan's recent appearances.
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Transcript (17 segments)
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Luke Lester0:54
Streaming now, this is the Wood TV Live Desk. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm News Eight Digital anchor Luke Lester here from our mobile live desk here in downtown Grand Rapids at Amway Grand Plaza for the CEO Summit 2022. Back in person. It's nice. It's finally back with some camaraderie around it as well. Scott Ryan joining me now from Gentex. Just got off the stage. Just had an amazing speech. Scott, appreciate taking some time here to chat.
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Scott Ryan1:27
Yeah, thanks for having me.
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Luke Lester1:28
So, tell me a little bit before we dive into some of the topics you hit on during your speech. Tell me a little bit about just kind of being back in person here and kind of having that camaraderie of being back in person.
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Scott Ryan1:38
Yeah, it's great to have these events back in person. You know, I really missed it during Covid and not being able to get back and actually engage with people. Zooms, video conferences were great. They served their purpose, but it was really no way to replace actually sitting down, sitting across the table from people, and engaging in conversations face to face.
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Luke Lester2:00
So, you just got off the stage here. You addressed the crowd there tackling the talent issue. Tell me about some of the main points that you hit on that you would really just want to hammer home and relate to other people who may not have caught it.
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Scott Ryan2:14
Yeah, we've really been trying to be creative. It's a challenging time. You know, everyone's struggling with it. It's across the board, both on the hourly side from manufacturing but all the way through technology, engineering, salary positions as well. There's a lot of work going on. One of the things I just talked about that we've been very excited about, we started about a year and a half or two ago, was we call our limited English proficiency program. What that did was we converted segments of our manufacturing process to support people that did not have English skills. We're focused on Spanish, and so we restructured those facilities to support individuals that only had Spanish-speaking skills. That's been a great program for us to engage parts of the community that historically we had not been able to partner with on an employee base. It's been very well received both internally and externally. It's been great to see.
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Luke Lester3:12
Why is it important to make an effort to tap into markets such as that, especially when you are quite literally tackling a labor shortage?
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Scott Ryan3:21
Yeah, a couple points. Yes, there is the labor shortage, so we needed to find ways to partner with parts of the labor force that we had not previously been engaged with. But also, just as part of the community and DEI efforts, 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.
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Luke Lester3:43
You mentioned morale especially during the pandemic. What efforts and why do you think it's important to really try to just keep morale up during those times of adversity?
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Scott Ryan3:54
Well, it's a challenge. Work is already stressful, but then you go through the pandemic and shutdowns and the amount of stress it put on people in their lives. Now we have other challenges that we're experiencing coming out of the pandemic on a personal side. So you have all of those extra stresses and then combine it into the workplace. There's a lot to manage there, and we gotta be able to work with people and know that there's all these external stresses beyond just the workplace happening in people's lives.
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Luke Lester4:29
Aside from being back in person, what is one thing that just excites you in general about having something like this?
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Scott Ryan4:40
It's just that engagement. During the shutdown, we talked about when we get back in person. Then we went to that fluctuation. Things were starting to come back. Then we had to go through cancellations. Now it does feel like we're really coming out of this. Yes, there's a lot of new challenges that we're facing and ahead of us, but the fact that we can get back to these types of events without having to go through some of the COVID protocols really does feel like we're getting back to some of the pre-COVID lifestyle.
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Luke Lester5:13
One of the questions I've been asking all throughout the morning, everyone that I've had up here, is what would you tell a young professional or maybe just a student fresh out of school, or someone hopping from that first job to their second job? What would you tell them?
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Scott Ryan5:28
I would encourage you to go out for that personal engagement. I spend a little bit of time talking about work from home. That is going to play an important part in how companies work moving forward, but if you're a young person coming out of college and you probably did a few of your years in school virtually, I'd say really focus on that personal engagement in the workplace. Whether that's your first job or internships, if there is a remote option, okay, but I would encourage you to really take that time to go into offices and meet the people in the company.
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Luke Lester6:03
Scott, appreciate your time, man.
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Scott Ryan6:04
Alright, thank you.
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Luke Lester6:05
Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a look at our mobile Wood TV live desk. Again, out at the CEO Summit 2022. I'm News Eight Digital Anchor Luke Lester. We'll see around. Stick with us. Several more interviews here as we go throughout the afternoon. Thanks.
