A reflection on 2020 with gratefulness for our customers and how we held on to our core values as a company.

Polydeck has not only maintained its level of giving and employee support, but we have been able to avoid laying off any employees during this challenging time and found a way to use our resources to bless others in new ways.

“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This November, we enter a season of gratitude and begin to wrap up a year that has carried a level of stress, worry and hardship that has affected everyone. However, at Polydeck we remain immensely and genuinely grateful. We are grateful for our customers, without whom we could not have maintained our tradition of caring, and without whom we would not have been able to maintain our staffing levels despite an economic downturn that has affected every industry across the globe. Despite the ongoing global pandemic, and thanks to the support and strength of our customers, Polydeck has not only maintained its level of giving and employee support, but we have been able to avoid laying off any employees during this challenging time and found a way to use our resources to bless others in new ways.

Our leadership has long believed and shown with its actions that the company can really only be truly great when each member of every team inside the company is cared for and empowered to be their best, every hour of every day. Because of this belief, we dedicate 1.5% of each prior year’s sales to our Caring Fund. This fund cares for employees in five areas, including Crisis, Career, Calling, Celebration and Community. Crisis cares for employees who experience unplanned events such as a vehicle repair or home repair need that is a financial burden to them. Career provides the opportunity for internal and external learning to allow our employees to grow beyond their current level of knowledge or education. Calling sends employees on mission trips of their choosing. Celebration is how we recognize important milestones and holidays and involves the entire employee population, not just upper management. Community is our method of empowering employees to serve in the local and global community with financial support and earned time off.

This year, Polydeck used a portion of the funds we would have spent on events and created care packages for employees with family members serving and working on the front lines of the pandemic. In addition, we were able to make and distribute masks for every Polydeck employee with these funds.

We recently held our annual Community Caring Day, involving all three manufacturing shifts and the entire sales team via Skype. During Community Caring Day, we challenged every employee to get involved in their community to make a difference. In our challenge to employees this year, Polydeck focused on Give, Serve, and Go.

For us, Give means you give from what you have, because we believe generosity is a muscle that grows stronger with each use. In order to make it easy for our employees to give, we set up paycheck deduction opportunities for The United Way, South Carolina Children’s Foundation, and Chosen Children Ministries. Polydeck matches each dollar given to the named foundations to maximize the impact of each employee’s generosity.

We encourage employees to Serve as part of Community Caring Day. We believe in the power of sacrificing time for someone who needs it, and the impact of a few hours given by each employee is almost too great to measure when you consider the number of burdens lightened by those helped. Every employee is encouraged to serve in their community for two hours each year, during their paid work time. If an employee serves in the community for eight hours, they are granted an extra paid day off from work as a thank you. To make it even easier to find opportunities to volunteer and serve, we host monthly volunteer events for employees.

It’s natural as we enter the Thanksgiving season to be aware of all that we have. However, for Polydeck, gratitude is simply a part of the company culture, no matter the month or the season. More importantly, we realize we cannot do anything without the support and loyalty of our customers and the dedication of our employees. Polydeck leadership knows that neither they nor their employees are perfect, yet it’s their hope that by building and living a culture of caring every single day, the world will be a better place to live. When we are able to give, serve, and go locally and globally with the abundance that we have been blessed with, that is the true expression of gratitude. This November and always, thank you. Thank you for your loyalty and continued support of our products and our company.