COVID-19's Impact on Labor and Employment | Daniels College of Business

This episode of the VOE Podcast features Daniels alumna Megan Smith (BSBA 2006), CEO of Symbia Logistics, for a conversation about the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on labor and employment–especially for women in the workforce. She comments on the findings from the National Women’s Law Center that 2.3 million women left the workplace since February 2020 and that women’s participation in the workforce fell to 57%–the lowest it’s been since 1988. Smith also shares what it means to be an ethical employer and a responsible business, as Symbia was named one of the top green supply chain partners in 2021 by Inbound Logistics Magazine.

The VOE Podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Keep tuning in each month for more business insights from Daniels’ alumni voices of experience.

Transcript

Kristal Griffith:
Hello, and welcome to the VOE Podcast.

Jake Jensen:
An extension of Voices of Experience.

Amber D’Angelo:
The signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. We’re your hosts.

Kristal Griffith:
Kristal Griffith.

Jake Jensen:
Jake Jensen.

Amber D’Angelo:
And I’m Amber D’Angelo from the Daniels Office of Communications and Marketing. We’ll be unpacking topics at the intersection of business and the public good with CEOs and other business leaders from the Daniels community. Let’s dive in.

Welcome to our first episode of the VOE Podcast. Today, we’re speaking with Megan Smith, a Daniels alumna who graduated with her BSBA in management in 2006. Megan is the CEO and majority owner of Symbia Logistics, a supply chain management and warehousing provider and Certified Women’s Business Enterprise. Symbia is a competitor to Amazon and is based out of Edwards, Colorado.

Hi, Megan. Thanks for joining us today.

Megan Smith:
Thanks for having me, Amber.

Amber D’Angelo:
Absolutely. Can you give us a brief overview of what Symbia offers and who are some of your clients?

Megan Smith:
Yeah, Symbia Logistics is a third-party logistics company. We’re a warehousing provider, and specifically and most notably moving into the e-commerce, e-fulfillment space. And we do distribution and fulfillment for companies of global proportion all the way down to your Colorado startup. Some of our most notable clients are Canopy. Canopy Growth is a CBD company, and we do small parcel fulfillment for them. So we ship out their Martha Stewart gummies and anything fun like that. And then we do fulfillment for a company called Tone It Up, and they’re kind of a big influencer on Instagram, workout gear, apparel, and all kinds of fun, little things for your health and beauty.

We’ve got 22 warehouses from coast to coast, so we’re a national company. We have one up in Canada in Calgary. And we kind of run the gamut of services in terms of fulfillment and distribution, going everywhere from the end consumer to a business like I had said. So we call that omni-channel fulfillment and that’s kind of our bread and butter and that’s what we’re great at.

Amber D’Angelo:
So things like the epic toilet paper shortage of 2020 come to mind. Can you give us a sense of what the last two years have been like in your industry?

Megan Smith:
Yeah. The supply chain industry in general has just been blossoming and exploding over the last two years in terms of new entrants into this space, the technology that is now being leveraged to get the job done, the explosion of e-commerce in general because of the pandemic. We saw record growth with that channel of sales and that impacted our industry heavily and that’s just the tip of the iceberg is the growth of the supply chain industry in general. Because what ended up happening is supply chains have been completely disrupted and dismantled and turned about on their head, mostly because of resources and whether that’s toilet paper not being on the shelf or a cyber attack and suddenly there’s no gas anywhere. So there’ve been a lot of these … Oh, and not to mention the COVID pandemic. But there’ve been a lot of these anomalies that have happened during this huge explosion in our industry as well.

So it’s sort of this culmination of craziness with the pandemic the past two years, plus this growth and just kind of new entrants into the space, new ways of doing supply chain, new ways of doing warehousing, new definitions of our industry. It’s been, like you said, an epic couple of years to be in this space. So I think that the shortages that we faced as consumers really started on the business side. And so we saw a lot of that stuff kind of happening in the pipeline before it hit the consumer. And I can say the same going into this Q4 holiday season, people are preparing much further in advance. People have landed inventory into our warehouses sooner than ever because we’re anticipating it to be a crazy holiday season.

Amber D’Angelo:
Wow. How has everything that has been going on impacted labor and employment? Even though your industry has been turned upside down, you shared with the Daniels Business Magazine that HR has actually been one of your biggest challenges in overseeing a thousand employees during the pandemic. So why is that?

Megan Smith:
Yeah. I mean, I think it goes back to really the pandemic and what that’s done to the face of the labor market. First of all, you’ve got a large contingent of people, especially in the beginning, staying home to stay safe, to take care of their families. For whatever reason, a lot of people had to stay home and drop out of the workforce so that means a record number of people out of the workforce. On top of that, we’ve got a record boom in some of our industries, supply chain being one of them, even though people may not have been out and about they were still consuming. And so that’s kind of where this labor crisis has really hit our company and I would say you see it across the board. You drive by McDonald’s and they have a sign out front saying, “sign-on bonus.” It’s like, well, when did you ever get a sign-on bonus at McDonald’s? But that’s the labor market we’re facing.

And then you’ve got a lot of change happening. Like I had mentioned in terms of technology and tech space in general, it’s still growing and whether that’s in the supply chain industry or not. I mean, Denver is a perfect example of what’s going on. I just saw an article in the Denver Post that more people than ever are jumping ship from their current jobs. And in Colorado, in the Denver market particularly, because they’re being offered better pay, better jobs, at these new companies that are sprouting up.

So it’s kind of you’ve got the pandemic, obviously that’s just sort of the foundation of the issue, but that turned into a lot of other things. And so what we’re now facing, going into Q4 is not only a pandemic, not only a lack of resources, but a lack of humans to get the job done. And again, we are on the forefront of that. We’re seeing that firsthand. We’re the first people really feeling it, so we’ve been very proactive, right? We’ve had to do a lot of different things to adapt to the situation and make sure that people are still getting their packages and still getting the groceries on the shelves and all of these really important things have to continue to happen. It’s not an option.

So by getting creative, changing hours of shifts, offering bonuses, offering new pay structures, giving all different types of incentives, whether that’s benefits or retirement packages, we’re having to pull out all the stops. And so I know we’re not the only ones, but I definitely think that going into Q4 labor is going to be one of the biggest topics that we’re hearing about.

Amber D’Angelo:
On that topic, I’d love to talk a little bit about women and especially mothers. You and I are both full-time working moms and you’re actually on your maternity leave.

Megan Smith:
Right.

Amber D’Angelo:
Congratulations.

Megan Smith:
Thank you.

Amber D’Angelo:
Yeah. So the pandemic presented a big challenge to parents, but really to women in particular when schools and childcare centers were closed. The National Women’s Law Center found that 2.3 million women left the workplace since February 2020. And women’s participation in the workforce fell to only 57%, which is actually the lowest it’s been since 1988. Did this mass exodus of moms show up at Symbia during COVID?

Megan Smith:
Yeah, I mean to see those numbers, it’s pretty stark. I know that you and I both come from a place of pushing for women to be in the workforce and so to see those, it’s just so disheartening but it’s also part of the reality. I mean, women were hit the hardest because our kids weren’t able to go to school anymore. And for any working mom, that’s a saving grace to have your kids in a safe environment, learning for eight hours, that gives you the opportunity to go to work. And when that’s not an option, I mean, we’ve either got to drop out or come up with some crazy alternative. Have we felt that at Symbia? For sure.

Interestingly enough, historically the supply chain industry has been very male-dominated. But with the kind of explosion of e-commerce and with that e-fulfillment, as we call it, there’s a lot more opportunity for women. Supply chain is no longer just driving forklifts and lifting heavy things and it’s not this brute industry anymore. There’s a lot of finesse that goes into some of these clients that we have. They’re very high touch. They have gift packaging and stickers that need to be placed perfectly. And so there’s a lot more opportunity, I guess, for females to get into this space. So it’s kind of, again, this sort of interesting time in supply chain where there’s more opportunity than ever for women, but there’s less women to do the jobs now. And we’re feeling that, that’s impacting us.

And I will say another area that we tend to thrive in terms of females at Symbia is kind of in this customer service realm. And one of our recent losses was a female in that area and she simply left because she felt like she needed to take care of her children, who weren’t getting what they needed at home.

Amber D’Angelo:
How have you responded?

Megan Smith:
Well, we’ve done the best that we can. There’s a lot of benefits to being family-owned, which we are, and family is very important to us. So some of the things that we’ve done, just kind of to get creative across the board, there’s a lot of females in our office jobs, like I said, the customer service realm. It’s not uncommon that you’ll see them with one of their children who’s doing their homeschool at the office. We’ve allowed a lot of people to bring their kids to work if it’s safe and they can do so.

Otherwise, we’ve started offering different shift times that work for women kind of after school. So opening up a third shift where we use to not have one. Changing hours so that people can come in more flexibly. That’s sort of the ways that we’ve responded and I think that the overwhelming feeling that I have is that we can all do more. Being a mom and also a working mom, the list of responsibilities is just never-ending. And I think that we all need to support moms more in terms of working moms, especially. So I think that that’s going to, again, be another big conversation that we’re having in the next six to 12 months is how can we get these women back to work and supporting their families in a healthy way? I think that we’re all kind of feeling it. So, yeah.

Amber D’Angelo:
Yeah.

Megan Smith:
We’ll see.

Amber D’Angelo:
As you know, Daniels is known for teaching ethical leadership and dedication to the public good. Do these values factor into your role as a leader? And how do you conduct business responsibly?

Megan Smith:
I do know that Daniels has always been on the top of the list in terms of ethics and kind of social responsibility. That has not only been driven home in kind of my formal education, but something that I’ve always cared about deeply. And one of my very first businesses when I graduated was all about eco and kind of social responsibility. So definitely been something near and dear to my heart.

And as a leader, I think that there’s kind of two buckets in terms of business responsibility, right? There’s that sustainability focus, the eco side. And then there’s also the social side and being an ethical employer. And those are two separate buckets. But for us, I guess we believe that every step toward a greener future is a step in the right direction.

We recently made the list through Inbound Logistics Magazine as one of the top green supply chain partners in 2021. It’s called the G75. And essentially some of the ways that we give back are through recycling. In 2020, we like to say we did a bit of recycling. We recycled over 705 tons of metal, which to me just sounds like a lot. To put it into like real-life perspective, that’s the size of four jumbo jets.

Amber D’Angelo:
Oh, wow.

Megan Smith:
And then on our pallet side of the business, we recycled over 13,924 tons of wood. That’s over 500,000 pallets.

Amber D’Angelo:
Oh my goodness.

Megan Smith:
Yeah. The numbers get pretty astounding when you look at it from a network-wide perspective. You’ve got 22 warehouses and when we started putting these numbers together we were all pretty shocked and proud as well.

So one of the other cool things that we’ve done is on behalf of all of our clients, we’ve got about 150 clients, we planted 1500 trees and we’ve made that dedication to do that two times a year through an organization called One Tree Planted. And so we get to choose kind of where we’re reinforcing and what parts of the world we’re kind of giving back to.

And then in terms of just being an ethical and responsible business, we are a women’s business enterprise. That means that the company is majority-owned by a woman and that would be me. So diversity and equality and equity across the board, those are very important topics for me and definitely for the company. We seek to not only create a safe and friendly work environment, but a place where people will feel like they’ve got opportunity to grow no matter what your background. And I really think that that’s … Again, one of the beautiful things about the supply chain industry, it’s very hard, it’s very gritty, but there’s always room for growth. And it’s got people out there looking for a foot in the door, a place that they feel like they can grow. Symbia is a great place for that. We really curate people from pick and pack orders all the way to supervisor and moving them up to manager. And I just think that that’s probably one of the greatest joys of being a part of Symbia is to create an environment for people where you might not have had that opportunity traditionally. But because of the industry, it’s all about experience. And if you prove that you’ve got hard work and experience, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from, there’s always a place for you at Symbia.

Amber D’Angelo:
Fantastic. That’s great. Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you would like to share?

Megan Smith:
Yeah. I think that Symbia in its roots kind of stands for this concept of symbiotic relationships. And that’s really a relationship in which both parties are benefiting from this union. And ultimately that’s how we look at our business. That’s how we look at our relationships with our employees. That’s how we look at our relationships with our teams and also our customers. We are trying to create an organization built on trust, ethics, these sort of values of partnership that will see us through the long term.

So we want to create an environment that’s not only great for our employees. They can stick around for 10, 15 years, hang their hat with us for their career if they want to. But the same with customers, we pride ourselves on creating those long-term partnerships and relationships.

Amber D’Angelo:
Yeah. That’s so important. Especially these days with the isolation during the pandemic, I feel like partnership and community have never been more important.

Megan Smith:
Yeah, for sure.

Amber D’Angelo:
Well, you are one of our Voices of Experience. As a Voice of Experience, what do you wish you had known as a student? And is there a motto or lesson that perhaps you would like to pass on to others?

Megan Smith:
I think that the motto or lesson that I always like to pass on is find your niche, find that place, whether you’re looking for something personally that satisfies you or if you’re looking to start a business, if you’re just looking to be a great partner or mom or dad, there’s always room to find your niche. And when I say that, I mean, find something that you’re great at that makes you happy, that makes you different. And I really think that that’s true success, is finding something that is unique to you and that makes you happy and that brings you joy. And if it makes you a lot of money along the way, great. If it brings you a lot of smiles, even better. So I will say that I feel like that’s something I did learn as a student was how can you be different? How can you differentiate yourself and find passion in that?

Something that I wish I had known as a student is how important experience is and it’s not just about education. Education is beautiful. I mean, I consider myself a lifelong learner. I recently graduated from Michigan State with my master’s in supply chain management. So I believe in the values of traditional education and being a scholar and being a student, but nothing is going to teach the same lessons and the most important lessons as experience. So getting out there, getting into the workforce. Even if you are a student trying to manage all that sounds like a lot, but it’s totally worth it even if it’s an unpaid internship. Whatever you can do to get your foot in the door and get that experience, add it to your resume. I wish that I had always started sooner, right? Again, it’s tough when you’re a student, but you can do it.

Amber D’Angelo:
That’s great advice. Thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your experience and your advice with our students.

Megan Smith:
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

Kristal Griffith:
This has been the VOE Podcast.

Jake Jensen:
Produced by the Daniels College of Business and sponsored by US Bank.

Amber D’Angelo:
Music by Joshua Muetzel, music composition graduate student at The Lamont School of Music.

Kristal Griffith:
Join us next time for more business insights from our community.

Jake Jensen:
In the meantime, visit daniels.du.edu/voe-podcast.

Amber D’Angelo:
And please remember to like, follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

COVID-19’s Impact on Labor and Employment

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