Renee Lubinski moved among the machines and production lines that produce pizza crust and tortillas at TNT Crust’s Elizabeth Street Plant in Green Bay.
She exchanged smiles, shook hands and spent a few moments talking to several workers in the facility.
That’s what Lubinski, a chaplain, is there for: to provide support and counseling for TNT employees.
“People say, ‘What does a workplace chaplain do?’ Even clergy ask that,” Lubinski said. “People spend most of the hours in life in the workplace. So if you are there and can provide emotional and spiritual support for people — and counsel people right here where they are at — what an amazing benefit.”
TNT, owned by the multinational meat processing company Tyson Foods, recently hosted tours for local religious leaders from the parishes and churches of employees. Close to 30 clergy of various faiths took the tours, including the Rev. Dennis Toyne of Cornerstone Family Church in Suamico.
“People have needs and they don’t necessarily go to a church, or don’t have time to come, so Chaplain Renee is able to help and discuss even personal issues” on site, Toyne said. “I’m really glad they’re doing this, it’s really neat.”
The tours also served as a way for Lubinski to meet area clergy and to serve as a bridge between employees and the wider religious community in the area.
Lubinski, a Green Bay resident who has worked at TNT for about two years, is one of more than 130 chaplains in Tyson Foods facilities. One of the key pieces of her job is getting to know employees.
“It’s all about building relationships in the workplace and, in that, you build trust,” Lubinski said. “As I’m going through the production lines — and I operate with the three different shifts here at the plant — I can tell by a person’s countenance if they are going through something; so I’ll just ask, ‘Are you doing OK?'”
Her main mission is to provide confidential care, counseling and crisis management services to employees and their families, regardless of religious affiliation. That includes being keyed into workplace issues such as stress, as well as keeping an open line of communication to employees.
Kent Reschke, TNT’s vice president of operations, said the company has had the chaplain program in place in Green Bay for about four years. Despite some early skepticism, he said, he embraces the concept that it not only helps employees, but also the business as a whole.
“You hear lip service all the time about employees being the most important assets. It’s one thing to say it and another thing to live it, and I think that’s what we’re doing by having a chaplain,” he said. “From the business side, there’s a return on the investment. There’s a cost to the chaplaincy program, but I think the return is much greater.”
Reschke said, for example, a chaplain can help an employee work out the underlying personal issues to an attendance problem that, once remedied, can help reduce employee turnover and help production costs.
Tyson does not mandate the chaplaincy program, but leaves the choice to individual sites.
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