Reopening Tour: Mission Linen Shares Staffing Successes, COVID Challenges

Because Mission Linen & Uniform Service has rental customers across the range of businesses served by the industry, the TRSA Reopening Tour stop at the company’s Newark, CA, plant on Sept. 22 provided insights into pandemic impacts and recovery applicable to the entire industry. Tour hosts shared their experience dating back from the onset of COVID-19 to their present-day tactics for addressing employment and supply-chain challenges.

Mission experienced volatility throughout the customer spectrum – healthcare, hotel, restaurant and uniform rental customers. “Hotels and restaurants were most negatively impacted, but each of these segments had unique challenges,” said Mark Rogers, regional director of operations. “While there are pockets of continuing challenges, overall we feel positively about where we are today. Those segments of the business that were most negatively impacted have come a long way back to pre-pandemic levels. Mission’s customer base is very diversified, and we feel we are in a good place to execute in this tough environment.

Matt Augelli, Newark general manager, observed that challenges with product lead time, stock levels and transportation are felt throughout the industry and all over the country. “We have ramped up our internal communication across our service and sales teams to ensure everyone has factual and relevant information to share transparently and professionally with prospects and customers,” Augelli said. “Everyone, including our customers, is feeling these issues in some form, so it comes down to how well positioned you are to handle them and to communicate effectively.”

Continuing to make better use of computing has proven worthy of the investment, observed Marketing Director Kim Garden. “Efforts to digitally enhance the business started well before COVID-19, and they served us well during the initial months of that experience,” Garden said. “We have continued to transform every segment of our company. This transformation process has not only helped us over the past 18 months but also for many years; it has become a part of our culture.”

Augelli had joined the company in 2012 and advanced into leadership at two other plants before overseeing the creation of the Newark team and bringing the plant into full operation in 2017. Recruiting positioned Mission as a company known for taking good care of its employees, recognizing individuals’ outstanding performance and making everyone feel at home.

One of the earlier recruits, Michael Bryant, who started in October 2017, had worked for the state transportation department as a highway sanitation worker and in restaurant food prep and cooking. He began with Mission as a production employee: sorting soil, lifting slings and operating pony washers. Less than a year later, he became a soil sort lead, and in November 2018, a production supervisor.

Since then, he’s learned much about the industry “and the management team has recognized my abilities, taught me new things, and allowed me to improve my skills to advance into my current position.” Bryant likes the way the job “allows me to feel I am giving back to the community, especially in this time of COVID-19, when isolation gowns and personal protective equipment are really needed. I feel a sense of pride when I fill orders for hospitals so doctors and nurses can do their jobs more efficiently.”

Garden noted Mission aspires to build a bigger, better and stronger company that improves lives for generations to come: employees, residents of communities where facilities are located, and customers, making every stakeholder’s well-being part of the company’s long-term focus. Each month, employees who hit significant milestone anniversaries (20, 30, 40 years) are celebrated. “I think people care deeply about each other within Mission and try do what is right by each other and our customers,” Garden said. “That’s a really positive environment to be a part of, and it shows in the tenure of our team across every part of the business”

From formal awards to key metric incentives and special bonuses, Mission recognizes achievement throughout the year and seeks opportunities to thank field leaders and their teams. “This year has been particularly challenging for labor markets in general, and our general managers and production staff have worked long, hard hours,” Garden noted. Each GM has been awarded a five-star dinner with a guest “for their five-star efforts so far this year, and we also asked each of them to find a time to have a special recognition for their plant with funds we provided.”