If you haven’t worked at Seqirus before or are new here, you might be asking yourself, what does it mean to be On the Front Line of public health? And what is it like to work there? To answer this question, we asked a few of our employees who work at our Holly Springs site in North Carolina to share their take on the Seqirus career experience.
Front Line Culture
Dave Sehgal shared that each and every employee at the Holly Springs site is personally responsible for protecting human lives through their line of work. No matter if you are someone on the manufacturing floor or in an office setting the strategy. It’s a sense of purpose that rushes through the soul of the site.
“As soon as you walk in here, you can feel it,” said Sehgal, Seqirus Holly Springs Site Head. “That’s one of the neat things about manufacturing influenza vaccines here, is that you do get a good sense of how you are affecting people in a positive way.”
Stewart Williams, Continuous Improvement Lead at Seqirus Holly Springs, said he couldn’t agree more. No stranger to working at the intersection of manufacturing and public health, he arrived at Seqirus from a company that built ambulances – a medium through which lives are saved. Although Williams explained that it didn’t always feel that way.
“It is sometimes easy to forget what you are manufacturing goes out in the world to do, but here, the public health narrative is at the forefront. Leadership and staff really embrace it,” he said.
It’s because of this intrinsic culture that the workplace has a fast-paced energy, one that drives people to collaborate to achieve a goal that holds significance well beyond the bottom line. A perfect example of this is when COVID hit, said Rebeccah Kollar, Process Engineer at Seqirus Holly Springs. It was a challenge to source raw materials to maintain supply for different assemblies, but she said everyone rallied around these efforts to maintain production so that we could get our product out and keep people healthy.
In One Word…
“What I like about what I do today is I work with fantastic people for an amazing cause,” Kollar said. So, beyond a responsibility to public health that drives our work, it’s the people that make working here special, she explained. People here are very open to trying something new to achieve the same goal, they're okay with teaching new things, and they're accepting of new ideas.
That’s a formula for a place where people can thrive, and one that ultimately brought Sehgal back to Seqirus.
“In one word, it would be the people,” Sehgal said. "Everything we are is because of our people, they're experts at what they do, and they're really passionate about protecting public health."
“I was at Seqirus for close to five years beforehand, so you make some very strong connections and ties with people when you spend that amount of time with them,” he said. “So being able to come back and work with the people here was definitely very important in my decision to come back.”
Whether you are a long-time employee who rejoined like Sehgal, or are new, you are invited with open arms, even during a time when COVID is top of mind.
“I definitely felt welcomed,” Williams said of his hiring experience during the pandemic. “I had more than one person pull me aside and say ‘Hey, I know this is a crazy time and if you have any questions feel free to reach out.’ I would say that's one thing that I notice more than anything else is, while it was a turbulent time to start work, there were plenty of people willing to go out of their way to help out.”
A Place You Can Thrive
Not only have the people been extremely helpful, but also it feels like the company as a whole looks out for its employees, Williams said. From our COVID response to keep everyone safe, to free lunch during lockdown.
It's just a really nice place to work, Williams said.
Also, there are pathways to advancement and to learn within our doors, Sehgal explained.
“When you're a company in the midst of growth and developing new technologies, and when you're in the midst of creating new products and expanding access to them, you're going to continue to learn and develop and build experiences that you may not have elsewhere, especially at the pace that we do in here,” Sehgal said.
But, wait there’s more… Beyond the beautiful glass façade of the Holly Springs manufacturing campus and the manicured surrounding landscape, is the incredible city of Raleigh. It’s amazing, you have everything you could possibly love just nearby, Kollar said.
“What couldn't you like? North Carolina is beautiful,” she said. “And Raleigh is in this perfect location where you're close to the coast and you're close to the mountains if you're an outdoor person. I came from Midland, Michigan which had mainly chain restaurants, and I am a foodie, so it was so nice to come to an area that actually has mom and pop shops, different kinds of restaurants and a bar scene. There's a lot to be had.”
