The health and safety of our team members continues to be our top priority – we’ve set bold goals, are building strategic communications and training systems, and enhancing our safety culture. Recently we became one of America’s first vaccinated workplaces – a milestone that couldn’t have been achieved without the determination of our team members.

Our occupational health staff in particular worked relentlessly over the past few years, making sure our team members had the information and resources they needed. In the pandemic’s various stages, our nurses took on the additional responsibilities of conducting COVID-19 tests, close contact identification, symptom identification, case management, and helping coordinate vaccine clinics.  

Nurses like Rachel who had hundreds of one-on-one meetings with team members, scheduled small group discussions, and collaborated with local health centers. Her facility was one of the first to work with our partner, Matrix Medical, on a vaccine clinic. In total, Rachel helped get over 1,000 team members vaccinated.

Nurse Manager Tammie started working with Tyson Foods in 2011, and throughout the pandemic she’s helped coordinate on-site vaccine clinics for team members, helped train the new nurses at her facility, and aided team members in and out of the workplace. Her facility recently gave her a Tyson Foods Hero Coin for her determination and commitment to her team members.

Lee knew she wanted to be a nurse from a young age, when her family was fleeing Vietnam during the war. A nurse touched her life, she says, and she knew wanted to help people in that same way. At Tyson, says Lee, it’s a desire to make sure team members are safe and healthy – because they’re family. “I look at these team members like my family,” says Lee. “I treat them like they’re my brother or my sister.”

And there are many other stories like these across our enterprise. Our occupational health nurses are the first medical points of contact for many team members. They accompany team members to doctor’s appointments, are trained as first responders, conduct health assessments, and can help address mental health and other medical conditions.

Our occupational health program started more than 30 years ago with a single nurse, Mary Bunkers. We now have over 700 occupational health team members across the enterprise, and last year we appointed our first Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Claudia Coplein. As we look to the future, our nurses and medical staff will continue to improve our culture of health and safety, providing support for overall team member health and wellness efforts. 

Learn more about our team member health and safety efforts here.