wellness

World Mental Health Day: Prioritizing Wellness in the Workplace

Posted on by Riley Bell

Celebrated annually on October 10th, World Mental Health Day provides an opportunity for people and communities to improve knowledge, raise awareness, and mobilize efforts in support of mental health.

Many people find that working is beneficial for their mental health. Having a job can help provide financial stability, establish a structured routine, improve one’s sense of identity, and more. However, at times your work may negatively impact your mental health and vice versa. Read some tips on how you can enhance your workplace well-being and cultivate a happier professional life.

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What Have You Done for Your Emotional Wellness, This Month? 

Posted on by Riley Bell

Most of us are familiar with the term wellness. We associate wellness with lifestyle practices such as exercising, having a balanced diet, and taking care of our bodies. As significant as these practices are to live long, healthy lives, there’s a critical component of wellness that is often overlooked, emotional wellness. 

The National Center for Emotional Wellness defines emotional wellness as, “An awareness, understanding and acceptance of our feelings, and our ability to effectively manage through challenges and change.” Maintaining a healthy emotional balance helps us form better relationships with peers, make healthier lifestyle choices, and empower people through life’s unexpected changes. October, Emotional Wellness Month, is the perfect reminder to take time out for your brain and make steps towards effectively managing your emotions.

Continue reading “What Have You Done for Your Emotional Wellness, This Month? “

Take a Break, Take A Walk!

Posted on by Riley Bell
Elderly father adult son and grandson out for a walk in the park.

For many of us, we’re used to getting our steps in when walking from one meeting room to the next. However, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we shifted to new communication modes. Meetings transitioned to simply clicking from one zoom to the other, increasing the amount of time we stay sedentary. For those who are still working remotely, this is a reminder to make time for movement! Contrary to how long periods of sitting have negative effects on the body, walking has a long list of benefits. In the spirit of National Walking Day, here are some reasons why you should take a break and take a walk.

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Buckling Down to Scale Up: Providing Support Through the Pandemic

Posted on by Riley Bell

The past year has been a challenge. Amidst the pandemic, we’re thankful for the tireless work of our dedicated employees. With their support, we have continuously stayed engaged and prepared during all stages of the COVID-19 pandemic so that we can serve our customers at the highest levels.

How We Got Here

The persistent work by our teams has made a great impact on the support we can provide for scientists and our community during the pandemic. From scaling up manufacturing to investing in new automation, every effort has helped.

Promega has a long history of manufacturing reagents, assays, and benchtop instruments for both researching and testing viruses. When the pandemic began in 2020, we responded quickly and efficiently to unprecedented demands. In the past year, we experienced an approximately 10-fold increase in demand for finished catalog and custom products for COVID-19 testing. In response to these demands, we increased production lines. One year ago, we ran one shift five days per week. Currently, we run three shifts seven days per week. This change has allowed 50 different Promega products to support SARS-CoV-2 testing globally in hospitals, clinical diagnostic laboratories, and molecular diagnostic manufacturers. Additionally, our clinical diagnostics materials make up about 2/3 of COVID-19 PCR tests on the global market today. Since January 2020, Promega has supplied enough reagents to enable testing an estimated 700 million samples for SARS-CoV-2 worldwide.

Developments and Advances

Promega products are used in viral and vaccine research. This year, our technologies have been leveraged for virtually every step of pandemic response from understanding SARS-CoV-2 to testing to research studies looking at vaccine response.

Promega product: The Lumit™ Dx SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassay

Who Got Us Here

We are extremely grateful for our employees. In the past year, we hired over 100 people and still have positions open today. While welcoming newcomers, this challenging year also reinforced the importance of our collaborative culture. Relationships at Promega have been built over multiple years. The long history of our teams allows us to stay coordinated while prioritizing product distribution to customers across the globe. It also leads to effective communication with colleagues and vendors. Those leading our manufacturing operations team, for example, have an average tenure of 15 years. Their history in collaborating through challenging situations helps them quickly focus where needed most.

Our 600 on-site employees support product manufacturing, quality, and R&D. They do it all while remaining COVID-conscious by social distancing, wearing masks, working split shifts, and restricting movement between buildings. While we continue to practice physical safety precautions, we also prioritize our employees’ mental health and wellness. Promega provides a variety of wellness resources including phone and video mental health sessions, virtual fitness and nutrition classes, and stress and anxiety tools.

What’s to Come

While we acknowledge that the COVID-19 is not over, we are proud of the support we have been able to provide to customers working both on pandemic research and critical research not related to COVID-19. Our policies of long-term planning and investing in the future has allowed us to respond quickly and creatively and learn from the experience.

Related Posts

The Impact of Positive Self-Talk: A Next-Level Story

Posted on by Promega

Today’s blog is written by Malynn Utzinger, Director of Integrative Practices, and Tim Weitzel, ESI Architect.

Last month in this series, we posed to you that the most important decision you’ll ever make is the one about how to respond to the circumstances of your life – the story you tell yourself when the rough patches of life show up. Because of our brains’ wiring, we tend to spin self-defensive and blaming stories as a first line of defense until we learn to pause, check in with ourselves, and cultivate a narrative of more generative possibilities.
This month, we promised you a next-level story that shows the outer impact that happened when one person changed his self-talk.

Continue reading “The Impact of Positive Self-Talk: A Next-Level Story”

Celebrating Bike-to-Work Week 2019

Posted on by Promega

Every day at the Promega Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, many Promega employees trade the crowded Beltline Highway for a scenic route along the bike trails. As our colleagues wind around the lakes and prairies of south-central Wisconsin, they’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions and getting some fun exercise in the process. This week, during National Bike-to-Work week, we’re taking time to recognize our colleagues who opt for a healthier and more sustainable commute. In the video below, hear about how Promega supports our bike commuters from Sam Jackson, an avid biker and Multimedia Specialist at Promega.

Back for More: Thoughts from 3 Regular Attendees on the International Forum on Consciousness

Posted on by Karin Borgh

The International Forum on Consciousness offers a lively two days of information sharing and discussion regarding important—and often challenging—topics. Over the years, we have been guided through a range of topics, including creativity, near death, entheogens, intelligence in nature, business evolution and the effects of sensory inputs.  This year, we’re tackling Means and Metrics for Detecting and Measuring Consciousness.  You can find out more here: https://www.btci.org/events-symposia-2018/international-forum-on-consciousness/ .

As we work on the final details for this year and registrations flow in, I took a moment to pause and reflect on the fact that several of the registrants have joined us for many, if not all, of our past events. It’s gratifying to see that they are taking time out of their normal routines to make their way to the Promega campus again this spring.  So, I asked a few of them to share their thoughts for this post and this is what they had to say: Continue reading “Back for More: Thoughts from 3 Regular Attendees on the International Forum on Consciousness”

First We Eat: #LifeatPromega, The Culinary Experience

Posted on by Karen Burkhartzmeyer

The Promega Culinary Garden
In the Promega garden. (L to R): Logan Morrow, gardener; Nate Herndon, Promega Senior Culinary Manager; Mike Daugherty, Promega Line Cook and Gardener

First we eat, then we do everything else.–MFK Fisher

Swatting away mosquitoes one July morning in the garden on the Promega Madison, WI, campus, Senior Culinary Manager Nate Herndon leans down and pulls back the leaves of a squash plant, revealing the bright yellow flowers that in a couple of hours will highlight a seasonal special on the lunch menu at one of the company’s cafeterias: green onion-cream cheese stuffed fried squash blossoms served on a grilled jerk pork tostada with black beans and cilantro sauce. Herndon explains that dishes made from scratch with high-quality, locally sourced (and sometimes unexpected) ingredients are the rule at Promega Madison kitchens, where it’s not uncommon to find entrees like house made ramp garganelli with oyster mushrooms and asparagus, braised beef ragu with house made buckwheat parpadelle pasta and baby kale, or fried perch tacos.

Food is an extension, a daily demonstration, of our overall commitment to sustainability, the community and employees

Many companies are realizing the benefits of upscaling their corporate cafeteria offerings. Some are engaging employees with ever-changing theme lunch menus or energy drinks on tap. Others are echoing the popular farm to table movement. But Herndon explains that Promega’s sensibilities surrounding the importance of food goes way beyond simply following popular trends. Continue reading “First We Eat: #LifeatPromega, The Culinary Experience”