Lear plans for how to (safely) turn the economic car back on — it's one of the firsts
If the economy is like a car stuck in the garage... Lear is the leather seat in that car — as in $20B/year in car seat sales (or as Lear likes to call them, "your personal docking station"). But car companies aren't making cars right now, so Lear's not making seats. Now it wants to start the engine before the economic car battery dies:
- Enter Lear's Safe Work Playbook: a 51-page "interactive" PDF that guides companies on how to resume operations when it's safe to open up shop again. It includes recommendations based on CDC guidelines combined with Lear's global operations experience.
- The TLDR: Topics include social distance strategies like staggered shifts and lunch breaks, on-site health screenings for employees, disinfection procedures, and factory opening guidelines (like disinfecting it 100% before it opens).
How to slowly (and safely) get people back to work... Lear thinks we needed to start planning this yesterday, and it wants to be the influencer leading this shift. Not only would it get to start making car seats again, but also it would be responsible for influencing operations in an economic recovery. That "first-mover" title might not be too hard to snag — most companies have refrained from speaking publicly about a need to return to work.
Planning for a return to normalcy is key... In private conversations, top CEOs reportedly pleaded with President Trump to start planning a phased return to work (as soon as May). They fear a catastrophic amount of large and small businesses will fail if we don't slowly re-open (aka, point of no recovery). But critical health concerns and a rise in cases make people reluctant to think that far ahead. Still, planning now is crucial as outbreaks begin to peak across the US and the world.