This summer, Church Mutual CEO Rich Poirier told WXPR his company was targeting early September to bring employees back for in-person work.
The Merrill-based company is one of the largest employers in the area. About 600 people usually work in the headquarters building, but since the start of the pandemic, they’ve been working from home.
Poirier hoped the COVID-19 situation would improve. But instead, it got worse.
“We have told our employees now that the goal would be to reassess sometime at the end of April,” Poirier said. “So that’s kind of an acknowledgment that we’re going to be in this for awhile.”
Through the pandemic, business has been strong, but more importantly, employees have stayed mostly healthy.
“I don’t have anybody that’s on a respirator, or, God forbid, that’s expired. We do believe that’s a direct correlation to the aggressive actions that we took early and continue to take,” Poirier said.
Poirier sees Church Mutual as a role model for the community, making decisions based on scientific facts.
“What we’re going to look for is certainly community spread [and] infection rate. The game-changer is, is there a readily-available vaccine and how widely distributed will it be? Those are unknowns,” he said. “We talk a lot around the building about being a good corporate citizen, being a patriot. Being a patriot means doing what’s best for the community, not just yourself.”
Church Mutual is the largest insurer of religious organizations in the country.
