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McKenzie Robinson | SBJ

Citizen Inc. Q&A: Jena Holtberg-Benge

John Deere Reman

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John Deere Reman General Manager Jena Holtberg-Benge is the guest for Citizen Inc., Episode 2, from SBJ Podcasts. The following Q&A is from the show, co-hosted by Springfield Business Journal’s Eric Olson and United Way of the Ozarks’ Greg Burris and recorded at ADsmith Studio.

Eric Olson: Corporate citizenship is important to John Deere Reman, I know. Why? What is the genesis story?
Jena Holtberg-Benge: John Deere, in general, has a very deep desire to help the communities we’re in. So, from a corporate values perspective, that’s so important, and that bled into the culture of John Deere Reman locally. That was a critical part of how we founded the business and how we engage our employees in the community.
Olson: It was founded as part of Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. Was there overlap of that corporate philosophy, or did you usher in a new era and way of thinking?
Holtberg-Benge: Over 20 years ago, we were part of a joint venture with SRC and acquired the company well over 10 years ago. SRC has a strong desire to not only grow jobs here but engage their employees in the community, so there was some inherent desire to do that. But John Deere itself, it’s part of our core values to invest in the communities where we live and support through education and financial literacy but also supporting agriculture and food. That’s core to our mission.
Greg Burris: Tell us about the organizational culture that drives that.
Holtberg-Benge: We have an employee engagement team, and they often pick the projects. What’s important to our employees is important to us. We also organize monthly opportunities to go volunteer, and those are often United Way agencies that we choose. It gets all of our employees engaged, regardless of where they are in the organization and what level they’re at. We see a lot better engagement as a result, internally, and a lot of flattening of the organization. You don’t have a hierarchy then – everybody’s in it together.
Olson: Can you speak to how that team is assembled?
Holtberg-Benge: Employees volunteer to be on the employee engagement team, of course, not “voluntold.” That would defeat the purpose. They get to choose. They meet monthly to talk about upcoming events and organize around that – who’s going to do what, what support and budget they might need.
Olson: What’s the correlation to what you do on the ground in the community and the parent company?
Holtberg-Benge: The John Deere Foundation really sets the pace and strategy for John Deere, in terms of who we want to be in the community. It also funds a lot of our efforts. So, they’ve dedicated over $50 million over the next 10 years to the communities where we do business. We do a lot of matching funds through the foundation, so our employees might give to the United Way and the foundation matches 1 for 1, which is fantastic. We also do what’s called Dollars for Doers, so if an employee is really passionate about something in the area or their church or their Boy Scout troop, they can donate eight hours of their time and the John Deere Foundation will match that time with the Dollars for Doers – so that organization not only gets the time from our employee; they also get the dollars from the foundation.
Burris: If you were giving advice to a CEO who maybe is not thinking this way in their organizational culture, is there a logical first step? What is your top advice?
Holtberg-Benge: First thing I would do is call Greg Burris. Seriously, I would, I would call you. [Laughs] But I don’t know how to say it any stronger than, if you let go of the reins a little bit and let your employees choose and get engaged in that, you are going to reap so many more benefits than worrying about the 10 minutes or the hour or the eight hours that you’re giving. If you think about an employee that’s engaged and knows that you care, they are much more likely to stick it out, do a great job and participate at work. … You get a lot of teamwork, team building aspects, but you also kind of re-center: “OK, there’s something bigger than me happening here.” And maybe you have a better perspective the next day when you come back about your business.

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