Dentsply Sirona’s COVID-19 Response

Dentsply Sirona COVID-19 Response

When confronted with a global crisis, Dentsply Sirona responded quickly to ensure the health of our employees around the globe, while also continuing to support our customers through this unpredictable time. Alongside our global partners, we worked to implement solutions and deliver essential services and products to individuals and communities around the world.

How Dentsply Sirona is Protecting Its Employees

Working from home became the new reality for many of our employees, so we quickly pivoted to a full work from home model where possible, implementing a Global Flexible Work Arrangement Policy. With the loss of social interaction between employees in an office setting, we also focused on ways to help their physical and mental well-being, launching our global Employee Assistance Program.

For employees who could not work from home and remained on-site, we: implemented strict regulations for any site visitors, including suppliers; established health and safety processes like SAFEDI (Safe Distance Control) at Bensheim, Germany, which has now been retained as best practice; implemented a Crisis Management Team and a strict process on how to handle and report COVID-19 cases among our global teams; rolled out a rapid escalation process for infection cases; installed multiple disinfection points; offered face masks to all employees; and, as soon as testing became possible, encouraged regular testing.

Another key priority for us was maintaining constant and clear communication with our employees and customers, as well as with our partners in the dental industry. As the pandemic unfolded, we launched an additional global post-COVID "return to workplace" pulse survey to understand the impact of the pandemic on our employees and how to support them. In total, 3,500 people participated across 30 countries.

The global pandemic challenged both the world and Dentsply Sirona in a truly unprecedented way, and as a company, we had to navigate challenges we had never previously faced. We are proud of the way we have navigated the crisis, led by diverse and considerate thinking to preserve the safety of our employees and customers and ensure business continuity."

Don Casey, CEO

Dentsply Sirona’s COVID-19 Communications Program

Consistent Communication

Listening and Positivity

Social Media Outreach

We quickly developed a comprehensive plan of action, comprising a communications program, a social media campaign and a Listening and Positivity strategy. The key features of each pillar included the following:

Communications Program

Monthly virtual town halls to encourage open communication. On average, our town halls’ intranet pages generated 28,000 views.
Weekly COVID-19 all-employee newsletter that garnered a total of 65,000 views. Each newsletter included updates on the rapidly changing landscape, stories to support mental and physical health, a media briefing of relevant headlines, and updates from DS locations worldwide.
Daily COVID-19 media briefing, covering the most important information about our industry and beyond
COVID-19 employee website to function as a central information channel that employees could access remotely, critically important for non-desk-based workers. In total, the website received close to 10,000 views.
COVID-19 information section on our global intranet, DS Community, to act as a global internal hub for all COVID-19-related news and information, which gained over 30,000 views
Regular CEO messages for customers to keep them informed about supply chain continuity and to strengthen relationships with patients and dental suppliers throughout the pandemic
COVID-19 guide for Dentsply Sirona offices and manufacturing sites, including Leadership Toolkits and Brochures on hygiene and safety measures
The quality of our COVID-19 guide measures was officially recognized by the Swiss authorities after a surprise audit at our site in Ballaigues, Switzerland.
Our Bensheim site was commended for the measures taken during official mandatory checks by the Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt Abteilung Arbeitsschutz (Department of Occupational Safety for the regional council of Darmstadt).
Our site in Mexicali, Mexico received an award from the local health department for the site's COVID-19 prevention program, recognizing that it was best in class during their review.

We created multiple videos to increase access to insights, information, and support, including:

Social Media Campaign

To demonstrate the resilience of our industry and reiterate the importance of oral health for overall health, we launched a social media campaign called, “Teeth Don’t Heal Themselves” on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, reaching over 515,000 individuals.

Listening and Positivity Strategy

We conducted a Pulse survey of 3,500 employees in selected countries to gather feedback about COVID-19 communication throughout the Company and refine our outreach.

We utilized our podcast format DS Tunes and our live-chat format DS Chat to give employees and customers a voice and to keep them informed.

DS tunes received in total over 76,000 listens
In total, the six COVID-19 DS Chat episodes had over 10,000 live participants, with over 100,000 total views.

A core part of the listening and positivity strategy was caring for our employees’ mental health. We created a Song of the Day Playlist where our CEO Don Casey shared a motivating song accompanied by a personal note for 49 consecutive days. The playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.

We also launched numerous activity-based initiatives to promote good physical health and wellbeing among employees.

In Mölndal, Sweden we piloted “Step by Step towards Midsummer,” an initiative that encouraged employees to form healthier habits by midsummer.
In China, more than 100 staff utilized the WeChat communications platform to organize virtual fitness sessions, with awards given to the most active members
The Manesar, India team rolled out a twice-a-day formal stretching program for staff on-site – Flexi Power Yoga – to reduce the risk of ergonomic injury. In July 2020, the program was extended to a second facility at Manesar, and by the end of 2020 nearly 120 employees had participated.
Dentsply Sirona DACH launched the digital “Fit & Hungrig” (English: "Fit & Hungry") campaign, which brought employees together to take part in virtual workouts. A series of qualified trainers ran bi-weekly 60-minute workouts, helping employees of all ability levels stay healthy. Around 80 employees from the region participated in the 50 sports and yoga sessions held, including two members of the DACH senior management team.

How Dentsply Sirona Looked After Its Customers During the Pandemic

Our focus on developing innovative products and integrated solutions that customers love and that make a difference in people’s lives became even more critical during the pandemic.

We adapted our clinical education offerings and expanded our digital and virtual clinical event platforms to allow our customers to maintain access to education and training despite dental offices and professional meetings being closed around the world. Our team did this incredibly quickly: the first digital customer event was rolled out on March 15, 2020. In total, throughout 2020, we provided 7,289 training courses, training 1,029,000 dental professionals (up from 470,000 in 2019) from 80 countries.

In France, the team developed an extensive “restart” pack for dental practices. The pack included useful information on infection prevention, clinical appointment planning, developments in adhesive dentistry, a series of webinars with guest speakers, and a set of informative videos with Dr. Inès Meisels. Within the first 5 days of publishing the first video, it had more than 3,600 views.

At the height of the crisis, much of our supply chain shut down globally. Guided by our business continuity plan, and working closely with suppliers through the crisis, we were able to get infrastructure up and running again quickly and safely as dental offices around the world began to reopen. We're proud of the way the team rose to the challenge and supported our customers throughout the year.

Dentsply Sirona Supported Communities Around the World During the Pandemic

Guided by our mission to improve the lives of individuals and communities around the world, we worked diligently with our partners to provide key products, services, and support to communities around the world to help in the fight against the pandemic. Our teams across the world made meaningful donations to charitable organizations, dental practices and individuals.

Japan

In Japan, Dentsply Sirona donated food to food banks, with plans to broaden efforts across the APAC region.

United States

By making use of our own supply chain in the U.S., Dentsply Sirona donated 190,000 masks to 10,500 dental offices in order to help meet the rapidly rising demand for face masks.

Brazil

In Brazil, our team raised money in a crowdfunding campaign for NGO Nuvem de Borboletas, with a target of R$2,500 to purchase fabrics, thread, and rubber bands to make 2,500 masks. By June 2020, more than 15,623 masks had been donated to health professionals and volunteers, in addition to indigenous tribes of the Amazon.

Global

Dentsply Sirona repurposed operations around the world to produce disinfectant for both personal and professional use in places where it had become difficult to source supplies due to the increase in demand.

2020 Sustainability Report

Read the latest Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report to learn how Dentsply Sirona is giving back to the planet and key stakeholders.

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