During the first month of quarantine, the healthcare and economic problems were replaced by communal initiatives of regular people and businesses. An example of this type of story is the Jonava-based, but operating across the entire country for three decades now, mattress manufacturer Lonas. In the face of quarantine, the manufacturer has not only put in all its efforts into retaining its large team of employees but has also taken to various measures to protect its own – the Jonava region – the local community.
“In mid-March, prior to the quarantine beginning, we held an emergency board meeting. We decided that the quarantine will definitely last longer than two weeks, thus our response was as such – hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Respectively, from the very first day of the quarantine, we entered a saving regime, reducing external expenses as much as possible. Also, all the heads of the Lonas company group have taken pay cuts of 30% for three months,” Lonas head Domas Jakutis says.
While the 12 Lonas showrooms around the country are currently closed, and the drastically reduced number of purchases is only kept up by online sales, according to D. Jakutis, the most important goal in the face of the pandemic is to retain unchanged their team of employees.
“Our employees are not just subordinates for us. On the contrary, we are a team and will thus do our everything to retain them. After the first month of quarantine, we see that the situation is under control – the situation remains especially severe but stable. Nevertheless, how long it will last and how much financial burden the coming months will demand is still unclear; thus, we cannot make any empty promises. We only promise that we will strive to make sure that our team of over 140 people would have work,” D. Jakutis states.
Support for incentivising Jonava medics
Despite the slowed usual operations of the company, already on the second week of quarantine, Lonas announced it would distribute financial incentive support for Jonava medics.
“Following a discussion on the Lonas company group board, it was decided to allocate 10,000 euro support for Jonava Hospital. After discussions with the city’s Mayor Mindaugas Sinkevičius and the hospital’s director Paulius Vasilavičius, we agreed that the hospital would allocate all the support not for equipment, but further financial incentives for Jonava medics working with the COVID-19 virus and its consequences. We would thus like to say thanks for their commitment to saving others,” D. Jakutis says.
After making arrangements with the city mayor and hospital chief, the sum aimed at offering incentives to medics at VšĮ Jonavos Ligoninė arrived already in the first stage of the quarantine.
Manufacturing protective masks and distributing them for free
Every organisation, just like every individual, according to D. Jakutis, chooses the support initiatives that are closest to it in terms of values. Due to this, the communality valuing manufacturer has, in the face of the pandemic, decided to not limit itself to aiding medics. Lonas has rearranged a part of its manufacturing lines and begun manufacturing masks, which it is distributing to all residents of Jonava region free of charge.
“We thought long on what initiatives we could also contribute to with our available resources and we believe that in the face of current events, the greatest effect is to help protect your local community. In other words, the place where our staff, their families, friends and relatives live. True, we understand that the protection of non-medical masks is debatable as compared to medical masks, however, this is vastly better than nothing at all. Production of masks is not an area of business where Lonas operates, thus we are definitely not planning to profit off of this and are offering them to the people free of charge,” Lonas’ head states.
According to D. Jakutis, the current market pricing of masks is excessive and even somewhat inappropriate. Due to this, the head of Lonas hopes that the rising supply of protective masks being distributed free of charge will help also reduce the high mask prices seen on the market, the pricing set by other manufacturers.
“For the manufacture of masks, we use quality and natural pieces of material remaining from manufacturing. For the first stage, we manufactured 2,000 masks; now, we are repeating it. In order to avoid any gathering of people in receiving them, we are seeking Jonava region organisations, which could distribute them to their communities, colleagues or members. That said, if manufacturing keeps up, we also try to include them when sending purchases to our clients. We are glad that the return connection of our clients and our local community is especially positive and encourages to continue operating at full capacity,” D. Jakutis says.
What is interesting is that the manufacture of protective masks also contributes to sustainability. The fabric strips remaining from mattress and mattress cover manufacturing is re-used for the production of a current high demand product.
While the initiative was launched back when protective masks were only recommended in public spaces, today they are mandatory for everyone. Due to this, D. Jakutis invites all Jonava-based non-profit organisations, whose community members do not have or cannot obtain masks, to register in a special Lonas registration system: bit.ly/kaukiu-registracija.
According to the manufacturer, efforts will be made to supply free of charge masks to as many as possible Jonava region communities and their members.
