ORGILL’S FAMILY-OWNED STATUS GOOD FOR WORKERS, VP OF HR SAYS

Laura Freeman is the executive vice-president of human resources and chief human resources officer at Orgill, Inc. She joined the company earlier this year and Hardlines had the chance to sit down and talk with her.

Before joining the giant Memphisbased hardware wholesaler, Freeman spent seven years heading up HR as chief people officer at Schnucks Markets, a family-run chain of supermarkets in the American Midwest.

Despite the differences in the two businesses, Freeman found some similarities that made the transition an easy one. Like Orgill, Schnucks is a privately held familyowned business. “There’s some really great things about that—not being publicly traded,” Freeman said.

Her grocery gig was with a company that’s almost 90 years old, while Orgill is also venerable, having been founded more than 175 years ago. “You don’t find companies like that very much, that are kept in the family.” Freeman says the values and culture of a family-based business is something “that really means a lot.”

She says the changes happening in the workforce during the pandemic had started well before the arrival of Covid. “Even preCovid we were seeing our workforce change. It did not all of a sudden start changing; it was just accelerated.”

With up to four generations working side by side at Orgill, an HR leader’s job is interesting, Freeman said. “You really have to think about that employee proposition across all different areas and then across all the different generations you have in your workforce today.”