STERLING, Ill. — Inside Halo Branded Solutions in Sterling, the space looks rather empty.
"About 90 percent of our workforce is working from home," said Dawn Olds.
Olds is the senior vice president for operations at Halo. She said moving employees to work remotely was one of the first pivots the company made at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We were very familiar with things like hand sanitizer, but masks, not in a million years," Olds said. "But we really found that it really was a great way to help still support our clients during the pandemic."
The company was familiar with sanitizing products and branding because of their involvement with trade shows and other large events, said Olds.
That empty space did not mean the business couldn't pivot yet again.
"No one was selling any masks other than, you know, maybe surgical supply companies," said Olds. "Certainly not in the promotional products industry."
That's when Halo started.
"We went from it as being not a category to over a 70 million dollar business for us," said Bill Barrett.
"With the size of our new building, we were able to distance all of our work functions so it didn't matter if you were in a shipping function, or a packing function, a picking function," said Barrett.
Barrett has started to see PPE orders decrease, with relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions around the country.
"Even with the relaxing of the mask protocols it's going to be a necessary piece of equipment for many companies going forward," said Barrett.
But outside the warehouse, about 40 percent of employees want to remain working from home, Olds said, according to a company survey completed about three weeks ago.
"We really have no reason to push them to come back to an office environment other than the people who physically have to be here like our warehouse staff," said Olds.
Halo provides brand services, like uniforms and PPE, among other services, to companies across the country, including Amazon.