GUEST POST: This post is written by David McGiverin, Sustainability & Productivity Manager at Northwest Food Processors Association (NWFPA). 
During the economic downturn, a common but dangerous business myth emerged: it’s an employer’s marketplace. With so many downsized employees desperate to work, any job is a good job — why not enhance your company’s bottom line by demanding more, and offering less?
In an effort to help close workforce talent gaps and reduce turnover in the Tri-Cities food processing industry, we teamed up with the Northwest Food Processors Association (NWFPA) to create a roundtable discussion among area food processors at the Port of Pasco that led to the development of some great new ideas for attracting skilled talent to the industry and area.
Building off of some alarming statistics from a NWFPA survey of food processors last year—indicating 40% of the food processing management workforce is eligible for retirement within the next five years, and that food processors in rural areas are actually experiencing this management retirement issue currently—we wanted to encourage a conversation among key industry leaders to present some solutions and best practices to address this workforce pipeline issue.
Here were some of the findings:
• Military veterans, across several different skill-levels, are a great fit for jobs in food processing—but many veterans don’t know the wide array of positions available, or how those positions connect with the jobs they had while in the military. Attracting them to the industry by directly correlating their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) code to specific job opportunities is a great practice to consider.
• Food processors adopting the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) as a preferred method to measure and certify skill levels in the industry is a way to standardize the hierarchy of skills, and a good way to easily recognize skilled seasonal candidates.
• Pre-employment training programs, such as our own DePaul Industries’ Heart of the Workforce (HOW) program and Mechatronics, preparing employees for industry-based skills before they step in the door, are proven ways to build skills and increase the likelihood of candidates beginning to build careers in food processing.
Attendees represented operations managers and HR managers from the industry. “I found the session highly meaningful, with several actionable takeaways,” said Selina Hoflund, Manager & Plant HR at McCain Foods USA, Inc. in Othello, WA. “I’d love to see more food processors involved to share ideas about how to expand our talent pool.”
NWFPA, known for its extensive research within the food processing industry throughout Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, is on the lookout for food processors in the Tri-Cities area to get in touch with the organization in order to contribute to the conversation, provide best hiring practices from their respective plants and seasons, and benefit from the shared resources offered by other processors.
“As an association, we’re interested in obtaining a broader idea of the workforce pipeline issues and hard-to-fill skilled positions within the industry,” says David McGiverin, Sustainability and Productivity Manager at NWFPA. “There’s a huge benefit to food processors working together to solve these issues, and it’s imperative—given the alarming pending retirement rate—to begin now.”
Do you have any best practice ideas to share about attracting talent to the food processing industry?
DePaul Industries is excited to announce its expansion of services to Baltimore, Maryland—another step in our demand-driven geographic expansion as outlined in our five-year Strategic Plan.
As always, we’re pulled by customer demand: We’ll be providing contracting support services for the United States Coast Guard in and around the Baltimore area, starting with Fire Watch services (a subset of our Security division) for Coast Guard shipyards and dry docks. This opportunity, slated to begin this summer, will include the opening of a local branch office in Baltimore and growing our connections with Vocational Rehabilitation Baltimore, the Regional Office of Veterans in Baltimore, and other related organizations and Community Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) that connect people with disabilities and veterans to employment. Similar to our administrative services contract on the Fort Huachuca Army Base in Sierra Vista, AZ, we’ll be looking to fill the majority of Fire Watch positions with disabled veterans.
It’s our intention that this contract will serve as our ‘anchor’ in the area, in order for us to develop additional local business in our Staffing, Security, & Packaging business units—a single opportunity is just the first step. With firmly established connections to the area, we’ll be able to partner with other CRPs and drive additional business opportunities in order to employ more individuals with disabilities. This demand-driven expansion is in right in line with our Strategic Plan, as we carefully vet strategic opportunities like this one as they relate to our scalable business model and our mission. In this case, both our revenue and employment of people with disabilities will grow—and so we’re off to the East Coast.
We’re very pleased to work with the U.S. Coast Guard, particularly as we already serve several branches of the U.S.military through various contracts in Oregon, Washington, & Arizona.
Stay tuned for more information as we roll out our new location and services!
Moving is one of the top five stressors in people’s lives. Lile North American Moving, the largest moving company in the Northwest, has built its reputation on flexibility, customer service, and reliability in order to help families and businesses relocate as stress-free as possible. In the summer months, Lile’s business increases at least two-fold, and often three-fold. That business boost presents the interesting challenge of finding the right summer employees—and the right staffing agency to source them.
The Challenge
Lile was in need of a temporary labor force for the busy summer season that would maintain the safety, professionalism, and high standards for customer service that Lile has established during its 50 years of service to the community. Effectively training new employees during the time of year when experienced employees are at their busiest, however, is a major challenge for an industry with a small profit margin. Lile needed a solution that would free up their leads and managers from time-consuming training and provide the large influx of new workers with the skills needed to be productive from day one.
The Solution
DePaul Staffing teamed up with Lile to create the Mover Training Program, designed to give new employees an overview of professional moving methods and skills in order to bring down their learning curve. DePaul Staffing trains each new batch of temporary employees on everything from wrapping glassware to dust-sealing boxes to which way dresser drawers should face. Lile management is free to focus on the doubling of their business and be assured that their new employees are being consistently trained and equipped to perform the job to Lile standards. “You get the business, you have to make sure you effectively service it,” says Rich McDermid, Portland Branch Manager at Lile. “Our partnership with DePaul provides a great win-win situation for both parties.”
The Benefits
Effectively training new employees on industry-specific practices saves time, of course, but also money. For Lile, outsourced summer training brings down the instances of damage and claims, and preserves their reputation for great customer service. For DePaul Industries’ employees, the Mover Training Program and its curriculum in both hard and soft skills can be a gateway to a new career.
The Mover Training Program obviously is able to translate to other moving companies, designed around their company’s specific specialty—but specialized training programs are beneficial to any industry looking to provide their temporary workers with company knowledge and actionable skills from day one.
Interested in chatting about the possibilities? Get in touch with DePaul Staffing today & design a training program for your industry.
We’re thrilled to announce that our CEO Dave Shaffer has been named a semifinalist for the second year in a row in Ernst & Young’s 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year® Awards.
Now in its 26th year, the award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Of the 2011 Finalists last year, Dave was unique in representing one of the very few nonprofit organizations honored for its entrepreneurial thinking.
Dave is a firm believer in the notion that solving business problems is the most effective way to solve the large social problem of the lack of employment opportunities for people with disabilities. By focusing on meeting or exceeding business expectations, Dave holds himself and the organization to a high standard of accountability: If the business is not viable, the mission won’t be, either.
By restructuring the way DePaul Industries represents itself as a social entrepreneurial organization—between business and nonprofit—Dave has had to weigh risks of alienating constituents in the nonprofit world or the business world, or in both. This is a delicate balance of communicating, and delivering, the benefits of a combination of these worlds. Dave is keenly aware of this organizational pull in both directions and has been persistent in embedding DePaul right in the center. His ability to recognize the ‘money vs. mission’ conflict as an omnipresent ‘check’ on operations has launched DePaul into the forefront of the social entrepreneurial space.
Finalists will be named in May with awards being presented at a special gala on June 15, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue. Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are nationally sponsored in the United States by SAP America and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In the Pacific Northwest, local sponsors include ADP, Puget Sound Business Journal, Scherzer International, The Big Picture Video Film & Arts, and Union Bank.
Who’s entrepreneurial in your organization? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts about how forward thinking has created positive change in your industry.
