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?
Does your company have positions it can’t fill now because your applicant pool is lacking in skills? What are you doing about it?
In a Business Journalism article, author Melissa Preddy discusses reasons for long-term unemployment for certain individuals and lists a few key questions to get at the core issues:
• How does [HR managers'] vision compare with the resumes arriving in response?
• What mistakes or gaffes or skills deficiencies are they seeing on applications?
• What remedial training or coaching are employers providing these days?
• What schools, programs, certifications, & professional credentials make candidates attractive?
The idea of answering these questions and doing something about it now, taking the problem of workforce development into your own hands, was promoted by Donna Wells in a Fast Company article:
“It’s time organizations stop dreaming of perfect employees and start growing them.”
To focus on growing those skilled front-line workers in the food processing industry, Northwest Food Processors Association (NWFPA) and DePaul Industries collaborated to create the Heart of the Workforce (HOW) training program, leveraging basic food-processing-specific knowledge in a training course designed to get workers ready from day one. Instead of starting over on a regular basis, through each busy season cycle, HOW training allows workers to specialize in the industry—and advance from the front line. This reduces turnover rates, increases productivity, and benefits the company, worker, and community simultaneously:
Despite best efforts, however, regional—especially rural—talent gaps are still persistent. NWFPA, DePaul Industries and Impact Washington have created a workforce roundtable series called “Filling Regional Talent Gaps,” with its next appearance in Yakima, WA on April 25, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The cost is $49 a person, which includes meeting materials, a light breakfast, and lunch. Click here to register.
This regional forum discussion is designed to be highly interactive in order to define specific local challenges that food processors are facing. Presenters will describe many of the workforce solutions and practices being deployed and developed for other area clusters including:
• Pre-employment training programs
• Veterans as a valuable source of skilled labor
• Company incentives for hiring veterans
• Skill certification programs and the National Career Readiness Certificate
• Awareness of Productivity methods (Objectives Matrix, Lean and Sustainability to name a few)
Collaboration is key to overcoming the talent gap. What is your industry doing about?
DePaul Packaging’s Hayden Island facility just received an AIB International score of 970 on its latest Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) Inspection for Consolidated Standards for Food Safety report. Any score of above 900 is considered a ‘Superior’ Rating, and we’re thrilled to have exceeded that mark since 2006.
AIB International is accepted as the auditing standard in the food processing industry and is committed to protecting the safety of the food supply chain by performing rigorous independent inspections, superior audits and training. DePaul Packaging’s food safety standards report includes high scores on cleaning practices, operational methods and personnel practices, and administering prerequisite and food safety programs, such as our Heart of the Workforce (HOW) Program.
We meet or exceed GMP standards for food allergen control, back-flow prevention devices (which protect water supplies from contamination), clean food contact surfaces, random sanitation testing, and many others. We’re also proud to have a dedicated Quality Assurance manager as well as a Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) system in place, to ensure that all of our co-packing operations and supply chain management maintain the high standards of our customers.
Visit DePaul Packaging to learn more about our facility and the co-packing and processing solutions we provide.
Northwest Food Processors Association’s Education Research Institute (ERI) and the Hitachi Foundation presented DePaul Industries with a 2011 Distinguished Premier Food Processor Award in front of 150 industry leaders at a general session during the 98th Annual NW Food Manufacturing & Packaging Expo and Conference held on January 19, 2012.
As part of Hitachi Foundation’s Pioneer Employers Project, the award recognizes employers for their contributions in promoting economic opportunities for their lower-income employees, specifically as a means of improving their corporate results. In DePaul Industries’ case, this is exactly what the Heart of the Workforce (HOW)™ Program is designed to accomplish.
The HOW Program is an entry level, workforce for productivity program designed as part of the solution to a major issue facing the food processing industry: the lack of available knowledgeable seasonal and long term skilled workers. By teaching the basics surrounding workforce readiness, workforce safety, food handling, and food safe manufacturing practices, the HOW Program prepares workers for work before they get in the door—thus reducing on the job training times, increasing quality, productivity and a dedication to safety. It’s a simple concept, but one that has been shown to bring turnover rates of 35-40% down to 20-25%.
Interested in learning more about how to transform your temporary and seasonal workforce? Contact us today.
