Coping with the long-term impact of the labor shortage was the topic of a panel discussion among the human resource leaders of three meat and poultry processing companies at last month’s Executive Exchange & Conference, hosted by the Food Production Solutions Association.

Pandemic pain

The panelists agreed that keeping their companies fully staffed and retaining workers has been a challenge for years, but COVID magnified the issue for food companies.

Kimberly Crawford, vice president of human resources with Kenosha, Wis.-based Birchwood Foods, assumed her role in the meat industry in early 2020.

“I’ve learned a lot over the last four years, especially being in the business right from the get-go, when COVID started,” she said.

Surprisingly, Crawford said the COVID era was a time of employment stability at Birchwood’s four plants.

“We had very little turnover,” she said. “I think we were just trying to keep the wheels turning and keep people healthy.”

Challenges were revealed during the post-COVID period, she said, including a shortage of skilled labor positions, professional management, HR managers and production management. She said labor trends like the Great Resignation and silent quitting became a reality and many employees began looking elsewhere for jobs.

“Those have been the challenges that we’ve been addressing in our meat processing industry,” Crawford said, adding that filling frontline production positions was also an issue for a period of time after the pandemic, but not currently.

Sonja Totland, human resource director for Agri Beef, Boise, Idaho, said COVID took a toll on her company and that impact is still being felt.

“I feel like we’re still in recovery mode in terms of workforce development because we spent so many of our resources trying to manage through COVID and keep plants running, and that took resources away from things like workforce development,” she said.

Totland said that was especially true in the area of leadership development. The company is now prioritizing succession planning and continuing its leadership development efforts.

John Heard, technical development and recruiting manager for Salisbury, Md.-based Perdue Foods, said retaining skilled labor positions was a pain point especially when the pandemic started. Demand for workers with technical skills spiked and turnover for skilled-labor roles at Perdue doubled in some cases.

“That’s because someone else is out there trying to acquire that talent,” Heard said. “So, we have to offer things that not only attract new talent to our facilities, but also retain existing talent.”

Passing it on

The panelists also acknowledged the challenge of longtime operations-focused employees leaving the industry, to retire or pursue other opportunities, creating a knowledge gap. They emphasized the importance of developing mentorship programs to allow seasoned employees to share their knowledge.

“It’s so important to prepare for those people exiting the workforce,” Totland said. “When I look across our senior leadership across all divisions, many of them are nearing retirement age.”

Totland said it is important to identify those key positions well in advance and implementing plans, including job shadowing and mentorship programs, is critical to the future of the company.

“You can’t transfer years of knowledge in a month or two of transition time,” she said.

Crawford said the industry tends to focus on executing the job at hand and often planning for the future isn’t top of mind.

“I’ll be the first to admit that we are not prepared,” she said. “In the food processing business, one of the key points I have learned is that it’s 24-7, every day.”

She said it becomes challenging to stop, take a step back and plan for the future of the company. That includes dedicating resources for working on the business and not just in the business.

“We didn’t have a learning and development department before 2021, to make ourselves pause and think about the business continuity plan with succession planning, with addressing skills gaps and bringing people in,” Crawford said.

Flexing and training

Heard added that for positions and roles that make sense, flexible scheduling is becoming an expectation.

“They don’t want to work 60 hours a week. So, we have to make sure we have the proper schedules that allow them to get a solid work-life balance.”

Another opportunity Crawford mentioned as a chance to address hiring and training new workers is to expand the labor pool search to include legal immigrants and refugee organizations sponsored by associations like the United Way. Part of implementing those programs means developing hiring and training programs that are in multiple languages.

“All of our plants are filled with multilingual, multicultural and multi-ethnic groups,” Crawford said.

One tool used by Birchwood utilizes artificial intelligence in the creation of training videos in spoken language, which addresses plant workers who are not literate.

“I’m able to create onboarding, orientation, safety training videos in a very short period of time that I can deploy in a video in their spoken language.”

Totland said the next generation of workers tend to learn via hands-on training and value recognition. To that end, the company recently launched a coaching department made up of designated coaches at each of its plants.

“Those coaches, their entire training is based on what are the needs of the workforce and how can you help meet those needs and get those people through that very difficult first 90 days of employment.”

Heard said one of the skill gaps Perdue identified in today’s plants is the result of automation, which eliminates some jobs while creating positions for more technical roles.

“We have to ensure that our workforce is prepared as we advance our sites to be more automated and have a workforce that has been trained properly to take on those challenges.”

Perdue works with local high schools to teach them skilled labor positions and offers internship opportunities after high school to generate interest in food industry careers.

“Manufacturing’s not what it used to be,” Heard said. “There’s a good opportunity to be employed, not for a job but for a career in this industry that we are in.”