When it comes to recruiting new talent, today’s hires want to know where they are going next. Twyla Stevens, director of human resources at Carthage System, said new employees no longer want to just come in and work. They want to know what’s next.
This creates an interesting challenge as an organization to have those answers and career path opportunities spelled out in a meaningful way to attract new employees.
“No longer are they going to come in and just work as a technician for the next 20 years. That age is gone,” Stevens said during the Carthage Veterinary Service Swine Health and Production Conference.
Stevens said, “2021, the year known as the ‘Great Resignation’ has made recruiting particularly interesting as many people are leaving their jobs and looking for new opportunities on this side of the pandemic.
“Every morning on the news, you hear people saying, ‘I’m not going to go back to work unless...’” Stevens said. “The driver’s wheel has really been placed back into the employee’s hands.”
But we still need people, Stevens said. So where does the industry go from here?
“We’ve got to evolve and adapt and repeat,” she said. “This is the story of our lives, but now it’s been pushed into overdrive. What happened last year is different than this year, which is a lot different than the year before. And it’s going to continue to change.”
Because of this, Stevens and her team spent some time this past year looking inward at their organization and asking three main questions.
1. Where are you right now (in your HR practices)?
2. Where do you want to go?
3. How are you going to get there?
After they took a hard look at their organization’s strengths and weaknesses, they went about implementing a “people strategy,” Stevens said.
“A people strategy is the why – why you’re doing what you’re doing. This works along with your HR strategy, which is the how that why is delivered,” she said.
Develop a People Strategy
Stevens offered five steps to help HR managers develop a people strategy.
1. Talent Acquisition
First, define your roles. Then determine how to best attract and identify potential candidates. Keep in mind your best candidates will be both national and international candidates, she added.
2. Skills Training
Spend some time reflecting on what skill sets your team needs to be successful. Then, Stevens said it’s time to implement skills training in order to build the team’s confidence.
3. Leadership Development
Leadership is the bridge that fills any skills gap. It’s finding leaders who can hold people accountable – catching employees when they do great things. Instead of focusing on the negatives, focus on the things you want to reward and recognize.
4. Performance Management
Performance management is determining how you will reward behaviors you want to replicate within your farm. Don’t evaluate performance once a year, she warned. If you wait once a year to talk to employees, you’ve missed the boat. She said it’s about constant feedback and rewarding what you want replicated.
5. Engagement
“We’ve all had a team where everything clicked,” Stevens said. “That’s engagement.” She added this happens when you not only have an employee’s mind, but also their heart. It results in a team that will perform.
“You have to think about where you spend your time,” she advised. “Successful organizations know that a well-defined people strategy is actually the cornerstone of their organizational strategy. If you don’t have the people, you cannot produce the pigs.”
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
Productive Days on the Farm Start with a Morning Meeting
Proof That People Make All the Difference on Successful Pig Farms
