Winning Through People

W I N N I N G T E M P

Exploring HR challenges in the Food Manufacturing and Processing sector

Table of Contents

3Introduction

13Conclusion

Success Through People - the factors

Autonomy

Personal development

Leadership

Meaningfulness

Participation

Work situation

Job satisfaction

Team spirit

4

5

6

8

9

10

11

12

IntroductionIssues that were already concerns for the food industry, particularly around employee safety, productivity and talent retention have only been exacerbated by the COVID 19 pandemic. Change has accelerated and a recent survey by Food Industry Executive found that 72.5% of food manufacturing and processing businesses report having had to adapt their business strategy or operations in response. In order to emerge from the current situation in a better position than before, the sector must be successful in dealing with a number of HR challenges.

The ever-increasing demand for food is contributing to the unique labour problems that food manufacturing and processing firms are facing. The pandemic has contributed to this situation as people are increasingly preparing and consuming food in their own homes. Brexit has also played a role through the reduction in the availability of migrant workers. Strategic workforce planning has never been more critical and the ability to attract and retain talent will inevitably continue to impact the bottom line.

“With the long periods of lockdown the decrease in demand from the hospitality sector has required dexterity by manufacturers, necessitating a switch to different types of production to keep lines moving” - Rodney Steel, CEO BCMPA

Many job seekers are looking for benefits such as the ability to work remotely or flexibly that the food manufacturing sector finds difficult to accommodate. It is therefore crucial that every possible means of enhancing employee experience at work is utilised if employers are to thrive. Against a backdrop of constant and rapid change, people management strategy needs to be informed by real-time insight. Only once you have this insight will you be able to proactively address any issues that are affecting your staff while actively involving them in process of taking remedial action.

Another major challenge for food manufacturing and processing businesses is how to be adaptable in an environment where constant change and uncertainty have become the norm. Change can be disruptive and unsettling for employees. While keeping people safe and healthy is naturally the

top priority for employers during the current crisis, companies will also need to focus on how they can maintain a positive and productive workforce that allows them to stay competitive. In food manufacturing, on-time delivery is clearly of critical importance. During the pandemic, the pressure of fulfilling orders and hitting deadlines has been increased as retailers have had to respond to dramatic fluctuations in consumer demand. The additional strain this situation has placed on employees must be understood and carefully managed in order to maintain high levels of productivity and performance as well as to reduce absenteeism and churn.

Retaining skilled labour for plant operations with high production volumes and low margins is likely to remain an ongoing challenge even after the worst of the pandemic is over. Employers who want to retain their talent need to keep their finger on the pulse regarding what staff are thinking and feeling. Those who do will be best placed to proactively address any issues before they result in their best people heading for the exit. But how can this become business as usual in a work environment where there are fewer opportunities for gaining employee feedback informally through one-to-one employee/manager interactions?

The good news is that there are processes your organisation can put in place to safeguard your current workforce and retain your exceptional talent. It all starts with giving everyone, from your line workers to your managers and supervisors, the opportunity to provide ongoing feedback regarding their work-experiences and to feed these back on a regular basis to your teams.

In this industry overview, we discuss each of the 9 factors that science has shown to determine success through people and explore these in the context of the unique challenges currently being faced by employers in the food manufacturing and processing sector.

Why is autonomy important?

The extent to which employees can act with autonomy enables creativity and innovation. It also greatly enhances overall wellbeing. Employees with a high degree of control over their work are able to handle stress and workload by for example, using their judgement to reprioritize or postpone certain tasks. A high degree of autonomy will create a sense of control especially in demanding situations. When employees feel they have control over what they’re doing, both the frequency and length of sickness absence are reduced. Autonomy has also been shown to predict reduced levels of employee turnover and intention to leave an employer. It has a positive impact on job satisfaction, motivation and creativity, particularly in situations where work is routine or pressured.

Au ton o my

Autonomy is the ability to act with a sense of control and decision-making latitude. Autonomous employees approach job tasks as they see fit and use their judgement to do what they believe is best.

au· ton· o· my | noun

The challenge for the food industry

There is a strong link between autonomy and the ability of individual employees to innovate. Innovation can only happen when employees have a degree of freedom to choose what is best or most efficient for them in performing their work. Routine and standardised working practices where compliance with rigid safety and hygiene standards are non-negotiable should not be seen as excluding the opportunity for autonomy. In terms of innovation, small incremental operational improvements are just as important as big conceptual ‘leaps’. Even employees performing the most standardised of work processes can provide innovative suggestions for improvement, however marginal these improvements might be. Employees are at the ones with the best insights into the limitations of existing processes and procedures and are therefore often best placed to propose improvements. Providing effective mechanisms for eliciting suggestions for process improvements can greatly increase employee autonomy and control. They also have the potential to refine processes of course, thereby increasing productivity and profitability.

Why is personal development important?

Being able to use expertise freely in the performance of duties and the ability to learn new things has been shown to predict significantly reduced levels of sickness absence. The presence of a learning culture has also been shown to decrease turnover intentions and increase job satisfaction. It is also related to employees’ motivation to spread knowledge within the organisation. A person’s ability to use their expertise in the performance of work-related tasks is naturally also an important factor for creativity and innovation.

The challenge for the food industry

Opportunities to free up employees’ time to undergo formalised training is likely to be limited in deadline-driven, high volume manufacturing environments. While formal training obviously remains an important consideration, especially with regard to compliance and safety, every possible opportunity to provide less structured developmental opportunities needs to be utilized as well. The free exchange of knowledge and experience between colleagues and teams is one obvious example as is self-directed learning and goal-setting. These mutually enhance positive team working and increased individual autonomy.

High levels of competence in performing work-related tasks is a very strong intrinsic motivational factor. Freedom to use expertise within a work context is closely related to autonomy and is critical in helping people to adapt to an ever-changing work environment. Many practical consequences of procedural or regulatory changes are impossible to anticipate and will not become apparent until after they are implemented. In these circumstances your employees will be the first to feel the impact of these consequences and need to be empowered to respond in an appropriate and timely way.

Personal development

Personal development is usually defined as the opportunities available within an organisation in terms of development of expertise of work-related knowledge, skills and ability. This will increase personal efficiency, teamwork and the quality of leadership.

per· son· al de· vel· op· ment | noun

Leadership

What kinds of leadership have the greatest impact?

The types of leadership that appear to have the greatest impact upon employee wellbeing and organisational performance are:

Of critical importance in both types of leadership is the two-way relationship between leaders and employees. It is primarily through such exchanges that mutually trusting and respectful relationships are forged within teams. Mutual trust is the ability to rely on someone and for them to be able to rely on you. This includes reliance on character, ability or motivations. Trust between leaders and team-members means a mutual reliance to do the right thing in the right way. It minimises the amount of risk people feel when dependent upon others, making team-members feel comfortable and safe within the group.

The ability of everyone to feel comfortable and safe is essential for a high performing team. Trust is essential if a group of individuals is to operate effectively as a team with the active contribution of everyone. A climate of trust allows information to be shared openly, skills to be fully utilised and tasks to be completed through cooperation. Without trust, even a team made up of the most talented and knowledgeable people will never be able to perform at an optimal level.

Considerate leadership is relationship rather than task-orientated. A considerate

leader is people-oriented: they care about their employees’ wellbeing and are

available and empathic.

Supportive leaders help and coach employees, it is similar to considerate

leadership, but more focused on the work itself and less focused on

employee wellbeing.

Considerate leadership Supportive leadership

lead· er· ship | noun

Trusting and supportive work relationships between leaders and employees are crucial to encourage for innovation, largely because the employees will only be given autonomy under these circumstances. The degree of support from managers and leaders increases employees’ commitment to their tasks and their willingness to try new ideas to solve them.

If there are trust issues within the team, it’s essential to find out where these issues stem from. Without addressing any such issues openly, they can never be overcome. Fostering a culture of mutual trust can be a challenge because it requires complete honesty. To build mutual trust, leaders must actively demonstrate that they have trust in their team members. This could be through eliciting ideas to show the value of people’s input or involving people in tasks that would not normally be assigned to them (such as recruiting of new team members, or leading team meetings).

Open communication is clearly essential for building trust. Encouraging team members to talk openly about work challenges and how they feel about work-related issues shows to everyone a willingness to discuss more personal issues and demonstrates trust in teammates with such information. This

demonstration of trust in them will help everyone feel more confident about confiding in colleagues. Talking openly about our hopes, concerns or frustrations is a sign that we are working in an environment of mutual trust. Meeting regularly to discuss feedback from the team provides an ideal starting point for building such trust. The simple act of setting some time aside each week for informal group discussions can go a very long way. These discussions do not need to conform to a traditional fixed agenda and members can be free to forward suggestions on topics to cover. This provides an opportunity to demonstrate openness as any member of the team can share relevant information with the whole group as they wish when and how they wish.

The challenge for the food industry

Why is meaningfulness important?

Research suggests that meaningfulness is a strong predictor of employee wellbeing and reduced sickness absence. Meaningfulness has been identified as a key factor in work performance as well as feelings of loyalty to an employer. It is also related with employees’ ability to adapt to changing circumstances at work. Overall, meaningfulness is related to many other predictors of important outcomes such as employee turnover and sickness absence, commitment and job satisfaction.

Perceptions of meaningfulness are enhanced when employees can see a clear connection between the work they are doing and the goals of their employer. Understanding how their work directly contributes to the achievement of these organisational objectives is key. This means that ongoing recognition for individual or team contribution to the achievement of goals is essential in reinforcing this link.

Meaningfulness

Meaningful work has purpose and a strong and positive significance for individuals. Meaningful work is both pleasurable and contributes to a sense of achievement.

mean·ing·ful·ness | noun

The challenge for the food industry

One consequence of the pandemic has been the public recognition of the vital role everyone involved in food production, manufacturing and distribution plays. For the first time they have been universally acknowledged as key workers. Reinforcing the link between the work

performed by all employees and the critical service provided to consumers provides meaning and a strong sense of purpose as never before.

In environments where deadlines are a constant, celebrating milestones injects life into the team, making it worthwhile for employees to contribute to long term success. Whenever your team achieves a goal, it’s a good idea to acknowledge success promptly and publicly. Recognising individual and team achievements and celebrating successes will help to drive motivation and loyalty. Marking important milesones leads to establishing practices that can help people remain resilient through tough times and better able to face future challenges. Financial reward can be part of the equation, but ultimately great team players are motivated by less tangible, non-financial rewards. It is the opportunity to reflect on what went well, recognition for a job well done, or a demonstration of empathy after a difficult period that keeps people going.

Peer to peer recognition has a particular role to play. Providing all employees with a simple mechanism for recognising the contribution of team-mates whenever they feel it is appropriate is a powerful way to foster meaningfulness and a sense of purpose.

Why is participation important?

Participative decision making has strong positive relationship with employee wellbeing. When decision-making within an organisation is distributed among employees, employee turnover is reduced. Participation is also strongly linked to performance at work as employees can more easily achieve their goals if they have involved, helpful colleagues around them. Helping behaviours also increase the exchange of information between colleagues, which in turn is critical for personal development and team performance.

Participation, especially OCB, is negatively related to employees’ counterproductive work behaviours. When OCB increases, counterproductive work behaviors decrease. Encouraging employees to participate in decisions and goal-setting provides a mechanism through which employees can develop autonomy and increase the amount of ownership they have over their work. This in turn helps to build pride in the work they do and advocacy of the organisation as an employer.

ParticipationParticipation is of course a broad concept, but two specific definitions are particularly important when it comes to organisational performance outcomes. The first is Organisational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), which refers to the extent to which an individual actively participates as a helpful citizen within the organisation as well as being a loyal ambassador outside the organisation. The second is participative decision making, the degree of participation in, and influence on decision-making processes.

par· tic· i· pa· tion | noun

The challenge for the food industry

When a decision needs to be made, how often do we see a group of managers lock themselves away, deliberate and come back to employees with a ready-made and agreed solution? This is often the default setting. Of course some decisions need to be taken at a senior level, but many can be taken within the team by the team members themselves. If, wherever possible, decisions affecting the team are taken by the team, there is an enhanced feeling of ownership and commitment. Also, in many cases, team members themselves will be best-placed to make a decision as they are the ones with the best understanding of the issue at hand. Taking greater ownership of the decision-making process will mean that when an issue is encountered, there is less of a tendency for team members to look outside the team for someone to provide a solution. In this way, the team itself will be the source of creative ideas and solutions to address the issues they are facing.

When employees feel unable to influence decisions, they will inevitably spend far more time at work discussing problems than they will possible solutions. They will also assume that someone else will take care of the problems they are facing. When employees find themselves discussing a problem, how can we encourage them to ask themselves ‘is this something we can do something about and if so….what?’.

Why is the work situation important?

Workload, in the form of a high burden of work, overtime or pressure of time, has consistently been shown to predict sickness absence. An excessive workload leads to psychological illnesses such as stress and exhaustion, which in turn lead to increased absenteeism. A high level of job insecurity, characterised by unstable employment conditions or where there is constant change or restructuring has a strong relationship with poor mental and physical health. Stress in the workplace has been proved to have a correlation with both the frequency sickness absences the amount of time people are absent when sick. Work-related stress derives from a feeling of being overloaded and not in control. High levels of stress are closely linked to high turnover, with a number of studies showing a strong relationship between stress/symptoms of exhaustion and turnover intention.

Work situation

The work situation describes the work itself, from the nature of the tasks and their psychological and physical demands, the degree of workload, the perception of justice and the degree of role conflict.

work sit· u· a· tion

The challenge for the food industry

In more traditional workplaces, acknowledging that you are feeling under pressure or are experiencing difficulties in coping may be seen as a sign of weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth and the simple act of confiding in a manager or colleague can be immensely beneficial in helping an individual to cope.

The initial negative effects of work-related pressure may not be immediately apparent even to the individuals effected. In such cases, these negative effects are likely to show themselves through a generalised dissatisfaction with work or less harmonious relationships with colleagues for example. Ongoing real-time employee feedback can help to highlight such early warning signs so that any issues can be addressed before they can lead to serious consequences such as burnout, sickness absence or voluntary turnover. The individual involved can be alerted to these early indicators and provided with the opportunity to schedule some time with a trusted colleague or manager to discuss them should they so wish.

Why is ‘job satisfaction’ important?

Job satisfaction has a strong impact on employee wellbeing. It is closely linked to sickness absence and is a stronger predictor than workload, control at work, collegial or managerial support. A low level of job satisfaction strongly predicts high levels of turnover. Job satisfaction is also closely linked to productivity, customer satisfaction, quality and safety and is strongly related to performance at work.

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction relates to employees’ feelings towards their job and the extent to which their thoughts and attitudes regarding their jobs are positive. Contributory factors that may predict job satisfaction include the quality of communication, employee relationships, work tasks or the availability of development opportunities.

job sat· is· fac· tion

The challenge for the food industry

The task of enhancing job satisfaction where many job-related activities are routine or repetitive has long been recognised as a significant challenge for many employers. It is also an area that has attracted a good deal investigation through research. One element which been shown to have a particularly positive impact in routine work is autonomy. As discussed earlier, the more control employees can take over the work they do and how they do it, the greater pride they take in it. The opportunity to make continuous improvements is of particular importance here. The other major factor is the extent to which they feel cared for and valued for their contribution. Employers who go out of their way to show that employee wellbeing is of genuine concern and who provide authentic recognition for a job well done will be rewarded with increased loyalty, performance and productivity. Such empathy is impossible unless employers have a good understanding of the issues being faced by their employees.

Why is team spirit important?

Mutual support is an important component of team spirit and is predictive of employee wellbeing and talent retention and its positive impact is just as strong as participation and job satisfaction. Some studies have shown that work groups with a “strong” team spirit perform 18% better than average. This is because a positive team spirit increases coordination, cooperation, and sharing of the burden of work within a team. This leads to improved productivity and increased job satisfaction among team members. Team spirit exerts a strong effect on the ability to innovate as it creates psychological safety, where individuals feel able to question the way things are done or find new ways to solve problems. Group members are also more willing to take considered risks when they know they will be supported by their colleagues.

Team spirit

Team spirit is the “glue” that holds a group of people together in the workplace. It is the feeling of being together as a team, through mutual appreciation and commitment. It is experienced through active support from colleagues in the achievement of a common objective.

team spir· it

The challenge for the food industry

In any functioning team, all members should have a shared desire to help each other and the team succeed. This is particularly true for deadline-driven manufacturing and processing environments. Overall processes must be broken down into tasks which can be taken on by individuals or smaller groups within the team. To make this work, all team members need to know how the work they are doing impacts upon the ability of other team members to do what they need to do. Therefore, team spirit means having a clear focus on team as well as individual objectives. The team may be unable to succeed if any single individual can’t deliver. This means that any barriers/ issues should be flagged early so that they can be dealt with and keeping everyone up to date with progress.

Team members must be free to express any concern they may have about their ability to perform a particular task. This can then allow any support to be provided proactively before any issues arise. Under these conditions, everyone can then hold each other to account for doing what they have committed to doing, regardless of role or seniority.

Engaged employees buy in to the organisation’s vision and goals and do what they can to help to achieve them. Engagement drives a number of positive outcomes including advocacy, pride and intention to stay with an employer. It is also related to higher productivity, efficiency and profitability.

Engaged employees are less likely to take periods of absence from work due to enhanced physical and mental well-being. Maintaining high levels of employee engagement must be a priority, especially during these challenging times. Now as never before there is a pressing need to give employees more of a voice in how your organisation operates and to anticipate and respond to their needs and concerns.

Conclusion

Change will continue to be a constant in the food manufacturing and processing sector. Employers who better engage with their people to adapt to new situations and demands and respond in a coordinated and purposeful way will reap the benefits.

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