Get motivated

Food and drink employers need to focus on staff retention and motivation techniques, not recruitment, if the industry is to tackle falling employment levels. Rebecca Green reports

As any employer in the food and drink industry will tell you, recruiting staff is never easy. But according to the latest figures from Improve, the sector skills council for the food and drink industry, it is becoming increasingly difficult, not only to recruit, but to hold on to workers.

With a yearly turnover of £69.4bn (Food and Drink Federation), the industry is one of the largest in the UK, yet, according to Improve, around 26,000 jobs were lost between 1992 and 2002, with expected decreases of 45,000 between 2004 and 2014. To make matters worse, Improve forecasts that 118,000 new workers are needed to meet replacement demand by 2014.

There is no question that a strong recruitment process can help to combat this problem, but this approach risks only tackling the effects, not the cause.

According to Tony Dumbreck, md of Golden Crumb, which makes frozen vegetable and cheese appetisers for the foodservice sector, current trends show that the average length of time an employee will remain in a job is between three and five years.

"This is especially detrimental to the food and drink manufacturing industry, suffering as it is from escalating recruitment problems and an increasing inability to replace the lost employees as easily as other industries might," says Dumbreck.

"Add to this the fact that many jobs in the trade are based around on-the-job training and demand a thorough working knowledge of the machinery, processes and products, and it is obvious that the trend of only staying in a job for three to five years could be costing the industry thousands of pounds in loss of expertise, additional training, loss of business relationships and simple human error."

The answer, he suggests, lies not in recruitment but in retention, and using training and career development opportunities to motivate staff. "Attempts to retain and motivate staff must begin as soon as a new employee steps through the door," he says.

"Employers should ensure that a comprehensive induction and training programme is in place for all new employees - this is essential in an industry where the initial learning curve is often steep and littered with regulatory requirements."

Dumbreck believes that providing opportunities for personal and career development is a valuable way to ensure staff remain happy in the company - a belief shared by Debs Pogson, human resources (HR) manager at Witwoods, which has a turnover of less than 10% on staff of 160.

"Our staff get to choose their training rather than being told what they are going to do," she says. "And we have in-house management development training, which is helpful in a smaller company because it allows for personal development even if there are less opportunities to move up internally."

Dumbreck, whose firm employs 24 people - six of whom have been with the company for over 10 years and three since it was founded in 1989, adds: "By offering employees these training opportunities, you are offering them a chance to challenge themselves and progress up the career ladder. This in turn greatly reduces chances of dissatisfaction with their job role, as they will feel in control of their progression within the company."

The boredom factor

Creating the right environment in what can often be monotonous working conditions, is also important, as Martin Tilstone, HR director at Pinneys of Scotland, part of Uniq Prepared Foods, points out.

"A lot of the work on the production line can be quite boring so the guys will do silly things to keep themselves amused, like shouting out catchprases from TV. We could try and stamp down on this - take a military view and say they need to keep their mind on the job more - but if it's keeping them sane for the seventh hour doing the same thing, it's not really doing any harm."

He adds: "We do pay productivity bonuses here, not just relating to the individual but also to the departments, in terms of meeting yield and quality targets etc. So if you believe that money motivates, then that probably does keep people quite focused."

However, Tilstone doesn't believe that good staff retention is always down to exceptional employer practice. "Generally, people are quite stable. We tend to do what we do and it takes something quite significant for us to make a change. So, if a company holds on to staff, maybe it's simply because it hasn't done anything drastic to make people go elsewhere."

He adds that a willingness to promote from within can help, because it means "fewer people with their nose out of joint because someone has been hired in above them, and more opportunities for those with ambition"

One company that has taken a completely different and holistic approach to staff motivation is premium snack bar and cereal maker Eat Natural. So committed is the firm to the happiness of its staff that it employs its very own full-time 'Aunt Mary' who makes daily treats like chocolate brownies and fruit smoothies for the 100-strong team.

As co-founder Praveen Vijh says, "Happy staff make happy bars", and although at first this may sound a bit contrived, he does have a point. "Sometimes it's difficult to keep people in a job that can be quite mundane, so we try to make sure their day-to-day lives are looked after," he says.

This involves holding regular staff barbecues, themed to incorporate the multi-cultural workforce, and having a 'DJ for a day' rota so staff can bring in their own cd collections. He admits the latter doesn't always work ("after a few hours Polish music can get a bit scary"), but says the concept helps people engage with other cultures.

At Eat Natural, practices like this are commonplace, "as essential as buying almonds", says Vijh, which is all very well if you have the budget to be able to splash out, but what if you don't?

"It costs money to replace people, so why not spend the money to keep them here instead?" suggests Vijh. "To us it's just an essential part of the business." FM

Companies get the right tools for the job

Food and drink companies across the UK could soon benefit from an online skills screening tool currently available free of charge to firms in Scotland.

The Robert Gordon University (RGU) developed the tool to help employers pinpoint skills gaps in the workforce and access appropriate training in health and safety and food hygiene.

It comprises 20 questions, derived from companies across eight different sectors - bakery, catering, confectionery, dairy, fish, manufacturing, meat and soft drinks - which ensures the software is aligned to the specific needs of each area, says Cathy Harris, project manager at RGU.

The test, which is taken online by the employee, is quick and simple to use, and produces a report at the end with hyperlinks to precision training courses. "It helps the employer to instantly identify skills gaps both in an individual and in the workforce as a whole," explains Harris. "It is unique in that it is a training needs analysis tool, not another training scheme, and can be integrated into current human resources systems."

Harris points out that there is no hard and fast rule governing when the tool should be used, but suggests: "It could be used at the point of recruitment or post induction, or for staff that have been in a post for some time and might need a refresher." It can also save employers forking out on training that isn't actually needed, she adds.

The concept has already proved a success in Scotland, where it is available free of charge throughout the summer, although due to demand, offers have now been restricted to five per company.

A steering group comprising: Improve, RGU, Scottish Enterprise Grampian, the Scottish Food & Drink Federation, Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland, Machphie of Glenbervie and Trinity Services International, is leading the project, with the aim of rolling it out nationwide after September.

For more information contact Cathy Harris on 01224 262237.