Reducing Employee Turnover

Part 2 - Promoting Employees’ pride and belonging

By Pete Anderson, Ph.D., Midwest PMS, LLC

Employee turnover is frustrating and expensive. After investing the time, effort, and money to find and hire a good employee and watching them grow into their job, it really hurts to have them leave. Sometimes they just get a much better opportunity. In that case, say congratulations and wish them well. In other cases, they make a lateral move, to a similar job for similar pay. When that happens, look in the mirror. It may well be your fault.

The key to keeping good employees is having them engaged and committed, but how do we get there? Employee engagement starts with the interview and hiring process. Letting prospective hires know that you are hiring for the long term will attract those prospects who want to make a commitment. Follow that with a meaningful orientation, onboarding, and training period and provide the necessary resources to do their job properly. Set clear expectations, measure, and report, so that employees know how they are doing. All of those things are just good management but really achieving employee engagement requires even more.

Let’s start by understanding employee engagement and discuss a few things that you as a supervisor and leader can do.

Engaged employees have four things in common:

1. They feel valued as people.

2. They understand the value of the work that they do.

3. They feel good about the organization that they are part of.

4. They feel good about the industry that they are part of.

We explored the first item, making employees feel valued, in the last issue of Protein Producers . Let’s take a closer look at the other three commonalities now.

They understand the value of the work that they do.

In feedyards we spend a lot of time telling new employees what to do. We spend some time showing them how to do it and publish schedules that tell them when and where. All of those things are necessary for the short-term goal of getting today’s work done.

Unfortunately, we are not great at answering the most critical questions: Why do we do that? Why do we do it that way? Why do we do things in this order or do this only after that occurs? Why do we invest in the best equipment for this function but not for that one? Employees need to understand the why so that they realize the value of doing their jobs well.

Let’s look at some examples. Every feed truck driver knows that the feed should be spread in an even line from one end of the bunk to the other without gaps. They hear that every day. Did we tell them why? Do they know that the cattle have 8 inches of bunk space each, but they are 30 inches wide, they can’t all eat at the same time, they have established an order, and any gap in feed means that at least one animal that expects to eat right now is missing out on fresh feed? Do they know that a frustrated and hungry animal might overeat later when they have a chance and that could cause digestive upsets? Does the feed mill manager really understand why every bite of feed needs to have the right amount of medication or trace mineral because these things are critical nutritionally, expensive, and sometimes dangerous? Does every member of the processing crew know the “why” behind properly chilled vaccines or ideal injection sites? Does every member of the maintenance crew know how much mud increases the maintenance energy requirement of cattle and results in wasted feed energy and poorer performance? Does your office staff truly understand the importance of answering every call or getting accurate statements out on time?

You have a real teaching opportunity related to the “why” behind what we do. Make “why” a key part of your training and onboarding and regularly revisit it with experienced employees. Get your nutritionist and veterinarian involved in this if they are not doing it already. If they are not communicating the “why”, make sure they start right away.

Once all of these valuable employees understand that everything they do affects the well-being and production of the cattle, that every action has a cattle impact and a bottom line impact for the business or the cattle owner, three things will happen. First, they will take more pride in doing their work properly instead of just completing the tasks. Next, they will feel a greater attachment to their department and the organization because they will understand that they make a difference. Third, eventually they will bring forth questions, suggestions, and innovations that will make your business better. When you see these things, you have employees who are engaged in their work.

If you are a life-long learner and your feedyard has a culture of continuous improvement, you have set the stage for employees to understand that their work is valuable and will continue to be.

They feel good about the organization that they are part of.

When I am asked by friends or acquaintances who do not work in agriculture what Midwest PMS does, I always start my answer with: “We contribute to the safest, most abundant, most affordable food supply the world has ever known.”

I then explain our role with a second sentence: “Our role is to improve the efficiency and profitability of cattle production.”

And I add a third to explain our specific function: “We accomplish this by delivering quality nutrition products and elite, science-based consulting.”

In those three sentences, I have told them what we do to answer their question, but I have also told them why we do it and who we do it for.

How do your employees answer that question? Every feedyard has a reputation in town. Think about what the reputation of your yard is. Then think about being among the lowest-ranking employees and telling your friends that you just went to work for that yard. What do your friends say? Are they impressed, envious? Or do they wonder why you would have made that choice and assume you did not have any good options? Is your yard respected in town and thought of as a great place to work, a leader in the community? Or is it a place that people do not respect, and employees are reluctant to tell their friends where they work?

I am proud to work for what I believe is a great company that does meaningful work and values its employees. I hope that always comes across in my words and actions. Set the goal to have your employees feel the same way about your company. Then do the hard work to make it happen.

They feel good about the industry that they are part of.

All of us in production agriculture need to work every day to let our employees know that they are part of something valuable and noble. We are feeding the world, and everyone involved should take pride in that.

Our industry is under constant attack from activists and media who portray what we do as bad for the environment or describe us as greedy capitalists who do not care about animals and only care about profit. An employee who hears bad things about the industry they work in, or the product that they work so hard to produce, may eventually decide that they do not want to tell people that is what they do, and the next step is to find another job. As leaders, we need to reinforce the message that we are providing highquality, great-tasting protein and doing it in a way that we can be proud of.

How do your employees answer when they are asked what they do? Do they say, “I work at a feedyard,” or do they say, “I provide care and feeding for cattle so that you can have safe, affordable beef”?

There are lots of good resources available, including brief videos that make important points on this subject. Schedule a brief meeting, bring some donuts, and give everyone 30 minutes to watch a video and discuss it for a few minutes.

Every organization would benefit by increased employee engagement. Start with this: Do an honest accounting of the last three or four employees who left your organization. Exclude anyone who moved away for family reasons or took a much better job than you had available. Employees who made parallel moves have critical data for you. Why did they leave? It may be worth a call to ask. Chances are they did not feel valued, either by you as their supervisor or by the entire organization. If that is the case, you better get to work and fix it, or other good employees will be following them out the door and finding someplace where they do feel valued.

The bottom line: You are responsible for the job satisfaction and engagement of the people who work for you. You got that responsibility when you agreed to accept a management position. Improving employee engagement will not just happen; you need to make it happen, but your organization, and your own career, will benefit greatly if you can get there. Now go get to work!

Pete Anderson is Director of Research for Midwest PMS, LLC, a provider of liquid suspension nutritional supplements and consulting services to cattle feeders and dairy producers. Dr. Anderson directs research conducted and sponsored by MWPMS and provides technical support to MWPMS nutritionists and clients. In addition, he leads the company’s efforts in the areas of performance records analysis and business consulting and has quality assurance, feed safety and regulatory responsibility for the firm’s production facilities. Pete received a B.S. degree in Animal Sciences and Industry from Kansas State University in 1983 and a M.S. (1987) and Ph.D. (1989) from Michigan State University with emphasis on growth and muscle biology, particularly as affected by exogenous agents. Pete and his wife, Denise, reside in Loveland, Colorado, and have three adult children.