TM - March 2008 - (Page 54)

insight by Kellye Whitney Butterball: No Chicken When It Comes to Talent Management If you like poultry, chances are you like or have at least tasted one of Butterball’s products. The growing national organization has decided its talent management strategies should be as varied and deliverable as its consumer product offerings. Targeted programs for different employee populations and outdated systems bear reconsideration as the company focuses on the importance of enterprise-wide process consistency, new technology implementation and building a culture of employee development. Beverly Hinson, director of organizational development and training, with responsibility for the company’s talent management process, offers more insight into the company’s forward-thinking strategy to ensure a continuous pipeline of talent. TM: Hinson: Describe Butterball’s approach to talent management. We are using an integrated approach with an emphasis on people development. We link our performance processes to both learning management and our succession planning process. Our senior management and ownership group decided they were interested in doing succession planning this year, and we began to look for a talent management system to help aid us in managing the process. In 2006, our ownership purchased Butterball brand and acquired five additional processing facilities. Overnight we went from 2,600 employees to a little over 5,000. With the organization growing at that rate, it’s very important for us to maintain the continuity of our leadership and have successors to fill key positions as they become vacated. What processes or programs has Butterball established to improve workforce performance? TM: Hinson: We use an annual review process in addition to the programs we have established. We currently have a team leader development program, a supervisor apprentice program, and we perform required annual training with over 100 hours of leadership training which is developed internally. And we have access to thousands of offthe-shelf programs ready to be delivered according to our business needs. The training we design or have selected is used to support the development of the core leadership and management competencies that we use in both our hiring and performance management processes. Our immediate implementation plans include establishing a mid-manager development program, a senior manager development program, and we’re implementing talent management software which includes performance management, learning management and succession management. We’re also looking at implementing individual assessments, including multi-rater review of talent and potential and individual assessments on the job-specific competencies. By the year-end, we expect to have our senior leadership team conducting talent discussions with employees to review 54 March 2008 talent management magazine www.TalentMgt.com http://www.TalentMgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - March 2008

TM - March 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance - The Paradoxically Gifted Leading Edge - Reverse Engineering: Shifting Focus to HR's Cause Learning Connection - Sharing Talent On the Hunt for Talent Unlock Employee Motivation Through Personality Testing HR Crucial to Executive Compensation Process Downtown Management: Surfing May Not Be Slacking Think Tanks Aid Government in Talent Management Creating Consistency: Enterprise-Wide Succession Plans Battle Retention Deficits With On-Boarding Sunbelt Rentals: A Mid-Level View of HR From the Trenches Butterball: No Chicken When It Comes to Talent Management Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources Full Potential - Choosing Change

TM - March 2008

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