Meat+Poultry - April 2019 - 8

C O M M E N TA R Y

Upstream recruiting
It's impossible to have a conversation
about the industry these days without
the topic of labor shortages becoming
a theme. When it comes to recruiting
skilled labor, most food companies
benefit from establishing relationships
with local colleges and universities as
they valiently attempt to identify and
pursue the brightest up-and-coming
graduates and make them an offer they
can't refuse. Positioning a couple of
brochure-toting company recruiters
behind a skirted table on campuses a
couple of times a year isn't cutting it.
Resources are better spent pursuing
students still contemplating their
educational journey and career paths.
Just ask someone who knows.
For the better part of three decades
John Flood made a career of leading
teams in the food industry, most
recently with Wayne Farms, based in
Oakwood, Georgia. Flood retired from
Wayne Farms in 2017, where he was
vice president and general manager of
prepared foods. He is remembered by
his colleagues as a savvy businessman
and by his team members as an
inspirational and insightful boss. After
stepping away, Flood wasn't destined
for a quiet retirement in a rocking
chair. "I never said I was going to
retire. I told everybody I was going to

rewire." He recognized an opportunity
to pursue an encore career as a
consultant to the food industry and
began building a company focused on
helping firms maximize their business
performance. He founded Elevate,
about a year ago and hit the ground
running. One way he knew to elevate
performance of food companies was
to address the widespread shortage
of skilled labor. The problem is an
awareness and engagement issue,
Flood says. Based on research of new
college students, Flood learned that
almost half have decided by the end of
their freshman year what industry they
want to pursue as a career, "and many
have already decided on the companies
they want to be a part of.
"Unless we, as an industry are
reaching out and engaging these
students early, guess what - we're
ending up with graduates who are
still wondering what they want to do."
Investing in a graduate whose zeal
is tempered by just wanting to get
some kind of job after school is not a
long-term solution, but more common
than you might think.
"And we wonder why we don't get
the best and the brightest and why we
have attrition in our industry," Flood
says. "It's because we're bringing a
lot of people into the industry that
simply don't have a passion or an
understanding of what we do."
To reach these prime employment

targets, Flood is working with
universities to build committees
focused specifically on recruitment
for food industry jobs. He insists the
committees include only the true
influencers representing both the
companies and the universities. "Our
preference is to engage the chief HR
officers, the vice president of HR
representing the member companies
as well as recruiting professionals
and representatives from the colleges
and universities," Flood says. "The
goal is to find the best and most
willing colleges and universities that
want to come alongside our industry;
endow some classes that are specific
to give students the awareness and
information so they can make their
(career) decisions early."
The challenge for food companies,
is filling positions in finance,
accounting, marketing and human
resources while food science and
animal science students tend to require
less recruitng. "If these students are
in a business school and you throw
out the words 'foodservice' or 'food
manufacturing' their eyes glaze over,"
and most assume the opportunities
include low pay and long hours with
limited advancement. "When we start
creating awareness we are going to find
those students that say, 'Wow, I never
knew,' and 'I really want to be a part of
this industry.'"
J O E L C R E WS, E D I TO R | j c r e w s @ s o s l a n d .c o m

"And we wonder why we don't get the best and
the brightest and why we have attrition in our
industry."
- JOHN FLOOD

8

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Meat+Poultry - April 2019

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