Access to an adequate workforce is a decades-old challenge facing meat and poultry processors that has intensified with rising production costs. Forecasts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the US Department of Labor don’t show an end to this negative trend.

There were 905 plants slaughtering under federal inspection on Jan. 1, 2022, compared with 858 in the same period of 2021, the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the US Department of Agriculture said in its “Livestock Slaughter 2021 Summary (April 2022).”

The US meat industry directly employs more than 500,000 people — not counting the additional 2 million jobs created along the value chain, according to the Meat Institute.

The latest available federal data showed that in 2021, meat and poultry plants employed nearly 31% of US food and beverage manufacturing workers, the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture said.

And in 2021, the meat and poultry industry produced 27.95 billion lbs of beef — a record volume; 27.67 billion lbs of pork; 53.2 million lbs of veal; 138.4 million lbs of lamb and mutton; and 50.4 billion lbs of poultry.

Lagging labor pool

In its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) report, the BLS projected little or no change (-1%) in the growth rate of jobs in the meat processing industry from 2022 to 2023. The OEWS program produces employment and wage estimates annually for approximately 830 occupations.

The OEWS report stated the May 2022 median annual wage was $35,240 for slaughterers and meat packers (defined as workers that “Perform nonroutine or precision functions involving the preparation of large portions of meat. Work may include specialized slaughtering tasks, cutting standard or premium cuts of meat for marketing, making sausage, or wrapping meats. Work typically occurs in slaughtering, meat packing, or wholesale establishments”).

H2-A to education

Industry stakeholders are addressing worker recruitment and retention on multiple fronts. But the primary hurdle to accessing available workers is the US immigration system and work visa programs like H-2A, which allows US employers who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals into the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs.

Previous efforts to reform the H-2A program have stalled, but the Agricultural Labor Working Group (ALWG) comprised of US House Agriculture Committee members, worked to identify root causes driving the lack of available domestic workers and develop potential solutions. Among the policies recommended by the ALWG:

1. A single Internet portal for all aspects of the H2-A application process.
2. Allow employers to apply for staggered worker entry by completing one application for all the workers the employer needs for a particular year or growing season.
3. Permanently waiving the in-person interview requirement for returning H-2A workers.
4. Granting year-round industries access to the H2-A program

“The ALWG recommends that the committee of jurisdiction reform the H-2A visa program to include agricultural labor or services (including cooperatively owned employers) that involve the initial preparation, processing, or manufacturing of agricultural commodities, such as livestock, poultry, dairy, peanuts, sugar beets and sugarcane,” the ALWG said in its report.

After the lockdowns imposed during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading processors began to focus on employee amenities aimed at retention.

In 2023, Tyson Foods opened a child care center near its Humboldt, Tenn., poultry processing plant with an investment of nearly $5 million. The Tyson Learning Center (TLC) will support 100 children, five years old and younger. The company also extended access to child care to its workers at its Amarillo, Texas, beef processing plant.

Ruiz Food Products Inc., a manufacturer of prepared frozen foods, has opened three on-site health centers for its insured employees and covered family members in Dennison, Texas, Dinuba, Calif., and Florence, SC.

In 2021, Tyson announced a partnership with Marathon Health to pilot seven “Bright Blue” health centers near the company’s production facilities giving Tyson employees and their family members access to the free health clinics.

Other strategies proposed to attract and retain workers include sign-on bonuses, making benefits available sooner and providing strong job training opportunities.

Tyson Foods partnered with Marathon Health to pilot seven "Bright Blue" health centers near the company's production facilities giving employees and their dependents access to the free health clinics. (Source: Tyson Foods Inc.)

Training up

Recognizing that retention is an issue in the industry, Kansas City, Mo.-based WorkForge, a manufacturing training and development company, has decided, rather than fight the problem, to accept it and work with it.

“The nature of the protein industry workforce is high turnover,” said Chris Clarke, senior marketing manager at WorkForge. “It’s been like that forever and ever. So it’s not really how do you stop that; it’s how do you adapt to it.”

WorkForge focuses on creating organized career pathways for frontline workers within manufacturing. Its online training modules help employers gauge where onboarded employees’ skill levels lie and quickly train them up to advance to higher levels.

With strong diversity in both the maintenance and operations departments of meat and poultry processing companies, the training modules are available in a variety of languages to be accessible in employees’ native language. All modules are translated in English, with select courses available in Spanish, Bulgarian, Czech, German, Indonesian, Italian, Hungarian, Burmese and Karen.

Not all employees are literate in their native language, so the modules are developed to allow for auditory learning as well.

Employees can access the training exercises on their own time through devices like a laptop or tablet. Within 15 to 20 minutes, they will be able to complete a module. After a set time of approximately six months employees have the opportunity to level up, which can include a pay raise to compensate them for adding skills and knowledge.

Nate Walts, DBA, chief executive officer at WorkForge, estimated that employees consume between 10 and 20 hours of content before advancing to the next level.

Walts reported that since using WorkForge’s trainings, manufacturing onboarding programs have seen a time-to-productivity improvement of 63%.

“What we’ve been able to see through what we deploy is a shortening of that time frame for what it takes to get somebody productive who’s new to that job, new to those concepts, new to those skills, and condensing it by 63%. That’s pretty meaningful,” Walts said.

He explained how the metric to focus on is not so much the money saved from cutting the training timeline rather the increased productivity.

“If you were thinking about productivity per employee, which should be a metric every manufacturer is tracking, then all you have to do is count up the days from point A to point B within your current training plan,” Walts said. “And if you could improve productivity during that timeline by 63% and take it times your revenue per employee or production per employee, that number is going to be amplified into hundreds of thousands of dollars — in some cases millions of dollars depending on the industry.”

Clarke added that, with one client, turnover decreased slightly after implementing WorkForge’s courses.

Drawing on his previous experience working at Triumph Foods, Clarke suspected that the positive results were in part due to the quick, interactive training available through WorkForge.

“I’ve sat through many, many orientations at my old plants — four or five day orientations, people falling asleep. By day two, half the classroom’s empty. So being able to get people out of the classroom that want to work with their hands, they want to get on the floor, they want to do the job, actually doing it.”

WorkForge looks to reach the next generation by integrating digitalization with the food processing industry. Custom content offers workers a way to learn the specific machines and processes at their plant at their fingertips and at their convenience.

“E-learning will play an integral part in tackling the labor and training we’re facing in the protein industry right now,” Clarke said.

Meeting needs

The leader of one of the industry’s largest beef companies, Wichita, Kan.-based Cargill said he would attest to the labor shortage in the meat processing sector.

Hans Kabat, president of Cargill’s North American Protein business, said the company has hundreds of job openings across its 40-plus plants in its protein business sector in the United States. He said hiring and retention for the company is improved using multiple approaches and programs.

“We’re hiring to reduce the number of open positions, not only increasing wages and benefits for plant employees, but investing in attracting, retaining and creating a meaningful work experience for this critical group of team members,” he said.

One way the company is achieving that has been the development of its Powered by Plants initiative.

“Beginning with 135 pilots and focus groups across North America, we’re learning what our teams value most — from flexible work to leadership development. That enables us to improve the conditions for all of our teammates and serve our customers better.

“Another example is Cargill’s smart manufacturing initiative – Factory of the Future. We’re investing nearly $400 million in 100 technology and data analysis projects across our plants to make them safer and less physically demanding for our employees to work in.”

Cargill is also focused on how to address the unique needs of its workers across the communities where it operates plants, each with their own individual cultures that present many challenges and opportunities.

“For instance, in Fort Morgan, Colo., there are housing and child care shortages. To help address these gaps, we’re breaking ground on a 150-unit rental and ownership housing development for our plant employees there,” he said of the program that was expected to launch this month.

“And we’ve worked with the local United Way to help create additional affordable child care options in the community,” Kabat said.

Work culture

Garner, NC-based turkey producer, Butterball LLC, strives to be the best employer available in the communities in which it operates. The company strives to offer competitive wages, bonus and referral pay, and meaningful benefits, such as continuing education, career pathing and advancement opportunities, as well as family-friendly benefits in well-being, financial literacy and language learning.

Butterball markets open positions on a variety of digital recruitment platforms and has seen excitement and enthusiasm for open positions, as well as success in filling them. But ultimately, it truly believes its current employees are its best recruiting tool for filling open positions in the processing plants.

“Our people are truly our best advocates,” said Mishlee Fernandez, director of talent acquisitions at Butterball. “We have strong, deep-rooted relationships in our local communities and are proud to provide impactful career opportunities that our team members recommend with confidence to their friends and family.”

Butterball’s culture creates opportunities and gives line workers flexibility that is traditionally uncommon in the industry.

“Our people are at the core of who we are,” Fernandez said “We understand that their needs change depending on life changes; therefore, we ensure we provide shift flexibility, career advancement, leave opportunities, tuition reimbursement and perks, such as gym memberships and employee discounts.”

Team members can access a variety of training opportunities and online learning modules to drive their career development further, and frontline workers have a voice to guide management in the improvement and efficiencies to make processes, daily workflow and work environment better.

“Giving frontline team members a voice, and listening with intent, has been instrumental in retention, especially in hard-to-fill roles,” Fernandez said. “We repeatedly ask, ‘What would make this task easier and more efficient? What can we do to help this process run smoother?’ Their input guides us to provide a safer and more productive environment.”

Butterball believes in the automation of mundane tasks to help alleviate the burden of performing them manually. Because of this, team members remain engaged and learn to operate and troubleshoot any issues that arise with the machines.

The benefits are two-fold: they create less turnover and create a new skillset for frontline workers.

Fernandez added, team members at Butterball processing plants have the opportunity to advance regardless of where they started with the organization. The company listens to their needs and supports any and all aspirations they have to take their careers to higher levels.

“Everything we do is steeped in our purpose, which is to ‘help people pass love on,’” Fernandez said. “Butterball is more than just a turkey producer — the products we make bring people together around a warm meal. Instilling our purpose in our team members gives them a sense of ownership and pride in the products they make; enhancing their overall work experience.”

Employers are finding ways to improve the work culture at their companies through competitive wages, meaningful benefits and advancement opportunities as well as family-friendly benefits. (Source: Deli Star)

Recruitment tools

Seaboard Foods’ Guymon, Okla., pork plant uses many of the same online recruiting tools that most employers use. Platforms such as Indeed, Zip Recruiter and Facebook tend to reach the widest audiences. Also, the Guymon plant has hired many workers through referrals and has developed a strong network for recruitment. But the most unique technique has involved local media.

“Employee testimonials on local radio stations have served as an effective way to attract new talent,” said Jennie Watkins, the facility’s human resources director.

Once employed, hourly production employees become part of a bargaining unit. The Guymon plant works with the local union to create incentives to go with Seaboard’s competitive wages and benefits package to promote retention.

“We are proud that we foster a family atmosphere, which has contributed to having many employees working with us for many years,” Watkins said.

When it comes to the toughest positions on the line, Seaboard considers applicants’ shift preference, previous work history and department preference. Also, it will show videos of difficult jobs to ensure new hires are placed in an appropriate position. Employees who want to bid for specific positions will watch videos that explain the demands and tasks associated with that specific job.

“New employees receive comprehensive training, including videos showcasing challenging job roles, while the production trainers work closely with employees during their initial two to four weeks to ensure success,” Watkins added. “We also seek feedback from new employees to enhance processes and address challenges.”

Deli Star Corp.’s leadership team have been dealt more than their share of business challenges in the past several years, not the least of which has been hiring and retaining employees. Compounding the labor shortage created by the pandemic in 2020, the family-owned meat processor was dealt another devastating blow in early 2021, when a fire at its Fayetteville, Ill., processing plant destroyed the 75,000-square-foot facility and brought the company’s production to a grinding halt.

In the months that followed, Deli Star stakeholders hatched a plan to rebuild a bigger and better plant located in St. Louis, a couple of miles from the company’s Food Discovery Center at City Foundry STL. While construction on the 104,000-square-foot space was underway, the leadership team was faced with accounting for about about 500 jobs, which would mean utilizing existing workers and hiring even more to be ready for starting up operations just over a year after the fire.

Lisa Whealon, vice president of people and culture at Deli Star, said staffing a new production facility in a bigger city where there was little or no brand recognition of the company proved to be an uphill battle.

“People didn’t know who we were or what kind of company we were to work for,” she said.

As recruitment efforts began, the hiring team quickly realized the importance of distinguishing jobs at Deli Star from other food companies that also were hiring workers in the area.

“There seemed to be a lack of candidates applying for production roles, and we needed to fill 100 positions,” Whealon said. “What worked for us was looking at ways we could stand out from other manufacturing sites that were pulling from the same talent pool.”

One way the company tried to stand out was raising its starting hourly rate from $15 to $17. The company also raised its referral rates paid to current workers to $400. The pay rate increase paid off immediately, Whealon said, resulting in significantly more applicants, practically overnight. Meanwhile, the higher referral rates generated 30% more applicants from internal employees. But knowing today’s workers are looking at more than just the hourly rate when job hunting, Deli Star realized it had to take more steps to draw quality applicants.

“We wanted to not just fill positions but ensure that those we filled were good hires,” Whealon said. “We looked next at our benefit package. We listened to what employees shared, were concerns and got to work to make it better.”

Perking up

Ensuring new employees are eligible for benefits at Deli Star beginning on their first day of work has been a positive and popular perk. However, more recent feedback revealed concerns around the cost of benefits.

“We worked closely with our benefit broker team and our finance department to ensure we could deliver,” Whealon said. “Our benefit broker team was able to find different solutions to deliver and we changed carriers. This change came with a savings to our plan of $140,000 which helped us reduce premiums, increase our well-being offerings, and gave us the ability to provide a ‘benefit holiday’ in December so employees could enjoy three paychecks where the company paid their premiums.”

Additionally, offering a benefits plan with a lower deductible option also addressed concerns among certain workers and was especially important to many frontline employees. A more recent perk offered to Deli Star’s frontline teams that has been well received is its four-day work schedule. Processing line employees work 10-hour days, Monday-Thursday and enjoy three-day weekends.

“This flexibility allows employees time to recharge and has been a selling point in our continued recruiting efforts since launching this in the summer of 2023,” Whealon said.

Time off work is valued, and the company offers a paid time off program in addition to 12 paid holidays per year.

Education edge

To further demonstrate its commitment to employees, Whealon said Deli Star has developed a program to allow workers to learn and grow. To that end, in the summer of 2023, Deli Star University was launched. The internal program offers classes to help employees develop personal growth plans; financial planning and product and process training.

For employees interested in formal education, Deli Star recently shifted from a tuition reimbursement plan to tuition advancement so employees don’t have to pay for education out of pocket. The advancement amount was increased to $5,200, and the program was expanded to include non-traditional educational pursuits — an employee recently used this program to obtain a Class C license through a truck driving school, for example.

“We have grown a lot in the past three years since the fire,” Whealon said. “Our ability to try new things, listen to our teams and adapt has been key to our hiring success.”