Baking & Snack - August 2016 - 22

WORKFORCE GAP STUDY

Learning from the best
Gone are the days when employees, even hourly
ones, want to come into work and simply do their
job. In general, people today want to do good work,
and they want to know that good work counts for
something. If they don't, they'll leave. And if the
industry isn't making the necessary improvements,
they'll find another manufacturing-related industry
that is.
"If you only have 75% of the industry saying they're
doing a particular program, that leaves a quarter of
the industry not even doing it," observed Marjorie
Hellmer, president of Cypress Research. "That's not
acceptable. These programs need to be at 100%."
The issue of the workforce gap may seem bleak
- dire, even - but there are some places where
the industry is finding success. To not only celebrate
this but also create a go-to resource for any bakery
to reference, Cypress wrote Attracting and Retaining
Skilled Talent, an e-book of case studies from companies with forward-thinking strategies for attracting, training and retaining employees.
"During executive interviews we heard some
illustrations that we thought were particularly innovative, so we requested to do a limited number
of case studies for a branded e-book," Ms. Hellmer
said. Among some of the bakeries that participated were ARYZTA, The Bama Companies, King's
Hawaiian and more. The book is available now at
www.americanbakers.org and www.asbe.org.

lack of programs currently in place to tackle it. "When you
start looking at solutions, you see that there aren't enough
programs in place to help bakers address these challenges,"
Ms. Hellmer warned. "There are deficiencies going unaddressed, and that's contributing to the loss of employees
and companies not being able to attract them."
Ms. Hellmer pointed out that when speaking with many
HR executives they explain that even a 5% turnover reduction would be a tremendous success within their companies. "When you hear 5% is the baseline, you know it's a
serious problem," she said.
On the bright side ... some companies are getting it
right. As part of the study, Cypress Research released a collection of case studies in an e-book called Attracting and
Retaining Skilled Talent as well as a best practices guide of
solutions companies can implement. (See "Learning from
the best" on the left.)
Ms. Hellmer noted that some of the first steps in closing the gap are attracting and retaining skilled workers for
these positions. For generations, manufacturing workers
have operated on fidelity - they came in and did their jobs
with pride at the same company until retirement. As these
workers retire, though, the incoming talent tends to do
more job-hopping, many changing jobs up to four times in
their first 10 years of employment.
"If your operating assumption is that your employees
are going to stay, and then they're leaving, it creates a whole
new ball game," Ms. Hellmer said.

Becoming attractive
Branding is something that some wholesale bakers haven't
been concerned with over the years. It has traditionally
been used for building consumer relationships, and many
baking companies, especially contract manufacturers, build
their businesses by working behind the scenes.
But the world is a much smaller place today than 10
or 15 years ago, and workers want to feel a part of the
product and company, as well as the brand's place in the
bigger picture. "The central message from companies
like King's Hawaiian, Dave's Killer Bread and Clif Bar,
isn't about the products they make," Ms. Hellmer suggested. "Their message is about making their customers
happy and illustrating how the company contributes to
the happiness and wellness of society."
Today, when it comes to attracting employees, it's all
Above: Recruiting supervisory staff - and keeping their loyalty - can also be
a challenge. Through an internship program at Flowers Foods, Robert Benton
[center], the company's senior vice-president and chief manufacturing officer,
recruited Amber Mangiaracino, now director of operations at the Lenexa, KS,
bakery, and Drew Ladd, a superintendent at the same facility. Both started
during their undergrad years at Kansas State University and have progressed
through a series of Flowers locations.
Ryan Alcantara

22 Baking & Snack August 2016 / www.bakingandsnack.com

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Baking & Snack - August 2016

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