The Mind of the Food Worker

Jerry Lindsley, Center for Research & Public Policy Raj Shah, Alchemy Systems

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PresentersJerry Lindsley, President

• Research projects with NASA, McDonald’s, Shell, Ford, Coca-Cola, Mobil and many universities

• Teaches college-level business management, research, marketing, polling, and public policy courses

Raj Shah, Senior Strategist & CMO

• Research front-line worker behaviors and needs• Leverage technologies to meet performance and

learning gaps

Why Study Food Workers?

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• Frontline food workers are key to food safety & quality• Minimal demographic/psychographic information available• Historical research has narrow focus (i.e. foodservice)• Extreme diversity in age, gender, culture and experiences• Leadership, management and frontline worker alignment

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Survey Methodology: Food Workers

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• Center for Research and Public Policy (CRPP) conducted online and onsite surveys– Online survey of 1,203 food workers in the United States and Canada

across entire food system (farm to fork)– Onsite survey of 832 workers and managers

• Topics Covered• Quality of life• Use of technology, internet and social media• Perceptions of training/coaching• Preferences for learning / training methods• Views on safety and injuries• Perceptions of support on the job• Views on employment, advancement and satisfaction• History of working while sick• Questions specific to supervisors• Demographics

Survey Methodology: Food Leaders

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• 79 online survey respondents • Randomly selected food industry leaders in U.S.

and Canada• Topics included:

– Management concerns– Time allocation– Production efficiency – Employee engagement– Operational strengths and weaknesses

Survey Highlights

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Good news!

Opportunities for Change

Heads up

Confidence to Stop Work

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Q: Do you have the confidence to stop working when you see a safety or product problem?

93%

Strongly Agree or Somewhat Agree

INSIGHT: Large majority of employees understand their role in both food safety and workplace safety and are accountable.

Management Support

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Q: Do you have a supervisor, manager or trainer that you can go to with questions, help or advice?

82%

Yes INSIGHT: Large majority of food workers trust management to help them in their jobs.

Affinity for their Company

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Q: I would serve the food we make to my own family or children.

YES

INSIGHT: Large majority of food workers trust themselves and their co-workers in ensuring the integrity of the products they produce.

87.%87.3%

Responsibility for Customer Health

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Q: Do you feel personally responsible for safety and well-being of your customers?

90%

Very or somewhat responsible

INSIGHT: Impressive majority of employees understand their responsibility for customer safety.

Survey Highlights

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Good news!

Opportunities for Change

Heads up

Onboarding Training Quality

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Q: How would you rate the quality of your onboard training?

20%

Not good

INSIGHT: • Ensure training success

metrics are established• Routinely evaluate employee

behaviors on the plant floor against training learning objectives

• Consider breaking up learning events into smaller chunks over time.

Training Format Preference

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Q: What formats for training work best for you?

57.3% 56.1%

on the job with a supervisor

on the job with a co-worker

INSIGHT: Acknowledge the impact of ‘on the job training,’ identify inconsistencies and leverage both supervisors and co-workers as learning resources.

Supervisory Coaching

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Q: How often do you receive coaching from manager/supervisor?

43.2%

Rarely or never INSIGHT: Consider the value of engaging the employees on the plant floor, evaluating their behaviors and soliciting their feedback.

Learning Technology

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Q: If you prefer learning on your own, do you prefer computer-based training or reading a manual/SOP?

68.6%Prefer computer

INSIGHT: Consider generational preferences in learning policies and procedures.

24.2%Prefer manual

Training Complexity

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Q: Is training sometimes too complicated or difficult to understand?

39.3%

Strongly or somewhat agree

INSIGHT: Ensure good instructional design is applied to training courses:• Analysis• Design• Development• Implementation• Evaluation

Levers to Improve Production

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Leadership Survey ResultsQ: If you initiated a program designed to increase production, which ONE of the following would you begin with? INSIGHT:

Actively pursue and analyze data to measure individual lines/shifts/work groups to identify best practices by supervisors.

44.7%32.9%

19.8%

2.6%

Supervisors Frontline Workers

Executives HR Personnel

Food Companies Mainly Hiring Millennials & Gen Xers for Frontline

Source: Deloitte Digital Democracy Survey, 9th edition

79 Million*Born

2000-1989Born

1982-1966Born

1965-1947Born

1946 & PriorBorn

1988-1983

Trailing Millennials

14-25

Generation X 32-48

Baby Boomers 49-67

Matures68+

Leading Millennials

26-31

70 Million 77 Million 24 Million

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Frontline Food Workers Less Tech Savvy - But Not Much

20Source: Alchemy Mind of the Food Worker Study, 2015

Social Media

Laptop

Smartphone

Tablet

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%

Food Workers Millennial/Gen X

Usage/Ownership

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Preparing for Millennials

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Leadership Survey ResultsQ: We are making changes to accommodate new Millennial employees and the way they learn.

32.9 %

Yes INSIGHT: Recruiting, onboarding, training, coaching may be in status quo mode reflecting baby boomer needs.

Engaging/Training Time Allocation

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Leadership Survey ResultsQ: Where do you currently spend time currently vs. where you prefer to spend time

INSIGHT: Identify less critical talks that prevent supervisors and managers from spending time with frontline

21.1%27.6%

43.4% 43.4%

Engaging with frontline workforce

Training the workforce

Currently spending time

Prefer to be spending time

Survey Highlights

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Good news!

Opportunities for Change

Heads up

Communications Gap

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Q: How often do workers come to work when they are sick?

INSIGHT: Need to address perception gaps as well as workforce training and coaching.

Always or Frequently

50.8%18.4%

What Workers Actually Do

What Leaders Think Employees Do

Always or Frequently

Communications Gap

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Q: How much of the onboarding training employees will recall knowing and remembering.

INSIGHT: Huge gap between workers and leaders.

All or Most

What employees say they remember

What leaders say employees remember

79.2% 19.7%All or Most

Leadership Rating of Own Company

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Leaders were asked to rate their own company 1-10

Average rating was FAIR

92.1

86.8

71.1

71.1

71.1

69.7

68.4

Product / food safety

Worker safety

Employee retention

Production efficiencyProviding adequate tools for employees to do effective job

Company culture

Employee engagement

61.8

60.5

57.9

57.9

56.6

42.1

32.9

Employee education / trainingCommunication with frontline employees

Ability to attract the right employees

Internal communications

Change management

Employee recruitment

Preparing for the influx of Millennials

Very Poor Fair Good VeryPoor Good

Very Poor Fair Good VeryPoor Good Characteristics Rated Characteristics Rated

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Leadership Perception of Inefficiency

INSIGHT: Opportunity to improve efficiency with focus on frontline worker engagement.

Efficiency Potential

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Leadership Survey ResultsQ: If bottom 25% of your workforce were as productive as the top 25%, by what percentage would efficiency increase?

INSIGHT: Productivity gains from improving bottom quartile worker performance.

Worker Injury Rates

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24.1% 17.1%

Said yes Said yes

INSIGHT: The first year is the highest risk year – proper onboarding and coaching is very important.

I have been injured at my current job.

I was injured in my first

year.

High Performing Supervisors

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The percentage of all supervisors combined who are at the level of your top two supervisors.

40.4%

Percentage of top-level supervisors

INSIGHT: Consider mentoring programs; expand training to include soft skills, operational knowledge.

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Key Takeaways• Food safety is #1 priority; but workers perceive

production/profits comes ahead of workplace safety• Employees understand their food safety responsibilities• Training is often too complex to understand• Workers want coaching, but not getting enough from

supervisor/managers and rely on co-workers• Companies not adopting to the needs of Millennial

workforce• Significant perception gaps between workers and

management

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More Information

• Full Report: www.alchemysystems.com/mindofthefoodworker/

• Participate in survey or questions to ask next year:– Raj Shah raj.shah@alchemysystems.com– Jerry Lindsey jcl@crpp.com

Questions?