Strengthening the workforce at Sargent Farms

Strengthening the workforce at Sargent Farms

By Lois Harris

Maintaining strong lines of communication, making sure employees are well-trained, and rewarding them are some of the ingredients in Sargent Farms success in retaining a productive workforce.

“We practise management by walking around – we actually go onto the (production) floor and talk daily with employees,” says Mike McLauchlan, the company’s Chief Human Resources Officer. “We want to break down the barriers and have our team feel they are considered an equal.” McLauchlan says he champions the value of teamwork and adds that it helps that early in his career, he worked on a production line and can appreciate the work performed by the front line production team.

Sargent Farms – a long-time member of Meat and Poultry Ontario – is an Ontario-based poultry processing business that employs close to 300 people. There’s a primary processing facility in Milton and a further processing facility in Mississauga that produces boneless and sized products. There’s also retail outlets in the two cities.

The company’s workforce is very diverse, with five different languages being spoken. When they have town hall meetings for important announcements before the shift starts, they make sure any materials are translated into those languages. They also bring in interpreters because they want to ensure that everyone is fully engaged and aware of the information being conveyed.

McLauchlan says that having that diversity also means understanding and appreciating cultural differences and educating the rest of the workforce about them.

“One of our recent strategies is that we formed an employee engagement committee where we have people from the different parts of the production floor and management get together regularly to discuss how we can continuously improve our workplace culture,” says CEO Kevin Thompson.

The committee is just the latest in a series of programs that have been implemented for employees.

As part of a retention program, employees are rewarded with a loyalty program where each receive an increase in their hourly pay as they gain tenure. Employees also receive a monetary gift and personalized plaque at the 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th anniversaries of employment.

There’s also a weekly attendance bonus for employees who work all their assigned hours in any given week.

A new-hire referral program rewards current employees for recruiting friends, acquaintances or family members. The referring employee receives extra compensation after three months and after six months of the new hire’s tenure.

“We get really good people this way,” Thompson says, adding that the program has been in place for three or four years.

Hands-on training is crucial, especially for new hires. They use job-shadowing techniques, job rotations to keep it interesting and supervisors provide feedback as to how employees are doing.

“We compensate employees who want to further their education – for their tuition,” says Thompson, who adds that this is mostly offered to salaried employees and skilled trades.

Sargent Farms has recently implemented a number of automated processes – automatic de-boning machines in Mississauga and an extensive upgrade on the evisceration line in Milton.

“We’re really pleased - it saves labour and allows us to increase our capacity,” Thompson says.

“At the same time, anybody can buy machinery and put it in a building – it’s the people that make the difference – that’s why we value tenure and try to keep good people.”

Most of the time, employees are moved to another area of the company if their job is affected by upgrades, and Thompson says that their labour contingent continues to grow.

Pre-pandemic, they also arranged company barbecues cooked and catered to employees by the management team in the summertime, pizza days and holiday breakfast and luncheon parties.

Thompson says that belonging to MPO has been very good over the years – especially in the early days when the company wasn’t as big as it is now – in terms of the technical resources it provides and helping resolve people issues.

“It’s also important to give back, too, to share some of the experiences we’ve had that others in the industry can learn from,” Thompson says.