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Headquartered in Jasper, IN, Farbest Foods is one of the largest turkey companies in the United States. They supply raw fresh and frozen turkey products to brand-name value world-wide. More than 1,383 employees make up the multi-location organization with facilities including processing plants, mills, distribution hubs, and corporate offices.  

Situation:

Farbest Foods is dedicated to the health, safety, and continual development of its employees. As such, Purdue MEP has been a long-time resource for the organization to assist in delivering many of its leadership development offerings to its employees. The relationship between the two companies spans almost six years, since 2018.

Solution:  

Farbest Foods works with Purdue MEP to deliver leadership development training based on topics of interest from their bi-annual employee survey. Typically held in the Spring and again in the Fall, the trainings are open to supervisors and employees at multiple site locations ensuring employees have adequate opportunities to attend the training. In the past, classes have included topics such as Effective Time Management, Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, and more. As employee engagement has grown, the classes are now offered in both English and Spanish.

Results:

Employee engagement in leadership offerings has increased steadily year over year, impacting not only attendance but employee morale has seen a boost as well. With the increase in employee engagement, Farbest has been adding classes to the schedule to accommodate additional people.

With the addition of the Spanish offerings taught by Purdue MEP instructor, Stalin Encarnacion, there has also been noticeably more involvement and engagement in those sessions. Attendees are eager to have the leadership training delivered in Spanish, which has led to a small uptick in Spanish-speaking employees applying for higher-level positions, whereas in the past they were not that confident in applying.

The investment in employee education across the board, not just in areas of leadership development with Purdue MEP, has helped Farbest Foods realize impacts in multiple areas of their business including employee retention. Employees see that Farbest is a company that values its employees and invests in their advancement training. Employees want to stay at a company where they feel valued and that shows in the amount of training and employee development provided by Farbest.

In addition, Jade Hirt, Corporate Training Manager at Farbest Foods, strongly believes in the impact of employee development and leadership training. He was a driving force in helping Purdue MEP successfully host a public workshop focused on “Managing Across Generations.” As a public offering, the training is open to any manufacturer in the area, exposing them not only to Purdue MEP, but helping get their management training as well. He sees the benefit to not only his company, but all manufacturers in his area of the state.

Results metrics:

• Positive impact on employee morale
• Increased employee participation – adding more classes to each session to accommodate more employees (approximately 25% increase in classes this year over last year due to higher employee participation)
• Engagement has increased in the Spanish offerings

“Purdue MEP has really helped drive a cultural change for us at Farbest Foods through their leadership development offerings. We learned that you can strategize all you want, but without true cultural change, you’re not going to get anywhere and Purdue MEP has been a resource for us to help promote a positive cultural change. We rely on them for leadership development training and year after year we continue to go back to them because we see results within our workforce.”

- Jade Hirt, Corporate Training Manager, Farbest Foods

 

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