Discover the secrets to building a resilient workforce in the poultry industry as Hinda Mitchell, president of Inspire PR Group, joins me, Brandon Mullnix, for an insightful conversation. Together, we unravel the complexities of not just attracting, but more importantly, retaining a dedicated team in the face of stiff competition from tech companies. We dive into the essence of becoming an employer of choice, where training and effective management become cornerstones for a sustainable labor force, especially in the agricultural sector's rural heartlands.
Feel the pulse of a company's culture through the stories of those who know it best: the employees. Our discussion shines a spotlight on the power of shared values and the importance of nurturing an employer brand that resonates with the workforce. Hinda shares her expertise on leveraging authentic employee experiences to attract new talent and the critical role of feedback in shaping an organization's identity. Get actionable advice on auditing your brand's presence, standing out in the competitive marketplace, and keeping your best talent through strategic marketing initiatives.
Wrap up with us as we reflect on the uplifting takeaways from the Animal Ag Alliance Conference, where agricultural sectors unite, demonstrating the strength of a collective voice in championing the industry's positive impact. This episode is a treasure trove of strategies and heartwarming tales that exemplify the spirit of leadership and community in the realm of animal agriculture. Join us for a journey that promises to leave you equipped and inspired to foster a thriving workforce in your own organization.
Sponsored by Prism Controls
Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com
Discover the secrets to building a resilient workforce in the poultry industry as Hinda Mitchell, president of Inspire PR Group, joins me, Brandon Mullnix, for an insightful conversation. Together, we unravel the complexities of not just attracting, but more importantly, retaining a dedicated team in the face of stiff competition from tech companies. We dive into the essence of becoming an employer of choice, where training and effective management become cornerstones for a sustainable labor force, especially in the agricultural sector's rural heartlands.
Feel the pulse of a company's culture through the stories of those who know it best: the employees. Our discussion shines a spotlight on the power of shared values and the importance of nurturing an employer brand that resonates with the workforce. Hinda shares her expertise on leveraging authentic employee experiences to attract new talent and the critical role of feedback in shaping an organization's identity. Get actionable advice on auditing your brand's presence, standing out in the competitive marketplace, and keeping your best talent through strategic marketing initiatives.
Wrap up with us as we reflect on the uplifting takeaways from the Animal Ag Alliance Conference, where agricultural sectors unite, demonstrating the strength of a collective voice in championing the industry's positive impact. This episode is a treasure trove of strategies and heartwarming tales that exemplify the spirit of leadership and community in the realm of animal agriculture. Join us for a journey that promises to leave you equipped and inspired to foster a thriving workforce in your own organization.
Sponsored by Prism Controls
Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com
Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast. I am your host, brandon Mullnix, and I am thrilled to be recording this podcast today. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been on the road and visiting with the poultry and egg producers, and boy am I pumped for this episode. Our guest today is someone I have known for a couple of years. Last week I got to hear her speak at the Animal Ag Alliance Summit in Kansas City and I knew I had to share her with you. Hinda Mitchell is the president and founder of Inspire PR Group, based out of Columbus, ohio, and she is a true blessing to the animal agriculture industry. Welcome, hinda.
Hinda Mitchell:Good morning, Brandon. Thanks for having me industry.
Brandon Mulnix:Welcome Hinda. Good morning Brandon. Thanks for having me. Well, hinda, I know it's not Kansas City and there's not 150, well, probably 250, 300 people in front of you today, so I appreciate you being here and willing to share your story. Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
Hinda Mitchell:Sure, Well, as you so aptly mentioned, I'm the president and founder of Inspire PR Group and we are based in Columbus, Ohio, but work with clients across the country, and we've been working in food production and animal agriculture for about 30 years now a lot of work in internal communications, labor and workforce issues, crisis planning, crisis readiness and when crisis strikes. I'm also involved there and really the majority of our work is in the animal ag sector, and then we work in some adjacent spaces in food production, in pet food, lots of other areas that are sort of aligned with our work in animal ag, but we've been working for Farmers for about three decades now.
Brandon Mulnix:And you're from Columbus, ohio, and how long have you been there?
Hinda Mitchell:I am. I actually have been in Columbus since I was about six months old. I had some journeys to other places along the way, but all roads seem to lead back to Columbus.
Brandon Mulnix:So, Hinda, I've noticed that you have a true passion for the industry and also for future leaders. You presented on building and maintaining a workforce. Why is that important to you and the industry?
Hinda Mitchell:Well, our industry right now is really facing a lot of challenges when it comes to labor, and it's not just about being competitive, it's about finding just enough breathing bodies to be able to do the work that needs done on our farms, in our processing plants, with animals, in food packaging, all along the food system. Really, labor is a challenge, and so one of the things that's really been a passion for me is helping position employers to be employers of choice, to position themselves, to be ahead of the curve in how they engage in hiring workers and, most importantly, retaining workers.
Brandon Mulnix:It seems like hiring is always the topic, but I think you hit on it in. The second part of that is retention of employees. They do all of this work to go and find new people and sometimes, being you know, I've been at a company where I watch this company is like hire, hire, hire. Well, what about the people here? What are you doing for me? And especially, you saw that around minimum wage conversations, and especially you saw that around minimum wage conversations. You know folks were complaining because, hey, you know, I've been here five years and you're hiring people and have more money than me, so those are a really, really big issue.
Hinda Mitchell:And I'm really glad you're here to speak on that. It absolutely is a big issue and we tend to spend so much time looking externally and thinking about who are those next people we're going to get in the door, because in some cases it's really an urgent situation. Right, we need more people to come in and get people in and working, that we forget about our team that's already in there and we need to not overlook that. We need to invest as much time looking inward and caring for those folks who are on our team as we do looking outward and trying to find those next hires.
Brandon Mulnix:Yeah, do you find that the folks doing the hiring part of the challenge is they haven't prepared those receiving those employees for that next step, so to speak, and keeping that transition smooth Is that kind of one of the challenges.
Hinda Mitchell:It absolutely is One of the things that we are quick to do. Especially, there's a thought that in order to keep people, you have to keep promoting them, and that's very true. But if you're going to promote them into a role of a supervisor or a manager, where they're going to be responsible for other people within your organization, you have to give them the training and the tools they need to be effective managers, to be effective communicators and to be that resource to those people who are reporting to them.
Brandon Mulnix:One of the topics that you talked about was workforce, competition and Sirius. What do you mean by that?
Hinda Mitchell:So, absolutely, I mean the reality right now is that the US Chamber found in late, late last year, found that there were about 100 job openings for every 72 workers.
Hinda Mitchell:Now, that's every sector of the economy, but that's our reality, right.
Hinda Mitchell:There's about a 25 percent gap there in available workforce, and one of the things that has happened I've certainly seen in my 30 years more recently is is that farms and food facilities are not competing only with the next farm or the next food facility down the road, but they're also competing with other manufacturing businesses, with other technology businesses, and we have to think differently about the people that we're looking for, the people that we're recruiting, because it may not be that next facility like me. It may be Amazon, it may be Google, it may be UPS, it may be Facebook, you just never know anymore. But the reality is that we're putting up these big technology facilities out in more rural areas because they too need land, just like we do. And when they put those facilities up and they start putting hiring messages out there, they're hiring a lot of people at very competitive salaries and it's kind of cool to say you work for Amazon or work for Google, and so we've got to make sure that we are thinking about who we're competing against very differently.
Brandon Mulnix:So how does that work? For when you talk about retention, how does that apply to the retention piece?
Hinda Mitchell:Well, what it really means is that we have to really lean into the opportunity to be competitive in compensation to underscore something that we have, that the tech industry certainly doesn't have, which is stability.
Hinda Mitchell:We have to also really rely on the fact that we do meaningful work with purpose, and we have to talk about that very deliberately and very frequently. When you work in food production, you are on the table of every US household in some form or another, and that's a really important responsibility and that tracks through everybody across your team. But they won't think that way, naturally. We've got to also help bring them to that conversation, and we've got to help them think about the fact that you know, oh, not only am I getting well paid, but I'm also making sure I'm working in an industry that is feeding the world. And, lastly, I'm working in an industry that, as long as people have got to eat, I'm probably going to have a gig, and that's a really good thing. That message of stability, that message of opportunity and that message of purpose that's a great trifecta for helping people be attracted to your organization and then stay and grow at your organization.
Brandon Mulnix:It's interesting. You know, we're from a generation that experienced a pandemic, where many know people that lost their jobs due to the volatility of different industries, like the hospitality and the dining industry and manufacturing. Specifically, I came from a company that was built on office furniture and office space, and when there is no office furniture and office space, there is no future in that, and I thought it was going to be a great long-term career and come to find out nope, they're. You know, me and many others were changed by that?
Hinda Mitchell:No question, no question, it was.
Brandon Mulnix:It's a different world, you know besides being the name Amazon, why else do they go to those places?
Hinda Mitchell:Well, they go to those places because they're perceived to be kind of cool. They're perceived to be something that you know, oh, you know, and I think they feel like it's going to be stable because it's such a big brand. But big corporations, folks come and go all the time, and so we really have to focus on working on our employer brands. We've got to talk about the things that we do, the kind of employer we are, and when you think about what your employer brand is, it's really the entirety of your employees experience. It isn't just sort of do they clock in, do they clock out, it isn't you know what is their daily job function within your organization, but it's that entire experience and it's your reputation. That's a big piece of this is thinking about.
Hinda Mitchell:What do people out there say about you as an employer? Right, because if you're an employer in a community, people are talking about you. You can count on that. There are people out there. Your employees are out there talking about you, and are you going to like what they're saying? That's a big question for you and really, ultimately, are you? Do you have a value proposition as an employer and are you delivering on that value proposition every single day, and that's really where we need to be focused is on that employer brand and making that employee experience, that employee engagement, everything that they would want it to be, because they won't leave if they're feeling like they're having a great experience, if they believe in your employer brand and you're delivering on your employer brand.
Brandon Mulnix:So, Hinda, that's great if I'm the HR department or in upper management, but I'm the guy who's working in the chicken house with the folks. Why is this important to?
Hinda Mitchell:me.
Hinda Mitchell:So we spend a lot of our time at work and we need that experience to be a good one, because, especially in the business of animal care, we really need those folks to show up the next day.
Hinda Mitchell:And we need them to show up every day. And I'm sure you've heard the stories I hear them too right, we hire people, we bring them in to start their jobs. They get in, they do it for a couple of days and they're like, oh, this isn't for me, and then they're out. Right, they just vanish, they just stop showing up because they can go down the street and find another job the next day, and they know that because the labor market is so competitive. And so, for somebody who's working within an organization, if you're a manager, you need a strong team, and reteaching people skills, reteaching them how the business works, is time consuming, it's exhausting. But as you bring people in, and if they stick, if they stay, they understand what they're doing, they become better employees, they grow within your organization and ultimately that leads to better consistency, better stability for everybody involved in that organization.
Brandon Mulnix:One of the scenarios I see, and I've experienced once in my life, is yeah, I'll get to know if you stick around for like five days. If not, I'm not going to get to know you. Well, can you imagine being a new employee coming in and the person that you're supposed to work for basically says for the next five days, I could care less about you. No wonder people are leaving.
Hinda Mitchell:It's really true, and one of the things that, of course, we talked about when we were together last time is that the role of managers has really never been more important. We do employee surveys consistently, and what they say to us is I want to get most of my information about the business I work for, not from this CEO, not from the president, not from a memo hanging next to the time clock, but they want to hear it from their manager or supervisor directly, and so the role of that manager has really never been more important, and we know managers are really stretched thin right now, and so, as an employer, you've got to give your managers the tools they need to be that resource to those who report to them. We want to make sure that our managers are singing the same song that everybody else was in. The company is, and are they also ambassadors for your brand, are they protecting your brand? And we've got to invest in training, we've got to invest in building their communication skills and we've got to invest in helping them understand just how important their role is. It's not enough to give them a couple dollar an hour raise and say congratulations, now you're a supervisor. We've got to give them the resources they need to be able to do that job.
Hinda Mitchell:There's a lot of great data out there about managers right now, when the average manager in an organization, their number of direct reports has increased almost three times over the last six years.
Hinda Mitchell:So we're putting a lot on these folks, and it's no surprise that the data says about half of those managers have work-induced stress and fatigue, and so we've got to really think about that in a different way. We know that one in five managers actually says you know what? I'd really rather not be a manager If they were given a choice, they wouldn't want to be a manager, and that's meant that also half of those managers are at risk of failing as managers, and when employees report to a manager who's at risk of failing, they're going to be three times more likely to leave, and I don't know that there's any other data point that's more powerful for the role of managers than understanding if you report to a bad manager, you are three times more likely to leave. So, as we think about that middle piece those managers and supervisors who are the conduit to those employees we got to be better.
Brandon Mulnix:I think one of the most important pieces of that role is you're the liaison and the ambassador for your team and when your team needs something, that is your responsibility. And so many times you know, through all of my years, you know I would hear the term the kids or I'm babysitting, and it's like it breaks my heart to see a manager with that kind of mentality because it's no, I'm supporting 10 people, I'm building 10 people, I'm building 10 people, I'm responsible for 10 careers and it's like that ownership piece in the language you use is so important in this area because if you have folks that come in one, you're not willing to connect with them. Two, you're stressed and fatigued and you don't have that emotional energy to connect. It's so difficult to keep those people and I didn't ever like working on a team or working with another manager that referred to his people as the kids or babysitting Drove me bonkers because that's the way that people felt.
Brandon Mulnix:No-transcript and our trauma comes from our bad managers. And there's so many little things. I remember going to a company and every time my phone rang from my new supervisor I like winced because it reminded me of my last bad manager and the way that the calls always went and what a. I'm so glad I don't have that and I'm hoping I don't produce that for my own team. Let's give it.
Hinda Mitchell:That's right. Good managers create more good managers too. Right, you know, because we model the behavior we see, and so the opportunity really is there for good managers to help create brand ambassadors. Right, we talked earlier about your employer reputation out in the community, and if you are taking great care of your employees, they're going to go out and tell other people. I work at a great place, I believe in this company, I put food on the table of every household, and we want to create those brand ambassadors who are shouting from the rooftops about being a great place to work. We want them to advocate for us, we want them to protect our business.
Brandon Mulnix:Ultimately, yeah, if you want people to come work with you, it's important to be that advocate on social media. I remember sharing a lot about my adventures here at Prism Controls and I have to have people reach out. Hey, do you guys ever have, you know, hiring? Do you have anybody that? Any spaces I could come work, and what that does is it starts building your pool of talent as well, where people are like, wow, I want to go work there because they feed America, they do cool technology stuff. If you're in my role, you get to travel a lot. I think it's important for employees all up and down the spectrum to be promoting their company, because that does help tell the story of your company and it's not just HR's issue or marketing.
Hinda Mitchell:No, it's not. And I mean I think it's really it's important to understand what the flip side of that looks like. Too right, if somebody really is not believing in you as an employer, does not view you as an employer of choice, those are the folks who are going to leave for a small raise. Those are the folks who are going to be ripe for the picking from one of those competitors down the street because they're not connected into your company's values, they're not aligned with your company's purpose or they don't really recognize that you have a purpose. They don't have loyalty right, for them it's just a job, and those folks not only are just never going to be sort of committed to you, but they also potentially can do you harm.
Brandon Mulnix:In the world of keystroke media, where you're just a few taps on the keyboard or phone away from saying the wrong thing about your company or about your coworkers.
Hinda Mitchell:That's right.
Brandon Mulnix:So sad to see when people post bad things about their companies period. Hey, in that presentation you covered 12 topics about this. Could you go through those 12 topics?
Hinda Mitchell:They're really powerful. I'd be glad to. So the first real step about understanding and improving your employer brand is to really dive in, peel back the layers of the onion and look at it. You've got to really audit and assess your brand. So look at what your employer presence is. What does that mean? That means, what does your careers page look like? What do those glass door reviews look like? What are people saying about you? How are your employee surveys looking? If you're not doing employee surveys, you better start.
Hinda Mitchell:You also need to really assess your competitors and assess your industry. You mentioned earlier this idea of you know the minimum wage and where people are going and you know we've got to be competitive in animal agriculture. We've got to make sure that our salaries, that our hourly wages, are competitive with the rest of the industry. And again, that's more than just Animal Ag, that's also other employers within our community, within our area, because those are folks who we are competing against. Once you've sort of dived in and you've looked at your employer presence externally and you've looked at your competitors and you've benchmarked your wages and compensation packages, then you can really take what you've learned there and create recommendations. Here's how we can be better. Here's how we can improve that employee engagement. And then you got to act right. It's not enough just to sort of create the plan. You've got to actually put that plan into place and implement some of those best practices for recruiting and retaining that workforce. So that's the first step. So when you learn from that assessment, you've made those improvements. Then you've got to really shine up that employer brand, and that means taking a look at what you say about yourself online in recruiting ads in your community and be very deliberate, not only about recruitment campaigns but also about retention marketing campaigns and we'll talk more about that in a minute because, again, we get so focused on recruiting that we forget to think about retention marketing as well. And the best way to make your employer brand shine is to listen to your current team. They will give you every piece of information you need to know about what you can do to improve your employer brand.
Hinda Mitchell:Another thing that is really important and it sounds so basic, brandon, but you will find that it's so funny sometimes that people just don't think about it but we've got to put real people in our recruiting. You know what doesn't recruit people? A picture of your headquarters building. What does recruit people Are people looking happy in their job, people looking like they have camaraderie, people looking like they're happy to go to work each day. And we've got to show those RPs, or real people in our recruiting ads, in our social media, in our communities and really anywhere you might encounter a prospective employee, you should be showing them. People who look like me, right, because you don't go to a company because I just really want to work in a meat processing plant. You go to work because you really want to work with those people. And here's the other thing you stay because you really like those people, and so that is just so important as well.
Hinda Mitchell:One of my biggest passions about employer branding is to make sure that you, as a company, are building your values into those of your workforce. Are your values aligned? Do they play an important role in your culture, as you think about animal welfare, as you think about the safety of your team, as you think about environmental responsibility? You've got to start with articulating those values and reinforcing those values, and this is another place where managers and supervisors play a big role, because that consistency really matters, that ability to walk the talk and to live those values each day. If values are just a poster on a wall, it isn't enough. You have to talk about them, you have to use them as a gauge for decision making and, ultimately, if somebody isn't performing up to your values, if they're doing work or they're managing people in a way that is not aligned with your values, you've got to call them on it. You've got to call them on it, you've got to be comfortable doing that, because building in those values that drives feeling and that drives belief, and when we make people feel differently, when we make them believe differently, that's when you get those actions. That's when you get that change differently. That's when you get those actions. That's when you get that change.
Hinda Mitchell:I mentioned, when we talked in Kansas City, some work that we've done for a company called Wayne Sanderson Farms, and at Wayne Sanderson Farms they have a great program called Amazing Starts With Me and that is entirely an internal communications marketing campaign or really marketing program. Now it's been going on for several years and it has four pillars that align with the pillars of their business People, planet, animals and food and each quarter we focus on one of those areas of the business and we reinforce that to the team. We do campaigns, we talk about it a lot, we build it into our day-to-day work. They see it when they come in the door at the plant and it really makes a difference. Helping them be aware, helping them be intentional about building onto those four pillars, reinforcing that with regularity throughout the year, makes a huge difference for them. And that's a great tie-in to our fifth point, which is really about purpose, and you and I talked about purpose earlier.
Hinda Mitchell:But what we do in animal agriculture, in food production, it matters. We have purpose, we have reward, we have stability. Stories is to talk about. You know, listen, sometimes, and especially today, when so many people are disconnected from a farm, it's important to say what's going to resonate with our next employee. Is it agriculture or is it food production? And I told a story about my stepson who kept saying he didn't want to work at agriculture and he didn't want to work with chickens. And when I said, do you want to work with one of the largest food companies in the nation? And he said yeah. And I said, okay, go work at that egg producer, right? Because all of a sudden, oh, you flip that switch a little bit, you start talking about food production and putting food on the table and eggs are in more than 90% of American households. That's a big deal.
Hinda Mitchell:That's purpose and you've got to help your employees see that. They won't necessarily gravitate to that. You've got to remind them of that. There's a lot of data that says people like to work for purpose and your opportunity to reinforce that and help your employees see that is going to be really critical. So we talked earlier about real people and seeing real people in our recruiting, and the opportunity still exists to use that same tactic to help make your internal team the stars Again. People want to see people like them.
Hinda Mitchell:But you know what's really great? When you highlight an employee who's just gotten a recent promotion or maybe something as simple as a birthday, and you say you know what? Let's put this on our social, let's highlight this employee on our social and you know what they do. They reshare it within their networks and then you get that amplification and gee, here's somebody who must really love what they do, because his employer is talking about how great he is and now he's highlighting what happened with his employer and that's a really great synergy that can make a big difference, because then you've turned that person into an ambassador, not just a worker, and we've got to be very intentional about that kind of opportunity to connect and engage with our employees online.
Hinda Mitchell:Another great way to do that is to also really highlight those employees who've been promoted, because the other thing people want in a workplace is they want the ability to grow in advance. And so if we are highlighting people on our team who maybe started at one level but they've been promoted a couple of times you know, congratulations to John Jones who just got promoted to supervisor and you know, when you start highlighting those that advancement, then all of a sudden people go oh, that's a place where I can grow, and then you win right. Then there's another opportunity because people think you're a place and believe that you're a place where they can grow and make a career, not just a job. Again, those are the people who aren't going to jump down the street for a dollar an hour more. So that's a great segue into the next point, which is we spend so much time recruiting people, getting people in the door, that we don't spend enough time investing in growth and retention. And people really want to see their path. We have to map their careers, even when you bring somebody in at the entry level of your organization, help them see what the future looks like. If you can learn these competencies, if you can develop these skills, if you are performing well in your current job, you have the potential to advance into this role, and likewise, if you're doing really well in that role, you have a potential to advance into this role. And point it out to people. You see that woman over there who's a supervisor. She started out in the job you have. She's been promoted twice, and that's a really powerful message. We've got to be able to map those careers, to show them that journey that they can take within your organization, because they're going to want to grow with you instead of having to leave to grow, and that's really, really important.
Hinda Mitchell:Now, brandon, I'm a communicator. That is my background, and so everything I'm going to talk about is going to be about communicating, and we've just got to be good about communicating. We got to do it, and then we got to do it some more, and then we got to remind them and we got to keep doing it. This is not a one and done. This is not a box you can check, and we have to adapt our communications to connect with a very diverse group of employees. You know, we can't just throw up a message in English if we have a lot of our population that speaks Spanish or another language. We've got to be able to connect with them and to communicate in ways that actually will connect. And so we've got to showcase our employer brand in current employees with the same rigor, with the same repetition, with the same intention that we would give to recruiting new members to our team. You have to really just keep saying here's who we are, here's what we do, here's why it matters. And communications is at the core of that.
Hinda Mitchell:And back to what we talked to about managers If we're not teaching managers to communicate, we got a problem, because that's really going to be their role, right, that's going to be their role to connect with the team, to adapt their communication style to those folks who report to them. They're the ones who can understand. Oh, you know, this guy's a little different than this woman, this woman's a little different than that guy. And so we've got to be able to adapt on the fly and match our communication style to the person with whom we're communicating. It's really important.
Hinda Mitchell:Now it's also important to think about leadership consistency, and not only do. We have to give those managers the tools they need to manage. But we've also got to make sure that, by and large, those folks are singing the same song. Are they reinforcing their values? Are they talking about purpose? Are they in a position to be that manager who can protect your brand, who can create ambassadors in the people who report to them? That means investing in training.
Hinda Mitchell:That means teaching them about communication. That means, when you're going through any kind of change management or you have any kind of information that you need to communicate across your enterprise, give those managers talking points. Meet with those managers and say this is what's going to happen. Here are the questions you can expect from your team. Here are the ways you can answer those questions. We've got to understand that our workers today, that's who they want to hear it from. They want to hear from their managers, and so shame on us if we don't give them the tools they need to actually be able to do that.
Hinda Mitchell:And likewise, that ties in very well to our 10th point, which is about embracing transparency, and transparency means ambassadors need information and guess what? That's not always going to be happy, happy, joy, joy, kind of information. Sometimes we need our managers to help us communicate tough news, and we got to be okay with that. But those two-way conversations, that accountability across the organization, that builds trust. If we are forthright, if we are transparent, if we tell them what to expect, if we help them see what's in it for me, because ultimately that's what they care about right, they just want to know how is this change going to affect me and going to affect my job, and we've got to be in a position where we can tell them that information transparently. We can reassure them that what's happening, while it may feel a little bit disruptive, it's not going to harm them in the long term to the extent that we're able to give that reassurance, of course, and we want to really give them the opportunity to feedback and ask questions, and that transparency is really hard to deliver, but it is critically important to workplace communications.
Hinda Mitchell:We've really also got to be deliberate about helping our team, help us, giving them the tools they need to say you know what I work at a great place I'll look at. And again, we talked a little bit about getting our team members to share what we're putting on our social. If we're posting new jobs online, let's ask our team members to also post say hey, come work with me. Now here's the kicker If they don't like working there, if they don't believe in what you do, they're certainly not going to invite other people to come and work there. So that's why all of this has to happen together. It has to happen together because if you haven't made this a place where people want to be, a referral bonus isn't going to do you any good, because they're going to be like I don't want people to come and work there, or they're going to tell people and they're going to come and work and they're not going to be excited either, right? So you need to invest in that upfront time so that when your employees go out and say, you know what, you should join me at XYZ company because we're really doing things and I've been promoted twice already, and what an opportunity that is to make them powerful, to help them, help you.
Hinda Mitchell:And likewise, your leaders have to engage online too, right? It's really important. We talked about doing employee spotlights and shining the light on great employees doing great things. We need our leaders to comment, we need them to get in there. We need to say you know, great job, susie. You did such a fantastic job on this. We're really proud of you. Our leaders have to be where our employees are, and guess where that is? It's online. We've got to meet them where they are, and we also have to manage by walking around. Right, in addition to being online, we got to be in front of them, and so it's really important for your leadership team to engage with those employees Because, again, if we help them, they're going to help us.
Hinda Mitchell:Ultimately, at the end of the day, what is most important is that you have to actively choose to be an employer of choice. This is not something that will just organically happen. You have to be very deliberate in saying we want to be competitive in this market. We want to create outcomes that matter, we want people to apply, we want people to agree to come and, by the way, we want them to stay and grow their careers here with us. Folks have lots of job options. The labor market is disrupted. We've got a lot more competition than we ever had before, especially in our rural communities, and being an employer of choice really can be that critical differentiator when it comes to recruitment and when it comes to retention, starting with assessment, making sure you know what's going on, shining it up, making that brand, making it purposeful.
Brandon Mulnix:The real people one really gets me I've seen that in our social media posts, so to speak is when you have real people there. It's kind of why I have real people here on the podcast as well. Build that value, make sure you have a purpose, Going back to those. Highlight the real employees Spending as much time on retention as you do. Recruitment, communication, leadership, consistency we don't like a bunch of hypocrites in leadership. That doesn't play real well.
Brandon Mulnix:Your actions better match your words and we get into the transparency which is so critical. There's so much mistrust in leadership and business and you got to build that trust and then, of course, building that team and letting them share the message and helping them share the message and ultimately, it's a choice. Is this important to you? Do you want to stop the turn? Because I know I don't like training more than one person for the job. It takes a lot of time to get them up to speed. It absolutely does those More than one person for the job it takes a lot of time to get them up to speed. It absolutely does. Those are some really powerful things and I really appreciate that. You've shared what companies can do. Talk about one thing that you've overcome in your journey and how did you make it through.
Hinda Mitchell:Oh gosh, I've done a lot of things wrong over my career and I think I probably was one of those folks who really didn't have the adequate training I needed to grow into a management role. You know, in our business you start out sort of just being a worker bee doing the work Right, and as you grow you become a manager and that means you start sort of leading account work and you also potentially have other people working on your team with you. But you know, the promotion to sort of account manager in our world is probably not dissimilar from yours, is one largely that's about sort of salary and title versus really giving people the tools they need to manage. And so I would say that, you know, I was at one company for 16 years. I was able to grow a lot during that time with them, but nobody ever really said here's how your job is going to change now and here's what you're expected. Of course, I had a job description and expectations in that way, but understanding sort of. You know they taught me how to be great at PR, but they didn't always teach me how to be great at managing people, and so that's a real, that's a real difference.
Hinda Mitchell:And I think when I decided 10 years ago or so to start my own business and we just had three and a half people and we've grown very quickly. I think we're 21 now and we've grown a lot over that 10 years, and learning about how growing quickly, how scaling up that fast, can impact culture, is a lesson I'm still learning. Honestly, it's something that I still work on every day because it's very easy to get caught up in the fray of you know we're growing, we're growing and you know looking at the next bright, shiny thing and we've got to take a beat and say am I connecting with the team? And sometimes I get so busy that I forget to connect, and that's something I'm always working on.
Brandon Mulnix:It's interesting because, as you, you know, went out on your own. You mentioned three and a half people. I feel bad for that half a person.
Hinda Mitchell:I know right.
Brandon Mulnix:You've grown from it and it's interesting seeing you just where you're at in your career and how bubbly and bright and people people are always. You're always talking to somebody, Somebody is always there, so that's a great thing. Is there anything that we did not cover that you'd love to share with the future and upcoming leaders?
Hinda Mitchell:future and upcoming leaders. You know I think we covered a lot of it, but perhaps one thing that I didn't talk about that I could have is if you are somebody who wants to grow and wants to advance within your organization and you're not getting the tools you need, you're not getting the training you need. There are a lot of ways to skin that cat. You can look online for opportunities. You can listen to leadership podcasts. There's a great idea, self-serving perhaps.
Brandon Mulnix:Thanks for the plug.
Hinda Mitchell:You're welcome, but there are a lot of ways to grow that don't have to be dependent on your employer, although you should push hard on your employer to give you that training. But if you want to grow as a leader and manager, if you want to learn more about leadership, there are so many online resources that you can go to and learn from. There are a lot of podcasts. There are a lot of articles being written. You know Harvard Business Review writes about this stuff all the time right, great, great resources on leadership. But also there are conferences you can go to where you can learn about leadership. There are online trainings you can do where you can learn to be a better manager, and you know it's. It is a two-way street, right?
Hinda Mitchell:We also, as as managers, as emerging leaders, we got to raise our hand and say I need help or I want to be better, I want to learn more. So I've talked a lot today about what the employer's responsibilities are, but as someone who wants to grow within an organization and I always talk with my team about listen, professional development is a 50-50 responsibility I can serve you up opportunities to grow, but you've got to take them, and so if you're not taking those opportunities to grow, if you've got to take them. And so if you're not taking those opportunities to grow, if you're not raising your hand and saying hey, pick me, pick me right, then that's on you, that's on you. Your employer cannot grow you without your participation, and so that's probably a piece that I should have included.
Brandon Mulnix:Oh, what a great piece. What a great piece. It definitely highlights one of my core values of be your brand. If you were working as an independent contractor or owned your own business, such as Braden Muldeck's dot com, I am my brand. And so when you give us all these ideas and you said, yeah, that's the employer, you are the employer. And so when you give us all these ideas and you said, yeah, that's the employer, you are the employer. If you're working in management in any level, you are the employer at some point.
Brandon Mulnix:Be that brand, be the change that you want in your company. If you don't like the turn of employees, do something about it yourself. And it's amazing because your management will see that and help you grow in that area. Most of the time, as leaders, they don't want to add anything more to their team. They just don't want to add. But when I have a team member that speaks up and says, hey, I want to grow, oh man, that's the best words I can hear out of my team, because it really shows that they're want to learn, they want to grow, and I'm going to do everything possible to make them better, because one I need someone to take my position for me to promote, and if I don't have that, then I'm never going to promote. I'm always doing this work and so be the brand.
Hinda Mitchell:I was at a conference a few weeks ago and they were talking a lot about upskilling and the upskilling. I think we tend to look at our bright lights who are already advancing quickly with our organization and try and grow them faster and things like that. But the reality of upskilling is you need to start at the entry level because as those people get better, then the people above them can get better, because the first levels are taking more of those great work tasks and skills. If they get better, then the person above them can do more and if they get better, then the person above them can delegate more and take on new things. And it really is. We need to think about not just upskilling our superstars but also upskilling those people at the entry level. But also upskilling those people at the entry level, those first points of contact within our organization, because as they grow and develop, that really domino effects right up your pipeline.
Brandon Mulnix:There are so many rabbit trails. I could go with this conversation, but I do know your time is valuable and I so appreciate it.
Hinda Mitchell:Oh, pastor, I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much, Enjoyed the conversation.
Brandon Mulnix:Wow, very much appreciated. Well, poultry Leadership, guests and listeners and growers, I want to say thank you. We hit a thousand downloads. We are 15 episodes in, and a thousand downloads puts this podcast in a very high category and so I couldn't do this without you. Very much appreciated.
Brandon Mulnix:I know this episode is going to take off and it's going to be a highlight, but one episode I did want to highlight and I want you to go back and listen to is episode 11, is Emily Ellis from the Animal Ag Alliance. That podcast episode talks about the event that we were at last week and if you're not looking into what the Animal Ag Alliance is, you're missing out week, and if you're not looking into what the animal ag alliance is, you're missing out. I have been to a lot of conferences and a lot of events, but this is the one place where I saw dairy steers, pigs, ducks, chickens, layers, turkeys all working together collaboratively to share the protein message and it was so fun to see all of these folks just getting away from work and focusing on the issues, because if we don't work together, it's going to continue to erode, because if something's happening in the dairy industry and they're getting bad press, believe me it's going to affect the layers, going to affect the turkeys, because it's just one of those things where we can all work together to share the wonderful things that farmers do, the wonderful things that, and we can help really promote that message. So please check out that episode, episode 11. I wanted to highlight that I appreciate you.
Brandon Mulnix:This episode wouldn't be possible I do have to throw our sponsor in their pr, prism Controls. They allow me to go to these conferences, they allow me to learn from people like Hinda. They allow us to continue to provide you with the content and the people that I wouldn't normally have access to. But because of Prism Control and their sponsorship, I'm allowed to do that and it benefits all of us. Thank you, listeners, and have a great day.