Getting Employees to Care

SwineCast 1131

• This is part one of a three part series on recruiting employees, looking at recruitment processes and programs. Neal Paszkiewicz with Wakefield Pork, Kay Stinson of Seaboard Foods, and PICs Ashley Hengen talk about employee recruitment at a range of operations and what works for them.

SwineCast 1127 Show Notes:

• This is part three of a three part series on day one pig care. Steve Horton (Sow Farm Supervisor for Thomas Livestock), Kendall Weger (PIC Global Technical Services ), and Pedro Mosqueira (PIC Technical Services) share some case study insights on employee communications that make first day pig care successful.

SwineCast 1124

• This is part two of a multi part series on day one pig care. Steve Horton (Sow Farm Supervisor for Thomas Livestock), Kendall Weger (PIC Global Technical Services ), and Pedro Mosqueira (PIC Technical Services) talk about the preparation required to get personnel ready for pre-farrowing activities and colostrum management.

During a recent visit with a client in Iowa, the owners talked about a challenge that they had in getting their employees to “care more about the pigs.” They had discussed ventilation issues, appropriate watering and feeding, watching for sows that didn’t eat, etc.—all the important stockmanship training issues—but it seemed that it was not getting through to their people.

Instead of reviewing their training process and regular monitoring, I asked them about what areas the employees did seem to care about. “Well,” the wife said, “they really like to see the pigs ‘happy.’ They can tell when they walk into a building if the pigs are ‘happy’ and they seem to like seeing the pigs behave that way.”