Doing right by the community, employees

During his visit to JBS’ Grand Island, Neb., processing facility, Andy Hanacek, editor-in-chief of The National Provisioner, discussed the different community-outreach programs and initiatives undertaken by the plant and its employees with Justin Bstandig, human-resources director in Grand Island. What follows is a portion of their conversation:

JBS plant visit
Hanacek discusses yield-improvement initiatives on the processing floor with Lamb (right) and a Grand Island facility line supervisor. Photo by Matt Ryerson.

Hanacek: Community outreach may have always been on the docket in the past, but was there a point in the last few years when it became an actionable priority, where you just said that things just had to be made better with the community?

Bstandig: We had a change in our top position at the plant. Chuck [Lamb, general manager, Grand Island] came on board here [last summer,] and he sat down and said, ‘Justin, we need to start working on the community image more here.’ It was a change in the direction of the top leadership of the plant, and we knew we had some opportunities to improve.

First of all, we’ve reached out to and partnered with The United Way. They are big in all [JBS] communities. The last four to five years we were averaging about $20,000 in plant donations through our employees to United Way. Last year, we went over $100,000 in donations.

Hanacek: You’re also working with a local school in Grand Island, correct?

Bstandig: About 80 percent of the kids that go to Lincoln Elementary School have parents who work at our plant. In September 2011, our training manager and I toured the school with the principal and asked how we could partner with them and what they needed from us. It’s been support programs, supplying translators for parent/teacher conferences, for example. The school has come out to the facility and put on seminars for our employees during lunchtime — we call it “Lunch and Learn” where the employees come up off the floor and learn from the school about things such as, how their kids can be successful in school, and what do they need to do at home, teaching them a little about the guidelines and requirements.

Then we sponsored each month the Lincoln Stars, the top students, and we hold a New York strip dinner for the teachers at the end of the year, and a hamburger cook-out for all the kids for their [end-of-the-year picnic].

Hanacek: You’ve also reached out to the military veterans groups in town as well?

Bstandig: Yes, on something called “Hero Flight.” There are about 100 veterans in this area from World War II, and they want to fly them back to see the WWII memorial in Washington D.C. So, [late last summer,] we started to meet with them. They do chili cook-offs and other events like that, and we donate the hamburger for those events.

Hanacek: What other unique programs do you have in place, or in the works, to assist employees and the community?

Bstandig: We used to have a state migrant-education program in a little building outside the plant, which went defunct in 2005 or 2006, when state funding fell through. So the training manager and I reached out to a group at the community college. And they put on English second language (ESL) classes. We helped them apply for a grant through JBS, and they got some funding. So we should be operating within the next month, having ESL classes out here not only for our employees, but for anybody in the community — [the college’s] building downtown is full. We had revamped that building to be a hiring center but now we’re going to be able to hold four days of ESL classes.

Hanacek: Have you seen any measurable benefits to these programs that you can share?

Bstandig: We were at 48 percent turnover a year or two ago, and right now we’re down to about 39 to 38 percent, so we’ve been able to drop it 10 points.