Attracting Talent Beyond The Abstract

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

As we read Bryan’s essay, we can’t help but recall the adage, “The answer you get depends on the question you ask.” We may not be asking the right questions.

When individuals decry being “unable to get jobs,” they don’t necessarily mean they cannot get any job, anywhere, doing anything at any pay. If you ask the right questions, you learn they cannot find a job a) in their locale, b) without an excessive commute, c) in the field they want, d) doing a job they are interested in, e) getting paid on terms they prefer — say salary as opposed to straight commission, f) with a benefit and compensation package they consider reasonable.

Equally, when executives answer a survey explaining “finding and keeping good, quality people is the most critical challenge facing their companies,” they probably do not mean they cannot attract and retain good, quality people at any salary, at any benefit package. What they really mean is that at the salaries they are used to paying and with the jobs as now structured, they worry about the ability to attract and retain good, quality people.

One completely reasonable response is to turn up the marketing effort. It is true little children in America do not grow up dreaming of working in the fresh produce industry. People rarely see the infrastructure that brings produce to the table, so an industry-wide effort to raise awareness and put the produce industry on the career radar screen is reasonable and appropriate.

Yes, the Pack/PMA Career Pathways Fund is a fantastic program and the industry is eternally in the debt of Jay and Ruthie Pack for initiating and funding the program and to PMA for organizing and sustaining it. That many a student who might have wound up in another industry winds up in produce after being exposed to the PMA convention is simply beyond any reasonable doubt.

Unfortunately, the over-50 percent number Bryan mentions is probably less meaningful than we might hope. The scholarship students are not selected randomly. It is highly likely that in one way or another — perhaps due to family connections or the interests of their faculty advisor or even who their friends are — these students would have disproportionately wound up in produce under any circumstances.

Yet even if we accept that every single scholarship student who wound up working in the produce industry would not have done so otherwise — that still doesn’t answer the question as to the utility of these programs. In order for them to be deemed useful to the industry, we actually have to be creating additional jobs or, at least, improving the quality of those holding produce-industry jobs. We just have no data whether this is happening.

In other words, certain jobs in the industry require the intellectual abilities, skill sets and attitudes a graduating senior from, say, Cornell, possesses. Now if we grant a scholarship to a Cornell student who comes to PMA, is introduced around and, because employers want to see this program succeed, he or she is offered a position in the industry upon graduation, the stats for the program will be good.

But the industry question is whether our young Cornell alum is just taking a position from another graduate of equal ability who didn’t happen to win the scholarship.

In other words, if Wal-Mart hires a PMA scholarship student as a junior buyer, that is great but does it mean Wal-Mart wouldn’t have filled that position without the PMA program? And if it would have, what did the industry accomplish by giving the scholarship?

There is a real danger the industry will focus excessively on attracting and retaining as abstract principles instead of focusing on making the jobs sufficiently desirable that people are attracted to the industry and want to stay in the business.

The market works pretty efficiently at disseminating this type of information. A few years ago, the front pages were filled with the news that for the first time ever the editor of the Harvard Law Review had accepted a position in investment banking. Children don’t typically dream of growing up to be investment bankers. The same thing with management consulting, yet students in good schools have for years learned there were opportunities at McKinsey & Co. or Goldman Sachs. If that situation changes and the opportunity is more constrained because of the financial crisis, the buzz on campus will quickly shift to favor marketing positions at Procter & Gamble and other opportunities that will develop.

It is easy to think of the trade’s recruitment problems as primarily being caused by the ignorance of the student body: “If they only knew us, they would want to work here.”

There is truth there. The produce industry is addictive, and if we can expose people, we will win some over. But the real challenge is how we can develop systems to make each individual more productive — then we can use that increased earning power to provide the pay, benefits, and atmosphere to attract high-quality people to the industry.

The secret to attracting and retaining high-quality people is to offer high-quality jobs. The PMA Foundation for Industry Talent can promote the produce industry as a career opportunity. But it could also help the industry to benchmark its opportunities against those of alternative career paths.

What are the job opportunities on a terminal market? Who might be a candidate for them? Why might those candidates prefer to work elsewhere? Can we alter the jobs to make them more appealing? PMA FIT could help the industry by shepherding this thought process for job classifications and business classifications throughout the industry.

We have found that if the product is good — in this case, if the job opportunities the industry offers are compelling — the marketing effort tends to be far more effective.