Harlan believes that great mentorship takes a village. We believe that each Harlan Food Manufacturing Professional has something imporant and unique to add to the experience that each new employees have when they come to work. New work environments can be challenging. Being greeted by helpful friendly peers who know your name makes a big difference.
Why is Mentorship important?
Members of each team/cell (defined currently as a shift/line) will collectively engage in mentorship activities. These activities are listed below and designed to foster connection and engagement amongst the team as a while and to build trust and confidence with new employees.
What do Mentors do?
Suggested Mentorship Engagement Activities:
Ask a new employee to join you for lunch/ask to join a new employee for lunch
Ask a new employee their name/introduce yourself
Introduce a new employee to another team member
Invite a new employee to work beside you or ask to work alongside a new employee
Ask a new employee if they know how to get to the bathroom, break room or locker room. If not, tell them or show them
Provide a new employee with positive feedback and encouragement for jobs well done
Assist by sharing personal experiences to help the new employee improve
Provide the new employee a new piece of workplace or job knowledge including:
Safety tip Housekeeping tip QA tip Production tip PPE tip
Why is being a Mentor important?
We can all learn from one another. Being a new employee can be hard. Not knowing the food industry or being new to manufacturing can be challenging or even scary. Often, people can be afraid to ask questions. Not having the right information or knowledge can hurt their performance. The performance of others or worse, can cause quality or even safety issues. Mentors can help new employees quickly get up to speed and feel confident in their job.
Mentors are extremely important to improving teamwork, cuture, safety, product quality and job satisfaction.
How soon can new employees be Mentors?
After 90 days, new employees, who we call 'Apprentice Food Professionals' can sit for their AFP certification. Once you receive this certification, you are promoted to 'Certified Food Professional' and given a raise.
Once you are certified, you can participate in Mentoring instead of being Mentored.
What if I don't want to participate in Mentoring?
Mentoring isn't required but instead encouraged. Helping someone have a better work experience provides satisfaction and value to the Mentee and the Mentor. However, you are not required to help out.
Are Mentors compensated?
The Mentorship program does have a quarterly budget assigned to it, so yes. Here is how it works.
Each 'team' (which is a line within a shift, such as Bake Line 3, Second Shift) has a retention goal. By taking simple actions each day, like what is outlined here and sharing a photo of that action, at the end of each quarter, the teams who meet their retention goal receive a bonus. The team with the most engagement examples (photos) receives additional rewards.
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EACH WEEK Which is Something To Be Very Proud Of!
