Upskilling and Collaboration Among Workers and Managers
The following article is taken from EFI’s 2024 Annual Report, Celebrating a Decade of Responsible Labor Practices and Worker Engagement. Read parts one and three in the series.
The evolving recognition of farmworker value in the supply chain, which drove the multistakeholder collaboration, also directly shaped EFI’s Theory of Change: If the workforce is properly trained and incentivized to collaborate with management in developing a safe, stable and dignified working environment, then new value is created for growers and buyers.
EFI ensures a properly trained workforce by establishing collaborative worker-manager EFI Leadership Teams on each certified farm. These teams receive several days of training focused on problem-solving, effective communication and understanding EFI Standards. Crucially, they learn to represent workers across processes and areas, facilitate collaboration between workers and management, and drive continuous improvement and ongoing compliance verification to maintain their EFI certification.
Integration of knowledge and a breakdown of organizational silos begins with the first meeting of an EFI Leadership Team, and the shared training creates unique opportunities to understand different perspectives and form mutual respect. In team meetings, workers are encouraged to speak from their skills and experience and represent the total workforce, while managers learn more about other areas of the operation and recognize opportunities for continuous improvement and innovation from worker input.
While third-party evaluations and academic studies confirm the positive impact of EFI Leadership Teams on business performance and working conditions, the true effectiveness and advantage of these teams was most evident during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within hours of state and federal mandates being issued to limit the spread of the coronavirus, farms used their trained EFI Leadership Teams to help redesign schedules, housing, transportation, health checks and social distancing measures. EFI staff worked with certified growers and their EFI Leadership Teams to define best practices in these areas and shared them widely with the industry throughout the first year of the pandemic.
Vic Smith, CEO of JV Smith Companies, also notes the importance of the communication networks that the EFI training and Leadership Team had created. “The ability for these already-established teams to be communicating and solving problems immediately as this issue gained traction has been critical in our ability to not only protect our workers but continue to deliver food to customers.”
Workers cite numerous benefits from the EFI training and the existence of Leadership Teams, including how skills learned in the training are applied in their families and communities. When management responds positively to the input and requests by workers through the Leadership Teams, workers notice, and the cycle quickly fosters a more trusting and collaborative organizational culture.
Leadership Teams: Driving Business Improvement and Better Working Conditions
Third-party evaluations* have found that EFI’s Leadership Team model impacts business performance by:
- Engaging workers at every level, which leads to stronger internal controls, to improved monitoring for compliance and prevention – and eventually to increases in productivity, safety and quality.
- Helping managers to recognize the importance of learning more about other areas of the operation and begin making links across different practices and disciplines.
- Freeing workers to drive innovation by sharing their valuable experience, knowledge and perspective.
- Identifying areas where formal procedures were lacking, and establishing robust policies and processes to improve labor conditions, food safety and pest management.
And the Leadership Team model creates improved working conditions by:
- Promoting improved communications across the organization and breaking down traditional silos.
- Providing skills and a place for conflict resolution, problem-solving and giving voice to workers that previously felt disempowered.
- Removing fear of retaliation and creating a culture of respect.
- Providing opportunities for women to have a voice, particularly around sexual harassment.