Page 10 - Food&Drink Business Magazine July-August 2020

IN THE WORKPLACE
Workforce management is never in the bag.
Shift management
Hiring staff, retaining workers and managing people during times of fast technological change
are a daily reality. APG Workforce CEO Glenn Redman says industry practices have shifted to meet modern thinking around adaptability and change for individual workforces.
WHEN APG Workforce began supplying a multinational dairy food manufacturer with casual employees over 13 years ago, the emphasis was on hiring unskilled short-term staff to meet the ups and downs of production requirements.
Fast forward to now and we are providing a greater range of workers, from skilled to less skilled, while also managing much more on behalf of food industry clients.
One large dairy food manufacturer operates across five sites in Victoria and Tasmania and has different requirements in each location.
The idea of being a casual worker often gets bad press, but the workers we place with clients are actually employees of APG Workforce so they get paid accordingly. The only difference is that they don’t stay with one company permanently, and many like that arrangement.
We take away all the headaches from our clients in managing their non-permanent staff, including: managing the onboarding process and inductions; medicals; police checks; strength and agility testing; full candidate screening; and interviewing.
Once placed, ongoing site management continues, including handling all queries as well as conducting toolbox talks and WHS site audits.
The non-permanent roles at this dairy food manufacturer include quality tradespeople, semi-skilled roles, and roles that require mechanical aptitude but don’t necessarily require a formal qualification.
The company’s HR director had previously stated that over the 13 years of working with APG Workforce they have forged very strong relationships across multiple production facilities and farms.
The company has fluctuating requirements for its dairy products. For example, during the COVID pandemic, there has been increased demand for supermarket stock, but at the same time a decrease in the number of cheese and cracker packs it supplies to the airline and hospitality industries.
For APG, during COVID-19 we employed displaced workers, both skilled and unskilled, and redeployed them to short-term roles. On the Gold Coast, in Northern New South Wales regional areas and Victorian regional areas, we placed airline flight and ground crew with a large dairy company and a national manufacturing company. The companies, like so many in the food processing sector, experienced a large surge in demand as shoppers emptied supermarket shelves.
For the dairy manufacturer,
our workforce management has extended beyond just a casual workforce, to skilled, semi- skilled and production employees, as well as admin and professional staff.
Our payroll support team has undertaken large scale workplace audits ensuring compliance with site EA’s and, where applicable, awards. We have had regular contract reviews to adapt and make changes as needed. Our approach is as a partner in a client’s business to get the best results possible. ✷
✷ ABOUTTHEAUTHOR
10 | Food&Drink business | July/August 2020 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au
Glenn Redman is CEO of APG Workforce, a labour hire business that also provides HR/IR
consulting, recruitment,
risk management,
culture management,
training, and safety
management.