The April 2010 SIG for Hamilton/St. Catharines/Niagara took place at Rich Product.  Rich Products' Fort Erie facility is a bakery that makes frozen bread and par-baked products for major retailers and food restaurants in the North American market.  About 75% of what they produce is for the US market.

Our first meeting of the day was our Human Resources event.  During this event Jim Stokes, HR Manager for Rich Products shared with us the corporate Engagement survey that is used at Rich Products.  Every 3 years the survey consisting of 75 questions is conducted with a 'pulse' point survey that consists of 7 questions taking place during the off years.  Rich Products engagement survey is voluntary (thye aim for 75% participants for the full survey and 25-30% for the pulse point) for their 7000 employees worldwide. It is available in 4 languages or can be administered by an interpreter.

In addition to sharing the survey with us, Jim also shared with us the results of the survey as well as their action plan to improve in the lowest scoring areas.

It was interesting to note in the slides that engagement is a behaviour; it's more than how the associates (as Rich refers to it's employees) feel it's what they do!  It was also noted that at Rich they are looking for people who:

'Say' - speak positively

'Stay' - desire to be part of the organization

'Strive' - contributed to business success

Our second meeting focused on the Continuous Improvement activities at Rich Products.  Mario Stranges, CI Manager at Rich shared with us the yield and efficiency initiatives on their pizza line.  He shared with us how they collected data; team charter development and how they are working on achieving their goals.  Some great networking and best practices sharing made for a very interesting discussion.  It was interesting to note that data collection involved members from all areas of the organization:  quality; continuous improvement, maintenance and the line workers themselves.

Thanks again to the team at Rich Products for a great networking and best practice sharing SIG and of course our families all appreciated the variety of bread we went home with!  For more information on the Hamilton/St. Catharines/Niagara Consortium, please contact Laura Gibson by e-mail at lgibson@emccanada.org or by phone at 226-388-3894.