Einstein Meets Your Client

In response to a global concern for social justice and environmental conservation, many businesses across multiple industries have been working on improving their social performance and reducing environmental impacts. Both social performance and environmental impact fall under the umbrella of sustainability. Our client, Perdue Farms, operates in the meat and poultry industry serving over 7% of all meat consumers. Recently, Perdue Farms has become more involved in sustainability-related issues by setting aggressive goals aimed at reducing environmental impacts. The company has also earned several awards for their efforts to improve the health and well-being of its employees, such as the Gold Wellness at Work Award which commended Perdue for implementing a company-wide Health Improvement Program (HIP).

Perdue has made several strides in social and environmental performance, but there is still a lot to improve. Although Perdue set aggressive goals to reduce its environmental impact, the company still increased its water usage and carbon emissions compared to previous years. It also has not diverted enough waste from landfills to keep up with its objectives. A lot of these issues could be attributed to poor employee engagement. Employee reviews from Indeed.com have shown that there is a disconnect between middle-level managers and low-level staff. A lot of comments complain about long working hours, inept managers, and poor working conditions. These poor conditions have led to an abysmally high turnover rate of 52.65%. With such high turnover, Perdue Farms is struggling to keep enough employees trained and engaged. Rather than focusing on environmental goals, managers are forced to continually train new employees, and with such high turnover, people do not spend enough time at the company to become fully engaged about reducing environmental impacts. That is why I believe Perdue is increasing its emissions and water usage: not because people don’t care but because the company is focusing most of its efforts on retaining old employees and training new workers. With such a high turnover, Perdue does not have the time or the resources to get enough employees focused on its environmental goals.

This is why I believe that Perdue should be focusing on improving employee relations with middle-level managers. One way to do this would be to give low-level employees a voice. By asking low-level employees about what they think can be improved, managers can establish a connection with their subordinates and make them feel more empowered. By addressing employee concerns on the lowest level, Perdue may immediately see a decrease in employee turnover. This can help managers and veteran workers concentrate their efforts away from training new employees and towards achieving company-wide goals. This may increase productivity among low-level workers because they can see their concerns being addressed. Managers can also establish open lines of communication about sustainability-related company goals. Although this may require new training programs for middle-level managers, the payoff will be huge in the long term. Rather than just putting goals on CSR reports, executives can communicate actual positive results to stakeholders. This would put Perdue Farms way above competitors who are still struggling to retain employees and meet sustainability objectives. This could mean increased market share and more available capital for research and implementation of sustainable technologies. Overall, a focus on employee retention will increase productivity and garner more support for environmental objectives.