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Commercial bakeries are often filled with manual, repetitive jobs that today’s workforce may find unattractive, leading to higher turnover rates that exacerbate the industry’s labor shortage. Thankfully, automation allows bakers to eliminate many of these manual tasks and move their employees into more fulfilling, skilled positions.
“There will always be first-level work in our operation, but what automation has done is it’s reduced the amount of time and effort in many of those manual areas and allowed us to focus our associates on skilled positions,” said Monty Pooley, president and chief executive officer of JTM Foods, Erie, Pa.
In this episode of Since Sliced Bread, Pooley discusses how automation has boosted employee retention and allowed the bakery to focus on developing a more skilled workforce.
“The skilled positions and leadership positions are the ones we really need to focus on ensuring we’re training those individuals properly that they stay on board,” Pooley said. “If we have good leadership, folks in the skilled positions doing those jobs well, we can stand to have slightly higher turnover in those entry level positions.”
Listen to this episode to learn how JTM Foods and the industry at large are building better workforces through automation.
Since Sliced Bread is available to download on a range of applications, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. It can also be accessed on Bakingbusiness.com.
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