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Professional Development
Investing in Employees
Ongoing training is part of professional development for employees at Hormel Foods.
Professional development involves regular reviews, comprehensive training and opportunities for career enhancement and advancement. At Hormel Foods, continuous improvement and innovation are a way of life. This Our Way principle reminds employees that the company cares about personal development and encourages continuous growth in their career.
Performance Review Program
We understand how important it is for our employees to feel challenged and valued, so we conduct regular performance reviews annually with more than 99 percent of salaried employees, 92 percent of office hourly employees and 47 percent of plant hourly employees. Reviews for salaried and office hourly employees include an assessment of current job performance and a component where the employee and his/her supervisor establish quarterly or annual goals depending on job responsibilities. They also discuss work/life balance, career development, training needs and opportunities, current job performance and satisfaction.
Training
To support our tradition of long-term careers, employees received training applicable to their level of responsibility and expertise throughout their career at Hormel Foods. The total hours spent on training in fiscal years 2007 and 2008 were 259,274 and 325,905, respectively. This equaled about 14 hours of training per employee in fiscal year 2007 and 17 hours of training per employee in fiscal year 2008. The chart below shows an in-depth analysis of training hours per employee group at Hormel Foods.
Hours of training per employee vary across the company because they are based on the areas of knowledge that are determined applicable for each employee to execute his or her daily activities. Some of our training programs include:
- Accountability
- Accounting
- Benefits
- Communication skills
- Computer skills
- Diversity and inclusion
- Executive training
- Food safety
- Interpersonal skills
- Management/leadership
- Negotiation
- Operations
- Reliability/maintenance
- Sales
- Workplace safety
- Six Sigma
Our career development efforts feature training and coaching that facilitates and encourages career enhancement and advancement. We offer educational assistance to reimburse eligible employees for undergraduate, graduate and preparatory course fees.