Interview: Benjamin Cervantes (Part 1 of 2)

” If I want to achieve different results, I have to start doing something different “

Benjamin Cervantes Godinez, born in Culiacán Sinaloa; is a psychologist specialized in Labor psychology, who shows such great human warmth. This time he shares with us his experience in the Human Development Coordination, for Agroindustrias Tombell and Agricola Chaparral which he has led for 6 years with excellent results.

1. Since when do you work for Agroindustrias Tombell and how did you arrive to this company?

I started to work here on august 2010. Recruitment was through a normal recruitment process as in any other business. I have always been interested in the agricultural sector, found this opportunity and achieved to stay and work in Agroindustrias Tombell.

2. What function do you perform and what are your responsibilities?

 Since I joined the company I got invited to create and form part of the Department of Human Development. Commonly in other companies, the functions of the human resources department are carried out by the counter, but in this case, they intended for it to be an independent area. At the beginning, it was difficult because there was not a reference of how to do this. However, I was fortunate to have the support of the administration and general management, and after six years we can see very positive results.

Some of my main functions are to ensure a healthy work environment, to develop training programs needed by the staff, to ensure that they receive this training, to constantly evaluate bosses to see their performance and whether they are aligned to business objectives or not. I am also responsible for the selection, recruitment and all there is to do with the human resources area. Another of my important activities is managing payroll.

At first it took me 80% of my time to do all the social work activities, to work hand in hand with the 6 social workers of the three agricultural shelters and that absorbed me a long time so I had to find a balance between the social responsibility area, In regards of social care of farm workers, and the human resources department of the administrative area of the company.

We currently have a very good team that is in charge of social responsibility coordinated by Ms. Yolanda Rodriguez, also I have a team that supports me with the management of payroll, giving me the chance to spend a little more time to develop leaders, to develop the company, to make sure there is a good working environment and to be aware of the regulation of salaries.

To ensure we have an optimum working atmosphere, we made confidential surveys to employees where they were asked about the rubrics they wished were attended and acceptable response parameters were generated. For example, if we have results of more than 85% of favorable responses we believe that we are doing well.  If not,  we have to work in the areas of opportunity:  work conditions, facilities, training programs, team integration, lack of communication; all this, you can see it reflect it trough all this studies.

We are currently in a training program of 13 months of the administrative team, where all heads and all employees of the administrative and operational areas are involved, and they all receive the same training, allowing us to make a real change in the organizational culture. It is for this reason that, together with an external consultant, we are training all staff.

We define objectives of the company and all the employees should be aligned to those goals, then we seek that personal goals are directed towards achieving the common goals of the company, even when we are in departments where the results are not perfectly tangible as in our case, in human development; compared to the accounting department or some other, need immediate financial results. All our goals are focused on achieving the common goals of the company.

We recently passed the Human Development module, in order to meet the people and thus engage in a more comprehensive way with them as part of the organization. We will also address a thematic related to coaching, accountability, communication, innovation, all that type of important thematic; and simultaneously with the capacitation we do activities, they leave us some work, and currently we are working on a campaign named: How to live the organizational culture? to define overall mission, vision and values.

We are about to organize a rally in November with the entire management team so that the company workers experience the companies’ values. The aim is to improve it and to take it to all the fields we have. Teams from all areas are made for people to integrate and learn how to work together. As we have done it before and it has worked, people even ask when we will re-do it and is part of the training. Transmitting the workers what we learn is not something that should stay inside the classroom.

One of my main functions is to assist costumers. My internal customers are very important, perhaps because of my training as a psychologist. I think that I convey to people the confidence they need and come to address me their problems at work, to share with me some personal situation.  The company has always had the philosophy of supporting with the problems of any kind; I think that that is something that characterizes this work position and the company.

One result of these actions, regarding human development, are the benefits the companies, both Agroindustrias Tombell and Agricola Chaparral, have achieved.  They are characterized by such a low turnover. People come to work here and do not want to go, which is one of the main reflections we see.  For example, in the case of temporary workers, more than 85% of migrant laborers who come to work at the company return year after year.

Today with the shortage of labor that exists in the sector, the fact that that number of people return is a very significant percentage, which is the case of temporary workers. In the case of the administrative part there isn’t a considerable rotation of the people. People who have left are mainly doctors, but it is because they have gotten their permanent jobs at the Social Security System, the health department or it is just people who are not directly involved in agriculture. The rest of the staff has worked many years in the company. My bosses case is an example for us. Ms. Socorro García Madrid has more than 35 years working in the business. In my experience, I have had the opportunity to help 12 people to apply for their pension in the last two and a half years, which means that the company lets us reach a certain age working, stay with the company for twenty or thirty years. It is people who have grown up here and that retired happily.

The company is characterized by that. As I see it in day to day it is in the case of the managers; we are not a business where it is difficult to aspire to management, unlike that, the doors are always open to growth and development of our human capital and get involved with all employees at any level. The relationship between departments is very good. There is much coexistence, we still have areas of opportunity; however, we can see that what is being done for the workers works and that we could consider that we have intangible results but if my personal surveys continue popping up above 85% in the results, it means that I’m doing something well, my team is satisfied with the performance I am giving facilities and opportunities for growth, with the salaries I am offering, with schedules, and with the services.

3. ¿Which are the main professional challenges you have faced?

Going back to what was previously mentioned, in agriculture in general there would be a different culture in relation to the human resources department, although the company did not count with these difficulties, I always had the support of administrators. However, on the road when you want to start working with controls, policies, regulations because you must give formal structure to business it is where it gets complicated, when you start working with the same resistance of the workers and it is then when you must sensitize them.

To achieve to position yourself in agriculture as an independent department, to function and to be able to report your immediate bosses, to be able to take the necessary steps, is difficult because you don’t have the guidelines, because in the company it didn’t exist that way of working. We started working from scratch, putting controls, policies, processes and changing some previously practices.

One example is to establish a methodology recruitment for salaries assignment and work profiles. Today, we have all this regulated by the human development area, but at first it was difficult for managers to see the department as an area that could manage such information.

The training theme was also complicated in the beginning because six years ago it was hard to find training programs focused and specialized in agricultural thematic. Today, there is a training market. It was complicated to train yourself in temporary employ matters, except for the courses given by the Asociación de Agricultores del Río Culiacán, that were also very good but focuses in farm workers.

Over time, workers started to learn o we started to adapt, incluiding myself, and the other work areas from the team, that was the main challenge.

In 2010 when I first came to the company, I was impressed with the Social Responsibility area because they handled it very well. I think all certifications or audits in which the company participates have helped to improve the living conditions of the shelters. They had very positive results because they already had many things, not as a standard a, but had a strong work with people from the shelters.

Once I integrate myself with the company, I start to grow and to develop myself in conjunction with the social work ladies, we worked to give a little more of structure or order, but the people who were in charge did it already. I have always tried to address the situations that show up, by helping the ladies to make the necessary decisions in the appropriate moment, for them to see inside the shelters a little more presence of the administrative area, by being in the fields for a longer time.; I mean, even if we are here in the office, we cannot stop ourselves from going to the fields, it is important to be there.

That’s what we are looking forward to, to have a much more personalized attention, and that’s what I have been trying to implement with the social workers, a client service philosophy. My motto has always been “Regardless of the problem, we should always resolve our workers concerns”. It doesn’t matter if it’s a payment problem or a living condition problem.

We should always give our workers the attention they need, also about the offered services. We even rotate and change the workers for them to develop themselves and to learn how to know all type of people. We want them to get involved with the all the diversity that exists inside the shelters. For example, at the Villa Juarez and La Cruz packaging, there is the biggest concentration of population, there are different local working conditions and characteristics in comparison with people who come from other states. There is a big difference on the treatment, the cultures and you must adapt to both. The fact that you bring people from Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas matters. You must think of where you are going to place them because in some occasions it is necessary to separate them by states, to avoid problems and to assure a more comfortable environment. We already have one person in charge of that, and he does it very well. Therefore, we add that to the conditions we offer, and that makes our 85% something positive.