A Place to Grow
As you might imagine, a company that has had only nine presidents in its 100-plus years is a company that values and encourages loyalty. It's not a word you hear very often these days, but we still believe in maintaining long-term relationships with our employees. We do this in several ways:
First, we encourage employees to stay enthusiastic and challenged by continually exploring and expanding new avenues of our business. We offer employees the opportunity to grow themselves along with our business by tapping their skill sets and talents. And, we enable tremendous opportunity and growth for our employees thanks to our ventures into new product lines and the pursuit of marketing opportunities in countries around the world.
Second, a relatively flat organization means employees are not only more independent, but they also have the opportunity to be more creative. If you're looking for a job where your contributions count, this is the place. In fact, our corporate structure absolutely depends on the willingness of employees to explore new avenues and accept risk and responsibility.
Even though our employees enjoy a high degree of autonomy, the fact that there are so few layers in our organization means employees naturally work more closely with and support each other. At Hormel Foods, teamwork, informal mentoring and informed decision-making are the norm.
Third, we reward employees for their contributions through a generous profit-sharing plan that's been in place since 1938. As the first company in our industry to offer profit sharing, we've long believed in sharing success with the people who help create it.
Fourth, years of continued growth have proven that high-achieving employees are in the best position to take the company forward. For this reason, we have a strong practice of promoting from within. Through our internal job posting board, selected professional vacancies are communicated to Hormel Foods' employees, who may then decide to apply for one of the announced openings. This provides employees a chance to explore all different kinds of promotional opportunities and stay within the same company.
It all comes down to this: We engage our employees by creating an environment where careers are fostered, people make a difference and integrity is absolute.