Living Our Practices Submissions: September 2022

Mike Seebacher (Corporate)

Smita Shetty (Connell)

Holly Hambruch (Agribusiness)

Continuous Improvement for me involves listening and observing. As I travel to locations and watch how each location does things, I constantly try to take at least one thing away that I can use at other locations and one thing at that location that I can work with them on improving. Trying to break the mindset of “that’s how we’ve always done it” can be a struggle at times; but working WITH the team and pulling them along instead of pushing them into something new usually helps. I try to be open to all ideas and look at the big picture…is this something that could benefit a larger group?

SYLVIA D’SOUZA (Connell)

There is no end how much we can improve.
Always look for root cause of existing problems. Take help of organization’s expertise and experience in full for continuous improvement.

Think & use of technology where we can automate, combine and reduce many tasks.

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to someone else today is the Best rule for continuous improvement.

Rohit Poojary (Connell)

Firstly to start with its important to understand that Change is the only Constant in Life…. once it’s understood it becomes a bit easy to adopt new things…

I have always strived that learning is a way of improving, the more you learn the more you can improve. So to keep up with the latest trends in the market I have enrolled to various channels which give updates on what new technology or new ideas have been going across the globe. This in turn can help us to stay upbeat. Like eg we see Green Technology is the news across and we are also in our roles trying to adopt those in our Connell environment.

Also as a practice I try to adopt one new thing once every 2 month which I have not done, be it Running for extra kms, Reading a New Book of different genre, Trying out a new sport, new adventure activities etc.

Kimberley Fowler (Agribusiness)

In order to continuously improve it is very important to keep an open mind. It is very easy to get stuck in the “this is how we have always done it” mindset. By keeping an open mind it makes it easier to embrace new processes which hopefully make your job easier and benefit the customer and company. It is important to remember most new processes/changes are made for an important reason and are developed over a period of time.

Paul Patteson (Agribusiness)

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Ben Franklin

By continuously looking at our simple mundane everyday processes for each indivdual, we will remember and excute those functions day in and day out. But, involving others in the process showing them the way we execute and asking for feedback, we can continuously find ways to grow in our role and understand the roles of others.
At the branch level, We want to involve multiple people in discussions around areas that we want to tweak or improve. Involving our people will allow us to improve even when it was not obvious we could or needed to. Continous Improvement becomes the how we do things not just a topic to have a meeting about.

Angelic Estrada (Agribusiness)

How are you embracing new ways of doing things to continuously improve?
By focusing on the customer, understanding their needs, & striving to deliver desired improvements. And, continuous improvement does not come from only top management and/or leadership teams, instead, it comes from the workers who deal with processes daily and know their operations well. Leadership support is also essential & appreciated.
We are all a team and it takes a group effort to embrace new changes.

Mike Kolodie (Agribusiness)

Looking at this months continuous improvement program. For me being my first year working at
Wilbur-Ellis and coming from a factory before, I use to do a lot with finding ways to make processes better. With that being said one thing I wanted to do was make it easier for any employee to come use any different machines we have here by doing what I call a one point lesson. A one point lesson is a step by step on how to use the machine for instance our micro rack. The one point lesson will have pictures and details of how each step is from start to finish. I feel it will make it safer and easier. Continuous improvement starts with the employees that do the job each day.

Scott Womack (Agribusiness)

In response to this months Cultural practice question regarding Continuous Improvement I would like to stress the importance of training and personal development. This months question is a deeply rooted personal goal of mine with continuous improvement being something I strive for at every turn. Wilbur-Ellis has a variety of training available that can be really tailor made for each person on staff and create a positive learning environment for everybody in the company. I know personally this winter I would like to brush up on my Advanced Agronomy courses and retake some of the first released courses to further hone my agronomy/branded product skills. Looking outside the company I am aiming to take multiple professional development courses to further my career and progression in the industry as well. My goal for the 2023 season is I aim to be as educated and well versed on a multitude of subjects as possible and then reassess at the end of the season to do it all over again because learning/improvement never stops.

Mallory Robert (Agribusiness)

Jennifer Sothers (Agribusiness)

I try to embrace ways to continuously improve by keeping an open mind. Improvement is always better for the customer. Change is not always easy to accept so I consciously keep a mindset to give any new changes a chance instead of resisting the change. Being open minded towards the change illustrates to your teammates a growth mindset and also works in the pull-don’t-push method of convincing people to embrace change.

I also talk with our customers about what works best for their operation. Once I am familiar with their needs I try to anticipate what would make it easier for them to work with us. For example, would the customer portal be useful to them? If so, I will suggest it to them one-on- one and give them the FAQ booklet to get them started. Another example is, if I know there was an issue with their billing I will reach out to them to explain what happened on their account before they get the invoice in their mailbox. Then they know what is going on with their statement and there’s no surprises. When the customers see you acting on their behalf they are confident in your skills and motives and makes them feel good about doing business with you.

RONALD WEATHERWAX (Agribusiness)

By keeping a open mind to the new ideas and processes. We also talk thru the new processes at our Branch and evaluate the end results.

Brandon Wilhelm (Agribusiness)

I believe in being your own “agent of change” in order to mitigate complacency and to continually push the bar forward. In Pro Market we are finally seeing technological advances that have and will allow us to do our jobs more efficiently and accurately. This allows us to focus on what’s important and be more customer facing as demand on our time increases. Utilizing technology enables us to be more consistent and proactive with our customers needs and wants. Looking forward, I’m excited to embrace the creation and adoption of new tools/tech that will allow us to increase presence, sales, and customer satisfaction.

Wendy Joy (Agribusiness)

I am trying embrace asking for help when I need it. Engaging a subject matter expert will help me learn faster than trying to struggle through a task on my own. I am also offering to help others when I see an opportunity.

Paul Umlor (Agribusiness)

As our customers world changes as it relates to food safety and regulation, we too must continue to evolve. Utilizing tools and support personnel that WE invests in is vital to maintain our excellent relationship with the growing customer segment. Our location has invested in support team members that focus solely on walking with our customers as it relates to; record keeping, internal & external audits and education in everything Food Safety. WE is now recognized in our area as a partner to our customers that truly provides “Ideas to Grow With”.

Daniel Woolley (Agribusiness)

Part of continuously improving is learning about new and ever-changing technologies. At Wilbur-Ellis we do an outstanding job of giving the analysts the freedom to explore and innovate where we see a need. One thing that the Finance Team in Agribusiness is doing is learning machine learning and automation software. This is challenging but will propel our work into the future by automating the mundane and rote parts of our job while giving analysts time to do what we do best: ANALYZE!