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2017 Workforce Development Conference

November 14, 2017

Registration Due Wednesday, November 1st.

Country Inn and Suites – Mankato, MN

8:30 a.m.              Registration

9:00 a.m.              Building a Culture That Drives Equity, Engagement, and Performance

Janice Downing – Common Sense Consulting

Effective leaders know how to manage their own biases, as well as the biases of others, to promote a workplace culture that increases employee engagement and performance. This training session will combine a fascinating self-assessment with practical tips for creating a work environment that drives equity, engagement, and performance.

This session is designed to achieve the following:

1. Increase knowledge of how biases occur in the workplace and in communities
2. Explore bias types, to include individual, institutional and structural racism
3. Gain an ability to recognize the relationship between unconscious and conscious bias, equity, diversity, and inclusion and,
4. Become familiar with ways to identify, address, and reduce bias in the workplace, e.g. decision-making and communications

Noon                    Lunch

1:00 p.m.             WANTED: Undercover Investigator

Eric Parks – Former Undercover Investigator

Randy Spronk – Spronk Brothers

The threat of hiring an undercover investigator seems to be constant. Designed to bring firsthand accounts to the strategies and impacts of undercover investigators, we will be joined by Eric Parks, a former undercover investigator with the Humane Society of the United States, and Randy Spronk, sow farm owner where an undercover video was recorded. Hear about strategies and philosophies employed by animal activist organizations when recruiting and training undercover investigators and the impacts the videos have on farmers, team members and our industry as a whole.

3:00 p.m.             Reduce. Respond. Recover.  

Jill Resler – COO Minnesota Pork

Jill will provide an overview of on-farm strategies developed and distributed by the Minnesota Pork Producers Association that can be utilized to ensure farms are finding and retaining the best employees.

3:30 p.m.             Close