16 / SEEDWORLD.COM JANUARY 2019 THE UNITED STATES’ labor pool is shrinking. Nearly every industry in America is facing a shortage of talent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are more jobs available than there is talent to fill them. However, the agricultural industry has a unique challenge on its hands. Most farms, seed companies and agribusi- nesses are located in the heart of rural America — far away from talent pools drawn to big-city amenities. “Finding good people is a difficult task right now,” says Randy Wilken, president of ProHarvest Seeds. “In older generations, there has been a hesitancy to move to a different position, while mil- lennials are willing and hoping to move to new places. As an employer, it gets difficult, because if I hire someone, I want them to stick around.” So how are seed companies working to bring new talent into the mix? The answer: by getting creative. Instead of focusing on avenues such as job advertisement sites like Indeed.com or classified ads in papers, most seed com- panies are working on breaching different ways to attract talent to their ranks. Even the college town of Champaign, Ill., the Illinois Crop Improvement Association still noticed that it needed to adapt their strategies to find new talent. “We have to use a multi-pronged approach,” says Doug Miller, CEO of the Illinois Crop Improvement Association. “There’s around 57 or so different online job sites, and while we do advertise online, we The bait doesn’t always have to be money. Get creative and think outside the box. Alex Martin amartin@issuesink.com Fishing in the Labor Pool? also try to bring in agriculture students from local universities to our facilities for tours. We hand out applications to those who come in, and look for students who need internships to complete their program.” Wilken has a similar approach. “In our experience, networking is the best path,” he says. “We really think ‘Who do I know? Do I know somebody who would fit this role?’ We’ve had good experiences with recruiting firms and online career sites, but it really takes a combination of different channels.” Both Miller and Wilken agree that it takes a lot of word of mouth. Sometimes it’s effective, sometimes it’s not. Latham Hi-Tech Seeds has an even different approach — letting some of their talent telecommute. “More than half our employees work outside of our office,” says John Latham, president of Latham Hi-Tech Seeds. “We’re allowing people to live where they want to live, and we use programs like Skype and Teamviewer to work in teams. Today’s technology allows us to recruit and retain the talent we need.” “Everyone is looking for a silver bullet on how to find people for their company,” Wilken says. “There isn’t just one way, though. You need to be flexible on how you recruit.” Who Are They? Now that we have some approaches on how to get talent into our companies, there’s an even better question to ask: who exactly is this talent we’re trying to Doug Miller serves as CEO of the Illinois Crop Improvement Association. Randy Wilken serves as president of ProHarvest Seeds.