Having been through dozens of meat and poultry processing plants during the 12+ years I’ve been writing about this industry, there is one thing I have never seen: an identical workforce. I’ve never been to a single plant where everyone who works there is the same nationality, generation, gender and race. I doubt such a place exists. Those are just the physical characteristics; consider also religion, sexual orientation and political views and you start to have an idea of how varied the population of a meat plant can be.
It falls to the business operator to bring together a diverse workforce and get them to run smoothly. It’s a completely different task from ensuring the profitability of the company but just as challenging. As the recent months have shown in our polarized society, any disagreement can quickly escalate to shouting or worse. Maybe your business is large enough that you have a human resources department to help maintain harmony. Maybe your business is smaller, and you are the human resources department. Either way, the head of the business sets the tone for all the other employees, for better or for worse.