Slice of work life

Bothwell Cheese stands alone as one of the last remaining dairy plants from a time when many small Manitoba communities had an ice cream, cheese or butter co-op as a means of utilizing local farmers' milk inventories.

"This is one of the only plants left, which demonstrates that many of the business decisions that were made over the past 73 years were the right ones," says Ivan Balenovic, president and CEO of the largest independently owned cheese maker in Manitoba.

While the location of the company's office, production facility and factory store (a second outlet was opened in June at Richardson International Airport) has remained in New Bothwell, 15 kilometres northwest of Steinbach, its operations have changed significantly. Since 2002, business has boomed to $21 million in sales from $10 million, with over 30 varieties of traditional cheeses and exotic flavours like Madagascar Green Peppercorn, Black Truffle and Red Hot Chili Pepper now available throughout Canada.

"Bothwell was once known primarily as a fresh cheddar company, but this is evolving. The new unique varieties have dramatically raised our profile and enhanced the value of our full product line," Balenovic says, adding that the company's expansion has created major changes and presented some interesting challenges.

Q: How has being based in rural Manitoba since 1936 shaped your workplace culture?

A: Our employee base is predominantly local people from southeast Manitoba with very strong family values and exceptional work ethics. The 60 people who work here love what they do and they are proud that this company is named after their hometown. When our products win national and international award competitions, our employees celebrate the role they've had in those accomplishments. Knowing that our cheeses are sold all across Canada is a reflection of who they are as much as it is what they make. These are good, hardworking people and because of that, Bothwell Cheese has also been proactive in supporting the community. When we recently announced that we would donate 1,000 kilograms of cheese every month for the next five years to Winnipeg Harvest (in conjunction with the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba and the Manitoba Bulk Milk Haulers), our employees were quite moved. They were more than happy to be able to help out those less fortunate.

Q: Is the community culture a benefit when recruiting new employees?

A: I believe it is. The general positions we have available on our production floor are always filled by word-of-mouth recruiting; we've never had to advertise. Our operations manager, Rob Hiebert, lives in the community and people often approach him to see if we have any job openings. During the busy Christmas period when we need extra casual workers for shorter periods of time, it's not difficult finding people to come in and pick up a shift. Recently, we did a cultural audit report that was valuable in terms of finding out why employees work here and what they like about Bothwell Cheese as their employer. The most common responses were that they are proud of the company and that they enjoy working with people here because it feels like family. We try to support this environment by producing an employee newsletter, hosting barbecue lunches, an annual staff picnic and a Christmas party. As well, we involve employees as much as we can in the business, ranging from profit sharing to getting their input on new equipment purchases. They also get to sample and to provide input on all of our new cheeses.

Q: What management challenges has your intense rate of growth presented?

A: I came in as CEO when the company was purchased in 2002, and the change of ownership created some insecurity among staff because it came with a lot of uncertainty. Who is this new guy? What is he going to do? How is he going to change things? At first, I had people asking what our plans were and how it was going to affect them. So I reassured them that we wanted to grow the business, make their jobs easier through automation and I asked for the chance to show them what we could do.

For the past four years, our employees have been engaged in a constant state of change as we developed new products, expanded our capacity and created efficiencies by introducing new equipment technology. We've clearly experienced some growing pains along the way in terms of clarifying responsibilities, accountabilities and overall expectations. You can't always establish a preset policy for a piece of equipment that's coming in when you don't know exactly how it will be integrated on the floor and implemented into your process. As we grow, there are challenges and we are constantly at the steep end of the learning curve. But because we have been in this state of change for an extended period, our people are more accepting of change, adapting to the challenges and, I believe, comfortable with the direction we are going in.

Q: How have you made good on your promise to make employees' jobs easier?

A: Most of the changes we have made have resulted in much less physical labour for employees. The cheese-making process traditionally involves extremely physical, back-breaking work, but today, with our computerized operations, some of the tasks which previously took eight employees to do now only take two employees to do. The best part of all is that although our employees are exerting themselves less and fewer people are required in parts of the process, automation has not resulted in any layoffs because of our company's concurrent rate of growth. We have the same number of employees making twice as much cheese with less physical work thanks to the added efficiencies.

Q: What innovative people programs or processes has Bothwell Cheese implemented?

A: When we interview for our management positions, we conduct psychometric assessments to make sure our managers share the same values, priorities and mindset of the people working here. Recently, we conducted psychometric assessments with myself and our key staff as a team-building exercise. It really was fascinating to be able to articulate one's strengths and weaknesses and then share the results with each other. What we found most valuable was that once you recognize what makes an individual tick, you can then appreciate personality traits that make them good at what they do and those that may have been misinterpreted as weaknesses. Realizing our differences and understanding our dynamics has been an important benefit to the company.

Q: Are there any business books that you would recommend to others?

A: I enjoy reading books such as Tom Rath's Strengths-Based Leadership and Jim Collins' Good to Great. But what I like most are biographies of successful leaders such as Warren Buffett, whom I greatly admire and follow closely. I recently read Richard Branson's Business Stripped Bare and will read almost anything Peter C. Newman puts out. I really enjoy business case studies; show me a company that's succeeded and why they succeeded or failed and why they failed. When a business fails, it's always as a result of decisions that were made years, even decades before the cause becomes apparent. When you're reading about it, you visualize yourself at the helm and wonder, "Would I have made those same decisions given similar circumstances?" I enjoy reading books that challenge your own leadership skills most.

-- With reporting by Barbara Chabai

John McFerran, PhD, CMC, F. CHRP, is founder and president of People First HR Services Ltd. For more information, visit www.peoplefirsthr.com.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 5, 2009 I1