Connor Ferguson (Agribusiness)

My team lives in data – and with that comes the expectation or understanding that the data needs to be shared in order to be effective. Many of the processes we’ve developed for data analysis and data processing is very much behind the scenes. We are making it a priority in 2023 to increase the understanding and transparency of our processes so the greater Agribusiness team can see what we do and where certain trials are in the analysis process. This knowledge sharing will allow others to better understand how we do what we do as well as keep us accountable to ensure we deliver on better data processing and usability by the Agribusiness team working directly with customers.

We also gain great insights from the customer facing team members in Agribusiness to better improve the messaging and lens through which we view certain trials. This two-way data sharing puts valuable tools in the hands of those aiming to sell a product to improve a grower’s production and gives us a better understanding of how a given product is being positioned to ensure the final data summary is most useful to the widest audiences.

Colby Albright (Agribusiness)

In response to highlighting a practice of Knowledge Sharing, I wanted to identify two ways that I do so.
First off, I want to mention that our retail branch is small and like many, we are constantly busy and running like crazy! We all fill several hats so that operations may run smooth, and our customers’ needs are met.

Because of the fluid motion of our team members being in and out of the branch, we have implemented a morning muster that we all attend before we go our separate ways. During this meeting we all have the opportunity to communicate anything that we need to share. This can be as short as 5 minutes but is a crucial part of our day. Cell service can be spotty at best up here in the PNW Palouse, so face to face communication is vital.

We have all heard it said that knowledge is power and there is a certain amount of truth to that. I believe that much of our success is due to the knowledge that we freely share within our branch.

An example of this is, when I do online training or attend a training session that is not required by my coworkers, I freely share what I have learned because my team can glean knowledge from that information. Questions can be asked, and we can all learn and grow. And this is all done during our morning session.

I have also added a suggestion box to our safety program that allows the team to add safety concerns, near misses or anything that we may want to discuss as a team. I put together a standard operating procedure (SOP) and added it to our GPS program. By doing this the team has the opportunity to be heard and knowledge can be shared.

These may seem like simple actions, but the rewards are great, and we have found that it has only strengthened us as a team.
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to share.

Brandon McKenzie (Agribusiness)

Hello how I share knowledge is be willing to do any job that’s comes up or opposite if I see a coworker doing something where they are new to and I have experienced this job I don’t hesitate to help out and if the job is something I’m not familiar with excites me more because it allows me to add another tool to the overall team input!

One way I believe where our team can succeed in knowledge sharing is some sort of exchange program to where someone from operations (ie truck driver, applicator, warehouse specialist, dry fertilizer warehouse specialist) team exchanges spots with someone from a different geographical location. I do believe there’s more than one way to accomplish a goal. The employee that exchanges spots can pick up new traits of day to day operations. They can also pick up new perspective on the daily operations at their own location.

Thank you

Nathan Adams (Agribusiness)

I’ve only been with the company for 6 months, but one thing I have been impressed with is the amount of knowledge sharing that occurs in Pro Markets. Every month, an hour long presentation is shared with the Pro Markets folks in a specific segment such as; golf, greenhouse and nursery, vegetative management, lawn care, etc. Members of the sales team present and participants are able to share and ask questions. It has been a huge help to me as I try to learn the different and many facets of the business. We also have a quarterly new hire discussion where tenured team members share their knowledge to help ease the learning curve for new folks. I am blown away by the intentional focus on sharing tips with the team to better deliver exceptional service to our customers. I am also thankful to my team members who are willing to spend time with me in person or on the phone answering questions. Since day one, I have felt that everyone within Wilbur-Ellis is willing to help me learn and grow.

Blake Weatherald (Nachurs)

As a sales manager I try to share as much information as possible when spending time with my team as a group or in a one on one situation in person. I also like to encourage our group to share information amongst each other as well to help pass knowledge from more senior employees to the more recent hires. Our team has had a great deal of success using a text chat to share information. Anyone in the group can post a question into the chat and it allows the entire team the opportunity to answer the question or give advice, and for everyone in the group to see this interaction for themselves and learn form the questions and responses. This has proved to be a very efficient way to involve the entire team in these interactions as well as get answers quickly form team members who may have had previous experience with many of these topics over the course of their career.

Brandon Wilhelm (Agribusiness)

Everyone comes to Wilbur Ellis with professional experience that has been acquired throughout their career. What makes Wilbur such a strong company is the amount of knowledge and experience within each region, market and team. The sharing of knowledge is much like the analogy “as the tide rises, everyone rises together”. Sharing knowledge and information strengthens internal relationships and team chemistry. There’s not a playbook that can prepare you for every question or situation you will face in this industry. We must rely on our team to provide knowledge and learnings from previous experiences in order for growth and success to happen. Some individuals have the personality and character to be natural mentors, others may not share as freely but posses the experience and know how. Having a team culture that embraces comradery and knowledge sharing has provided not only individual success but success for the entire team. In order for the path to continually be paved with success we must continue to learn, share, and educate.

Mallory Robert (Agribusiness)

Knowledge sharing is so important with the quantity of information available to us. Within Wilbur Ellis, we work with numerous platforms and systems capable of holding large amounts of data and information. It’s imperative we share what we learn to fully utilize these systems to their upmost capacities; without, we would fall short on what we could achieve. We must work together to help fill the gaps in others’ experiences so we all can be One Wilbur. Technology has allowed us to share what we learn via zoom meetings with other locations. Others have traveled to branches to walk employees through tasks and to teach hands-on skills within our platforms. We design learning objectives and host group meetings to cover topics more thoroughly. Posters are created so the information is colorful, creative, intriguing…and we post them in areas where people don’t expect to see them or are in an area that is high traffic. We also remain open to learn from other people because without listening, we ourselves stand to not learn.

Caterina Estienne (Corporate)

Our team supports knowledge sharing by formally documenting procedures and updating those as changes occur. We also make it a point to include affected people in other departments such as HR or HRSS.

ANGELA LISTER (Agribusiness)

I have built strong relationships with others in my position within the company. When something comes up that I feel will be important for them to know, I forward it to them, product backorders or out for season emails are the common ones, as a newer employee I am not as familiar with replacements so forwarding that email leads to a conversation on other products that can be used.

Soledad Baker (Nachurs)

It’s impossible to know everything. However, the beautiful thing about learning is that even just a small introduction to a topic can enhance an experience. I’ve taken our knowledge sharing Practice and applied it in our recruiting efforts. Some of the things I’ve done include: having in depth conversations about what our operators do day in and day out with our plant directors, watching marketing videos from our Research and Development team to learn more about the products we sell, and sharing this information with others in different departments. Reaching out and asking to learn and finding fellow employees who want to share their knowledge is the best example I can find of this crucial Practice in our company.

Daniel Groves (Agribusiness)

Our team has weekly conference calls to keep current with what’s going on in the industry, suppliers , competitors ect. This is a valuable hour every week where lots of information is shared.

Proud Teammate (Agribusiness)

Shafter Ca, location supervisors exercise operational consistency by working alongside department employees. Warehouse manager Martin Medina is a great example of this. Not only does Martin spend most of his time with his team ensuring consistent processes, he also makes it a point to recognize high performers for operating consistently safe.

John Hoyle (Agribusiness)

Operational Consistency is paramount and truly is a separator between us and our competition I feel. The better the customer can be served, branch run efficiently, and staying safe while doing so is the difference maker for Wilbur Ellis to be successful. On the sales side of things, order consistency in Ag Verdict only helps the operations side to be consistent. It truly is a team approach to make all this happen and having the right people in place to do so.

Rebekah Will (Agribusiness)

Operational consistency is imperative to our business here in Dundee, MI. We have made it a center focus to try and improve upon our communication every year, however small the issue. It is easier to focus on the large scale issues that will immediately affect our business but can be easy to overlook the smaller ones that overtime can hurt the business. We just had our year end review with both operations and sales present. We throw everything on the table that we believe will help us in our communication/procedures to make the business run smoother from within, ultimately ensuring the customer receives an experience and product they’re pleased with. By tackling small communication issues between our team and adhering to best practices we mitigate the chance of things going wrong.

Raymundo Franco (Agribusiness)

We have daily production meetings regarding our bookings for the day/week. We communicate daily in the office about any customer inquiries or new bookings being added to fill in a timely manner. We are also in direct contact with our floor supervisors to make any needed adjustments and plan a schedule for day/night shift. Most importantly we all try to communicate as much as possible to be aware of any situation or circumstance.

Cesar Cardenas (Agribusiness)

We support operational consistency by remaining on top of in coming orders, maintenance of the warehouse such as sweeping, cleaning, restacking and consolidating pallets and products as needed.

Jonathan Nye (Nachurs)

For me it is all about consistency and processes. Consistency helps give me proper measurables on projects and timelines. Helps me as a manager to know if work loads are too much, too little, etc… and allows for me to know how I can help. Essentially if me and my team can produce consistent work, it is easier to track progress towards our end goals.

Don Sauve (Corporate)

I work with a cross-functional team to assist in Ag month end processing. We use a shared checklist to ensure that all critical processes are performed by the right person at the right time. Progress in the tasks is documented by all participants and is available for subsequent audits/reviews. If issues arise, we have a strong team with a lot of experience to work through them.

Kevin Hupp (Agribusiness)

We use Microsoft Teams to help us all stay in communication and up-to-date with our daily operations. Our operations manager has created channels within Microsoft Teams and assign members of our branch access to each channel. Some channels involve all of us (backorders) and others are specific to a select few (A/R). This is adaptively managed. We add, combine and delete channels as they get used for a while. Through Teams, any activity on the assigned channels alerts the members and they can engage or read the activity. All members are informed and up-to-date. This lessens emails and text messages that may get lost throughout a busy day. This platform has eliminated the same question asked and answered multiple times through out the day. One entry and we are all up to speed and communications are simple and precise. Our branch is so much more efficient with Microsoft Teams.

Daniel Woolley (Agribusiness)

One thing that the FP&A team for Agribusiness has done this year is created standard operating procedures for the processes that follow a set list of instructions. This has provided clear communication and helped improve efficiency in getting new team-members up and running.

Kyle Smith (Nachurs)

One of the ways I keep up with with operational consistency is by keeping in contact with my supervisors about what is going on in my territory. When I have a fertilizer or an parts/equipment issue or question I reach out to my coworkers for advice so I have the best possible solution for the grower/customer.

Sylvia Dsouza (Connell)

We can support operational consistency by setting up standard management system and continuous improvements in these system processes, by setting smart goals and focus on customer service as well as understand the importance of employees.

Guadalupe Rodriguez (Nutrition)

We hold daily meetings to communicate issues, concerns, how can we improve or correct issues or problems happening or that can happen in the next couple of days with production.
We make a schedule to ensure we understand the importance of each shipment(customer/material/equipment). Communication: who will lead the communication from the crew. Responsibility: (quality control) who will check product is in perfect condition for customer or how can we improve going forward. Most important teamwork and being focus.

Tyler Alexander (Agribusiness)

Operational consistency is a practice that I find to be crucial for a collaborative and efficient business. The way my team utilizes this practice, is within our BMO justification/approval process. To keep the language consistent throughout, we have developed a BMO justification guide to classify each transaction. This helps accelerate the justification/approval process, but most importantly, helps analyze spending dynamics for financial analytics. This will help give a more accurate representation for each spending category, while reducing time spent on BMO justifications/approvals.

Mary Fattor (-- Select an option --)

When we work together, we have to be in frequent communication and make routine updates to orders and even reach out to other departments. We kindly ask them to perform a task on their end so that the customer is able to get their order in a timely fashion. We amplify excellent customer service by familiarizing ourselves with the customers needs, adapt to the situation by having a flexible mindset while remaining calm, and activate by performing our tasks within a reasonable time frame whether that would be clarifying information by email or by phone. We keep a watchful eye on our orders and do everything we can to please our customers while following safety protocols.

Rob Ogden (Agribusiness)

We work hard on transparency and ease of communications in Minot. One of the ways we practice Operational Consistency is with our inspections.

Sam Engel has created scannable QR’s for all of our monthly inspections. This includes everything from Eyewash Stations, Fire extinguishers, Cleaning schedules, to full Facility Inspections. Inside the QR, we have detailed inspection checklists with instructions and also diagrams/pictures when needed. This gives anyone the ability to pull, review or complete an inspection along with a scheduled reminder sent out to our team when inspections are due. I believe this helps keep our Team on track and also keep us Operationally Consistent!!

Shout out to Sam Engel, Thanks for the creativeness and ingenuity you provide to our team 🥇

Thanks to the Catalyst Team for the opportunity.

Darrin Hartsfield (Agribusiness)

I am no longer the LOM of the Hughson, CA branch, but while I was there this TEAM went 8 years (and still going) without a Time Off Incident. This team came together to build such a strong safety program that was centered around looking out for the other person. Everyone one was engaged with weekly and monthly safety committee meetings and took ownership in the safety of the branch. This was and still is an amazing team that has continued to strive to put safety first by working together even after I took another position with WECO.

Don Sauve (Corporate)

After I have worked with someone on a request (whether it be a new feature, help with understanding something, or fixing something), I will often follow up after my part of the work is done to make sure the requester is satisfied with the outcome and to ensure there are no loose ends. Usually this is a quick email or message back and forth, but sometimes additional opportunities for improvement surface in this process. It really doesn’t take long to confirm that my “customer” is satisfied, and it could lead to even greater customer satisfaction down the road.

Katie Nix (Nutrition)

Holding myself personally accountable has shifted a bit since moving from a large office with team members to working form home.

One way I keep demonstrate personally accountability is to stay connected with my manager via Teams. I try to give daily updates in the chat or find a few minutes every few days to have short conversations to make sure I am making progress. Making sure I stay well connected encourages me to stay on track.

Another way I demonstrate personally accountability is by making sure I stay focused on what my yearly goals are. As my role within the company has changed this year, making sure I created a new gaol made me accountable right away for what I wanted to achieve in my new position.

Making a concerted effort to discuss how I can improve and achieve my goals with my Wilbur Ellis mentor is another successful way I have found to hold myself personally accountable for growth in my current position.

Colby Albright (Agribusiness)

Personal Accountability to me is about inspiration, a feeling of being and a feeling of purpose.

I have this continuous thought that my actions whether positive or negative will directly influence others whether that is my customers or my coworkers. And that, can most definitely start a domino effect. And this goes even beyond the scope of where I work.

A smile and a kind word can sometimes be the greatest part of someone else’s day. That is a gift worth giving.

I can think of many times where my entire day was changed by the actions of another, and I have realized that there is power in that. We have the power to influence the life of others by what we say and what we do.

I choose to be a light in my world. And in that I have seen how my influence can tip the scale to brighten someone’s day which can and usually carry over into the lives of others.

I sometimes ponder how my influence has changed the world through a simple chain of events started by something that I said to or did for someone. That could be as small as someone “paying it forward” at their favorite coffee shop or as big as someone helping another fighting a ongoing battle of depression.

These are things that I may never see or know about, but I have total faith and believe that though I am just one person, I CAN make a difference. Even if it is by nothing more than a mere smile, a genuine compliment or asking a coworker if I can assist in a project they may be working on.

Personal accountability is being the best employee, friend and human that I can, and it has the potential of changing lives which I like to believe can change the world. It’s simple but the outcome can be tremendous.

Mallory Robert (Agribusiness)

Personal accountability all boils down to integrity. The true definition of integrity, according to Webster’s Dictionary is, “…firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; incorruptibility…” To put it more simply, “what are you going to do when no one is watching?” I think our team strives to have the upmost integrity in all our daily tasks by doing what is right, especially “when no one is looking”. We try to surround ourselves by people who hold similar values, and that’s what makes our team so great. We do what is right and can count on each other knowing they will do the best practice. Ultimately, our jobs are going to be done correctly and safer as no one is skipping corners or taking short cuts. Those actions go against integrity and personal accountability…and that’s not at our location. We are all better off for it and I feel like I can speak for our team by saying we are thankful that everyone values personal accountability and is proud to be part of a team that puts this quality so high.

Russ Stowers (Agribusiness)

Lead by example concerning safety practices, policies, and PPE.
Impeccable attendance / teammate and customer availability –

Connor Ferguson (Agribusiness)

Personal accountability starts with having a clear vision of who you are. The visual in the video on personal accountability showed the character looking into a mirror and I think this is the perfect way to make this value concrete. Personal accountability means being able to look into a mirror and consider whether the values I am living in my job at Wilbur-Ellis are reflected properly. It also means being able to look into the mirror and be sure that I am living up to the expectations and values that I expect my team to demonstrate each day. By taking a serious and thoughtful look into the mirror, I can be sure that I am living by the same standards that I expect others to.

Personal accountability also means being the first to admit when they are wrong and welcome that vulnerability in my team. As a team leader, I must be willing to take the first step – especially when most difficult, to admit when I was wrong or if something didn’t turn out as it had been expected to. Having a clear sense of who I am will help me to speak up when needed to and to take responsibility for the team when something doesn’t turn out like it should.

By working to have personal accountability in every area of my life, this becomes a lived practice. Whether it’s at home or work, by living my life as if I can see every action in a mirror even when no one is around, will help me to improve areas of weakness and grow in areas of strength. It will also hold me to doing the right thing each time – even if that means taking more time or energy to complete the task. Being personally accountable will lead to a higher performing team, a happier team, and a team that thrives at Wilbur-Ellis.

Jay Rajgor (Connell)

1. Awareness – first I need to know what are my responsibilities under my Job and then only I can be accountable for them. Its very important to have total clarity on this.
2. Transparency – I need to be transparent regarding the skills that I have for fulfilling the responsibilities and If I need help, then I should ask for it.
3. Ownership – If I had made a mistake, the first step is to admit it! and accept the ownership of result.
4. Correction : Apologize for the mistake and take the responsibility to put in the effort to correct the situation from where it is.
5. Time Discipline – using time wisely is very important and there would be certain tasks / colleagues dependent on my task results and hence need to prioritize tasks effectively.
6. Over commitment – Taking on too much will likely cause me to miss the deadline. Hence I need to be realistic about what i can fit into my total workload.
7. Reflection and improvement- It is very important to get feedback and ask self, “What could I have done differently?” this will help me improve over the course of time.

SYLVIA D’SOUZA (Connell)

Personal Accountability means “Responsible for One’s Own Actions”

Tips to demonstrate personal accountability: Define & understand your own role, manage time, apologize, be honest, understand your own limit and don’t over commit. In short take ownership of your role like you are the owner of the business.

Julie Magnuson (Nutrition)

As a manager, here are a few things I do to hold myself accountable.

1) Keep organized:

I use my Outlook/Teams calendar for task and meeting reminders (Hint: if you have to snooze the task more than once, move it to another time/day. If there is a deadline, make it a priority and get it done)
I help the team by showing actual work, ways to do the work, scheduling time as well as how to keep it organized without a lot of “noise” that can distract us. “Noise” such as excessive folders and subfolders, files, duplication of information and how to avoid those pitfalls.

2) Be available:

I hold monthly one-on-one meetings with each Team member.
In addition to the formally scheduled time, I make sure I am regularly available to my team. They are encouraged to Teams message or call me anytime and I reply as promptly as possible.
I also meet with my manager weekly to debrief, for guidance, and partner with for the success of the business. I am just as responsible to be available to him as I am to my own team members.

3) Communicate clearly and effectively:

If I am going to be unavailable for a period of time, I message or email my team.
I also ask team members to use a shared calendar for planned absences as well as Teams group chats.
I’ve worked with the team on a consistent and organized system for clear and effective work instructions for cross training. This will enable them to help cover each other’s work when they are out or need additional help for those times when there is an increase in business. It is also great for training new folks! When a system is in place, you do not have to reinvent the wheel!

4) Own my part:

Do the people you work with know that you care about them? I express respect, care and concern for each person. Bottom line, no matter the position in the company we all matter and have value. It is of the utmost importance that people know you care about and believe in them.
If a team member is struggling with their role, I coach, guide, and answer questions to help them be successful. If they are not successful, we develop a plan together. A previous mentor of mine learned from one of his and taught me, if you have a person on your team struggling, you own that and have a responsibility to work with them.

5) Set goals:

I set goals and work with my team and/or manager to reach those goals. The goals are tied to the company strategy. I also work with each team member on setting their own goals.

JessLynn Naumann (Agribusiness)

To me demonstrating personal accountability means to do your best and if you make mistakes learn from them. If I learn something new I always try and share with coworkers because they also may not had prior knowledge. Always share and celebrate successes for everyone no matter how little they may be. Acknowledging someone has done a great job always makes them feel better and makes them want to strive to continue to do great things.

Frederick van Biljon (Agribusiness)

I can demonstrate personal accountability by keeping the custom application equipment maintained and serviced so they are ready to hop in at any time for our customers allowing us to provide efficient and effective service.

Braidie Butters (Agribusiness)

I can demonstrate personal accountability by making sure I arrive to work on time and prepared for the tasks that lay ahead of me!

Michael Doerr (Agribusiness)

I just want everyone on our team to have the freedom to aim really high, knowing that there is risk in thinking of new and creative ways to serve our customers. Not everything will work, but the alternative of continuing to do business the way we have always done it carries a greater risk of being irrelevant to innovative customers. We continue to celebrate those that try new things, elevate the learnings to the larger group, and shine a light on those that are moving our business forward everyday.

Phil Gilbert (Agribusiness)

I have several ways that I use to demonstrate personal accountability by asking those employees that report to me to give feedback on anything that they feel I am not providing to them. In each evaluation, I like to leave time for them to give me an “evaluation” if they are willing to help promote this strategy. Not all are comfortable with providing this feedback, but when they do, I want to listen and think about how I can change or adapt to improve.

Another very simple strategy that I use is Outlook Calendar. By dragging and dropping emails that need follow-up to my calendar, I can make sure that I stay on task throughout the day, week, etc.

Lastly, each Monday morning, I like to write down my “Top 5 List”. This is a list of 5 priorities that I know I need to focus on for the week and I can check them off as they are completed. This also goes on my white board in my office.

Jocellyne Fernandes (Agribusiness)

A few ways I keep myself accountable are by staying organized and agile. I immediately assess projects as they flow to me, so I can assign priority and give an accurate timeline for completion. You can set regular work periods in your calendar to make sure that you are giving appropriate attention to tasks or projects you are involved in. Another key accountability trick is to remain fully transparent in all you do. This trick keeps me motivated to stay on track. If you run into a roadblock or a speed bump, you can reassess and keep the progress you have made, while refocusing on what needs to be accomplished.

Angela Lister (Agribusiness)

I demonstrate personal accountability by owning up to a mistake when I make one and taking personal ownership of fixing it.

Victoria Long (Corporate)

I take personal responsibility by taking ownership in my work, I always strive to meet all deadlines and always ask for feedback on projects. I want my work to reflect my dedication to the company.

Shawn West (Nachurs)

Understand Your Role in the Situation.
Be Honest With Everyone (Including Yourself) set coals that you can reach.
Be Quick to Apologize.
Manage Your Time Wisely.
Know Your Limits. don’t shoot for goals that you know cant be reached. start small then big!
Be Open to Change. this is one of the hardest things for people to do!
Be Outcome Driven.

Doris Deuser (Nachurs)

When you make a mistake, get in front of it. Apologize, fix it and move on. Excuses don’t replace solutions.

Daniel Groves (Agribusiness)

For awhile, I’ve asked my customers what they see and what I could be doing better to ultimately serve there business more effectively.

Christopher Gonzales (Nutrition)

I have thought heavily about cultural pillars, and I have concluded that a cultural pillar doesn’t always mean it’s a core value that supports positivity, or good things. In fact, there are leaders in criminality-minded cultures, who, in reality, uphold their pillars of beliefs and values with conviction. So, what separates our cultural pillars from those who aim to do harm, and bad things, in our society? …well, I would have to strongly say it is our practices that separates us from others.

Personal accountability is a practice, better yet an action, that is a fantastic elemental start in being a person of strong, positive, values. But, of course, we all want to say we are full of honor and goodness, but I will be the first to say I have failed much in being accountable; I had realized, many years ago, that failure gave me the opportunity to gain traction toward success, implementing personal accountability any chance I could.

Personal accountability is multifaceted, it can look like many different things, which is why I am okay with focusing on one facet at a time. I may focus on being sorry, when I inadvertently hurt somebody’s feelings, even when I feel I did nothing wrong; key focus: empathy. I may focus on the fact that I may not be a team player, when required, and start to mend relationships with my colleagues; main focus: relational development. I may focus on my inclination to tell “white lies,” (you know, truths that really don’t hurt anybody), and decide to start to tell the full truth; key focus: honesty & integrity. Personal accountability is not only for others, but its also for myself. If I become a better me, then I could possibly offer more to others.

Personal accountability is one practice you can live out to ensure someone is getting the best of you.

Hong Leng Lee (Connell)

The goal to achieve in performance transparency is openness and engagement between management and employees or among own team in order to share information freely.

To support performances transparency, we can :

1. Clear communication on changes and ongoing objectives to go
2. Convey both positive and negative points reflecting to current situation
3. Clear objectives set with clear forward action with measurable parameter
4. Open mind to listen and allowing feedback taking with open heart

Particularly I like various town halls we have (country, Connell or from Wilbur-Ellis), clear message from higher management, current performance, key messages and plus update on various excitement agenda around us. The session allowing questionnaire for transparency and understanding. This support in shaping open, transparency, high integrity culture locally and within organization.

Nick Giannecchini (Agribusiness)

Performance transparency is all about communication with the common goal of success in mind. This success comes in the form of proper care and service for clients and business success and flow within our branch amongst employees. It is good to communicate what is work and what is not working, with emphasis on the successful “wins” and a focus on what needs to be improved and is not working.

Barbara Davis (Agribusiness)

We can support performance transparency by actually owning our work that we do every day. I am a HUGE fan of personal accountability. It is a win for the company and for our customers and co-workers. Personally I hold myself to a very high degree of accountability and I also expect the same from my team members and co-workers. It makes me feel good to know I am performing at a high level and it builds trust in me from my co-workers. The business world today is a very competitive market and every little thing we as employees can do to earn respect and trust is a huge plus to our company.
An employee without personal transparency is just “working for a paycheck”. Step up and take the reins and succeed by making yourself more accountable. It will pay you back tenfold.

Misty Swann (Agribusiness)

Open discussion and sharing both our successes and areas of opportunity leads to motivation to perform as well as continued growth and development. We need to celebrate our successes together, but we also need to allow our team to offer feedback and coaching in areas that we may be struggling. Many times an idea can spark from being transparent and asking for thoughts and ideas. It is not a sign of weakness or failure to pull in other members of the team- it is being responsible for your success as well as the the team’s success and using the resources, skills and talents of others.

Jessica Pfluger (Agribusiness)

Performance transparency on a team would mean that all team members are aware of the the expectations, and the steps necessary to be successful collectively. This does not necessarily mean that individuals share tasks daily, but it would mean that should a member of the team be absent another could step in an perform the duties with enough knowledge to be a beneficial asset on that particular job or at that certain time. It means that all tools are provided by the employer that aid the team in reaching their goals or even surpassing. There is clear and concise procedures in place that allow the team as a whole to perform in a uniformed fashion. Every member of that team is an asset, and every member is a weakness so there for making performance transparent it allows the team to identify and know exactly what their role is but also the understanding of the other team members as well.

Sam Engel (Agribusiness)

I believe that each of us can support performance transparency by being willing to share work results with those that ask. We can do this by making time to answer questions that coworkers have instead of pushing it off and forgetting about it. There are many WECO employees looking to learn about the business and how it runs so they can figure out their career path, if we don’t share results with them, we are basically acting as a speed bump on their career path. One person who is great at career transparency is Robert Ogden. Rob isn’t afraid to answer questions or share certain details with employees who are curious about what he, as a location operations manager, does. Rob is also great at helping others figure out their career path and is always willing to get employees engaged in activities that will drive them further down their career path.

Caitlyn Nigbor (Nutrition)

We can support Performance Transparency as Managers having conversations with our employees on how they are performing day to day as well as towards their goals for the year. Having open communication where they can share what they need to better perform in their day to day work as well as towards their goals is very important. Sometimes it may mean having to adjust and update a goal due to changes that have occurred since the goal was originally set. On-going communication is very important in ensuring Performance Transparency.

Smita Shetty (Connell)

Honesty, openness, and transparency are the mantra in the new modern workplace, as this allows every employee to feel welcome, motivated, and a part of the bigger picture. We should practice the free sharing of relevant information such that it benefits both the company and the employees. There should be openness not only between the management and the employees but also between the individual teammates. In simple terms, we should mindfully have two-way and honest openness between Team. Personally it helps to give timely feedback & keep our progress on track with the larger organizational goals.

Christopher Gonzales (Nutrition)

I recently had to address a situation that challenged my word of delivering the highest quality product, customer service, and integrity to a new customer. Along the process of delivering our best to this customer, there were multiple complications with unexpected outcomes; the new customer was highly concerned.

What I love about these types of challenges is I have a vital opportunity to display the capability of holding MYSELF accountable. So, I owned every single one of these obstacles; even though the process involved many individuals, I still owned them because I am my team.

I promised the customer that I would investigate, find a solution, and resolve any further disruptions in our process of delivering to them our Wilbur-Ellis integrity and quality. My customer is very happy now and is already speaking of having a great relationship with Wilbur-Ellis for decades to come.

Performance transparency is at its maximum potential when it has an aim to successfully affect your company by, in part, aiming to successfully affect your customer relationships. This can happen by making all expectations clear and taking accountability when the expectations are not met on your end. Be transparent. Fix what has failed. Move forward.

ROBERT OGDEN (Agribusiness)

I like the idea of a think tank with our teams. We look and talk about our performances, brainstorm ideas of helping support each other. We increase level of trust, teamwork, and cross-training. We hold each other accountable, if one of us fail, we fail as a team.

Doris Deuser (Nachurs)

We need to be accountable for not only ourselves, but for our team.
If something is off, say so. Whether it be quality, safety or customer service. We all have an effect on the company standards.

Kameron Schenk (Agribusiness)

Communicate the gaps in which we struggle with and how to overcome them to continue to gain our customers trust in doing business no matter the challenges to come.

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!

Russ Stowers (Agribusiness)

What does Customer Focus mean to you?

1. Be available when needed and not needed.
2. Anticipate customer requests prior to customer requests.
3. Exercise high core values in customer dealings, both internal and external.

Chris Mazza (Corporate)

Regarding Customer Focus, first I would like to posit that “customer” doesn’t entirely represent the relationship that we want to have. I believe that “business partner” is a better reflection of that ideal relationship. On the surface it may seem just a matter of semantics, but when we really think about it, we want to develop, nurture, and grow a true partnership with others – both co-workers and other stakeholders internal to Wilbur-Ellis and also externally with other companies and organizations. Everything that we do, in all of our various roles, and regardless of how significant or mundane the task may appear, should be done with the objective of improving that partnership and relationship, and making things better for that person, group, or company. For external business partners, our goal should be to focus on growing their business, which in turn will grow our Wilbur-Ellis business. By doing so we can achieve a win-win result and a true partnership.

Anthony Redstrom (Agribusiness)

Question one

Customer focus means to me getting to know your customer knowing how your customer likes to do business, like over the phone or in person. Learning your customer, like places they like their deliveries and time frames they want their products.

Question two

Strengthening customer focus can make a strong bond with your customer that they would only want to do business with Wilbur-Ellis, also tell other people about there experience and maybe able to get more customers.

Steven McQueen (Nachurs)

Customer Focus Sales and Service starts through a discovery process. Understanding your customers current situation establishes a bench mark. We can then focus in closer on how to create value to raise that bench mark to greater success. Spending quality time in conversation, and asking the more difficult questions, like what is working well and what has caused you the most stress, anxiety and time loss over the past season. This will open up the opportunity to create solutions to support your customer in achieving his goals.

By focusing on our customers goals, we will then be able to assist in establishing future targets, which will develop our opportunity for continued collaboration as a trusted business partner.

Barbara Davis (Agribusiness)

What does Customer Focus mean to me? It means really listening to your customer and understanding their wants and needs. It means being diverse in learning and realizing what each specific customer needs and attaining those requests for that customer. All customers want to feel empowered that we truly care for their business. If we can accomplish this we have our customer’s trust and that can go a long way in todays competitive market. Listen to your customer and then deliver what they want and need. Making people “feel” like they matter is very important.

Kara Schut (Agribusiness)

Customer focus is the key to our success and should be one of the largest focus areas we have. We need to continue to look for new and innovative ways to work with and for our customers and provide them with products and services that not only help them be successful but also that they can’t find from others in the industry. Regardless of the positions I have held it has always been key to seek what their greatest needs are and to ensure that we are doing everything we can do to help guide and walk along with them as well as make sure they understand how committed we are to working together.

In my current team where we have the opportunity to look at new products that hold the potential to be the next key in allowing our customers to economically and effectively produce the best crops but also providing our sales staff with tools and knowledge. The customer focus is extremely impactful to our team and will help us gain the current wants, needs and understand the challenges facing our customers. We actually have our fellow employees as our customers as well as our WECO producers both of which have the challenges each season and we can be a better support if we focus on what the needs of each group are and continue to enhance the rate on which information is shared and new products are developed. All of these things are crucial for our team and will make us that much more advanced as compared to our competitors.

Gary Dempsay (Nutrition)

What does Customer Focus mean to you?

Customer focus is where you consider how a business decision or customer interaction will affect the customer. These interactions and decisions should assist the customer to achieve their results, makes them better, helps solve their problems, etc. in an effort to be a partner with the customer. The old adage of “customer first” is still important today as it was yesterday, take care of the customer and your business will succeed as well, a symbiotic mutualism relationship.

Jay Rajgor (Connell)

What does Customer Focus mean to you?

• Know : Knowing who is my customer – that can be internal (within organization) or external
• Evaluate : Evaluate every request coming from customer, assess its implications, business need and then make an agreement to serve
• Serve : Make 100% sure to serve as per promised agreements and keep customer updated about the progress.
• Communicate : Always answer any query, request or complain, communication has to be fluid, honest and transparent.

How could strengthening Customer Focus impact Wilbur-Ellis or your team?

Being customer focused puts us in a better position to help our customers, in an honest way. Our customer will sense that we are making an extra effort to understand the situation at which they are and to really understand them to be better able to help them get where they want to be. This builds Customer Loyalty and trust which directly proportionate to healthy business growth and longevity, and this will give us ultimately an edge over our competitors.

Dan Willey (Corporate)

https://vimeo.com/740905045

What does customer focus mean to you?

To me, customer focus means to look at everything we do as a company from the customer perspective, whether it’s consulting with the customer on the sales side, processing an order, delivering the product or service, sending an invoice, or even making sure everyone’s computer system runs reliably. Ultimately the customer is the reason we do these things, so everyone’s contribution matters in the customer’s journey with us.

What does strengthening customer focus mean to you and the W-E team?

I think strengthening customer focus for the team puts all of what we’re doing, or should be doing, in the right context. If we look at everything we do with a focus on how it helps the customer, it will help us make better choices around what we should prioritize and work on, and what maybe doesn’t have the biggest effect on the customer experience and shouldn’t be worked on.

I also think it will inspire people by understanding how their contribution fits into the ultimate purpose and goals of the company–after all, if it wasn’t for customers we wouldn’t all be here! Being able to put the customer in the room with you, figuratively, will really help everyone understand how their actions affect them.

Mallory Robert (Agribusiness)

We strive to be very customer centric at our location! Without our valued customers, we could not be a successful agricultural distributor. Part of ensuring the success of our business is we cater to the requests of our customers through the utilization of technology. We step outside our normal tasks to build spreadsheets and to compile data to better serve our customers. Through the use of BI, reports, and tables, we are able to generate information similar to what our competitors provide our customers. The extra steps on our part help meet the wishes of our customers and ultimately keeps us in line with those who are trying to sell to our customers.

Anne Furukawa (Corporate)

What does Customer Focus mean to you?

Customer focus means working with your client/customer in a manner where everyone involved are communicating to a level where all parties are aware that the problem or solution is known. This is especially important where the issue may be more complex, after research and analysis, and the intricacy of the issue is communicated. Also, it’s not about doing the task fast, but doing it correctly.

How could strengthening Customer Focus impact Wilbur-Ellis or your team?

I believe strengthening communication will help strengthen Customer Focus. If everyone communicated on a timely manner (meaning within 24 – 48 hours or at most 3-4 days) whether it is to acknowledge an email, give a high-level explanation, or even negotiating a deadline, this would more than likely stop the frustrations of a customer from continuously following up or contacting several people to get a response.

For my team, we all try to at least acknowledge emails that are sent to us, both individually and as a team. This allows us to communicate to our clients that their issue or suggestion is on someone’s radar. Yes, sometimes email get missed, but from what I have experienced this is rare. Also, my team looks at the problems from as many angles that we can – discussing it amongst ourselves or collaborating with another team to get different perspectives to determine what may be the best solution to assist our clients with their needs. On the flip side our clients need to also understand that sometimes a non-solution is a solution or if they want a task done and done correctly we will ask for more time, and they need to be able to accept that. Again, this comes down to communication.

John Figura (Corporate)

If you like this enough, I can do a video, but wanted to respond before I forgot!
This question I am particularly passionate about!

What this means to me is simple it means every person in the company regardless of role or position can influence or impact customers. When I managed a sales team, I always preached that everyone on the team is part of the sales team. Many of my best salespeople were in customer service and logistics. When I would visit customers, I would often hear praise for the customer service team. Often, they interact with the customer more than the salesperson would!

I think the key is every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to enhance the relationship. Some examples I have seen:

1. I have had drivers let operations know of issues competitors are having that helped us improve our offering and increase sales.
2. Logistics support developed relationships with customers. This is huge. When the customer likes the customer service logistics person, and they have a relationship they have developed personal capital that helps smooth over mistakes or delays.
3. When visiting a major O&G account we had out supply manager join. In the meeting, he developed a relationship with their supply chain manager that helped us develop business.

My key point is no matter what our role is we are all here to service the customer and can each make a difference and help further that relationship.

BRETT GUEHRN (Agribusiness)

What does customer focus mean to you?

I would say that Customer Focus is a key in our world today. Customer Focus is when we pinpoint exactly what the customer is trying to achieve and we as a collective group in cohesion with the customer help them achieve their goals.

How could strengthening Customer Focus impact Wilbur-Ellis on your team?

By strengthening Customer Focus it allows us as a group to have an active role in the accomplishments of our customers through our collaborative effort. This in turn creates a culture of successes and pride with my team.

Joshua Hansen (Agribusiness)

To me, Customer Focus is about framing everything we do by starting with the customer. Keeping them top-of-mind informs the decision we make and the products and services we offer so that we can continue to better serve the customer. Strengthening this focus ensures that we stay relevant and add value to their operation for our shared success.

Annette Puvaloski (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus means that our customers are very important to our business, therefore they are each treated fairly and respectfully. Our daily priority is our customers and each and every customer is different, their expectations of service could be very different. We must ask the right questions and identify the specific needs of the customer we are working with. I feel that follow up is very important after a recommendation or sale. Confirming the satisfaction of our customer is imperative for future sales and solidifies our relationship.

By strengthening our customer focus we can improve team awareness of that customers specific needs. We must become aware that every customer has different needs and provide the level of service needed to that customer. Always remember we are not able to be everything to everyone. Overall, as a team we must work together to have many touch points to our customers as possible. We have our ad min to communicate and answer questions regarding billing or financing, our operational staff to assist with supply and delivery and then the salesperson that would have the infield or on farm contact.

Our customers are changing and we must realize the changes and adjust.

Jessica Naumann (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus means to me that you are considerate of what the customer wants and needs.

Customer Focus can impact Wilbur-Ellis and our team by creating a good bond with the customers so that they will continue to purchase through us. If we don’t have Customer Focus they could potentially purchase through somewhere else.

Julie McBane (Nutrition)

Customer Focus to me means putting the customer first by understanding and fuling their needs and developing a strategy for current and future satisfaction, while building the relationship providing superiors customer service that exceeds that of competitors, continuing to provide the quality product that is expected with every order.

Strengthening Customer Focus can and will impact the future of Wilbur-Ellis. Customer Focus will help grow the organization and gain new customers while still supporting current customers gaining their trust for future growth. Customer Focus should be a company wide approach!!

MARTHA LOPEZ (Agribusiness)

Customer focus to me, means concentrating more on how to interact with a customer and fill their needs and gaining each others confidence to become one and not focus so much on the business but the integrity of how we represent the company and breaking down those barriers.

Strengthening our customer focus would be beneficial to Wilbur-Ellis because by providing great customer service would likely make a lasting impression that will be invaluable. I think for us to go out of our way to make our customer experience special would not only help our team but also the business itself; these customers would likely return and by word of month we would become more successful.

Russ Stowers (Agribusiness)

Q -What does customer focus mean to you?

A – Put customer needs first, both internal and external. Show up everyday, and exercise extreme core values.

Smita Shetty (Connell)

What does Customer Focus mean to you?
Customer centricity is all about keeping the customer in focus. For me it is all about listening & understanding the customers needs & wants from us. We can have excellent products, service or plan for the customer, but if that is not aligned to their needs then it is of no value. Constantly showing the value we bring in & “what’s in it” for the customer’s goals & vision is very important factor for me for being customer focused.

How could strengthening Customer Focus impact Wilbur-Ellis or your team?
Being Customer focus will help as below: a) Extend the customer lifecycle b) Make us preferred partners for all things that matter(innovation + Growth) c)Build a strong customer centric brand where we get referred as “Go to people”.

Sylvia Dsouza (Connell)

1) For me Customer focus means placing customer interests above everything & ensure customer satisfaction.

2) Strengthening customer focus will impact the team & the company to develop and sustain productive customer relationships and contributes towards business growth & success.

Angelica Estrada (Agribusiness)

Customer focus for me is always putting our customers’ needs first. Wilbur Ellis is dedicated to enhancing customer satisfaction and building strong customer relationships, along with maintaining them with existing customers. In the past two years, I have witnessed this with my co-workers at the Wilber Ellis Warden Branch. They always go above & beyond to meet each customers’ request, even though each service varies from customer to customer. Warden has a great team and I am so proud that I am part of this company.

Julie Magnuson (Nutrition)

Customer focus can mean many things. From listening to your customer about what their needs are to providing products and timely service to meet those needs. I believe “focus” equates to a deeper level of service and showing the customer you truly care.

• How do you engage with them? What is your tone in your message?
• What is/are the method(s) they prefer to communicate? Phone call, email, text, in person?
• How often do they want to be in touch or hear from you? Daily, weekly, monthly, etc.?
• Are you proactive or reactive to their needs?
• Are you making them feel important and showing them that they are because without them you could be out of business?
• Who are your customers? Not only are the people who purchase from us our customers but consider this … suppliers, other vendors, co-workers, and other internal stakeholders in the company can be considered the customer.

Bottom line, who you serve, how you serve and in the manner in which you serve are all important.

And finally, something to me that is most important to remember in business and in life stems from a favorite quote of mine and very applicable when you think about customer focus.
“I’ve learned that people may forget what you say, people may forget what you do, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

Dennis Devitt (Agribusiness)

What does customer Focus mean to me:

We are looking out for the customer’s business before my own, bottom line. We can do that by investing time with my customer and asking questions. I need to invest time learning their business to ask good questions. This allows me to understand their pain points regarding logistics, profitability, supply timings, labor issues, etc…

Once I know their pain points, I can now work to create a solution to lessen or even remove those pain points.

To sum it up, I put their business ahead of my own. That is the difference between being a trusted advisor and just being a salesperson. After being a Wilbur Ellis Customer for 30 years, the reason I chose to work with Wilbur was simple – my consultant was looking out for my business before his own. It is that simple! We are doing the same thing in the Yakima Valley and with this strategy, we are winning.

Amy Jo Kjar (Agribusiness)

Customer focus to me means making the customer feel involved. I feel that they want to know what is going on with their fields, when you will be spraying for them, and so are even interested in the planes themselves. So why not take an extra minute or two to visit with them when they ask questions or you see them eyeing the airplanes. Some customers come in personally to pay their bill instead of mailing it, because they might want or need that human interaction that seems to be getting lost in the world today. Everything goes out automatically or we get phone calls from robots reminding us of an appointment we might have. Some of the older generation farmers still need and want to know what is going on with other people. Customer focus to me is putting the customer first, making them feel like they are our only customer. I try to do that when ever I answer the phone or when someone walks into the office.

PEGGY SALING (Nutrition)

Customer focus to me is putting the customers needs first if possible. Listen to what the customer needs and wants and do your best to comply. When you are working, make sure and ask is this the way I would want to receive this product?

Strengthening customer focus could help Wilbur Ellis become a top supplier. Would help the company be a better company. It would help my team and I be better and more reliable workers.

Daniel Groves (Agribusiness)

https://vimeo.com/737706099

What does customer focus mean to you?

Note- I was not driving while taking this video! Parked in my driveway

John Hoyle (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus to me is a dedicated effort to form a true relationship with a customer. Focusing on not only a good business relationship, but also develop a friendship with them and family. This makes work more enjoyable for me personally, but it strengthens that customer bond. This not only helps with return sales throughout the year, but it also strengthens the tie to Wilbur-Ellis. Good service from sales and operations both create a good customer experience and that truly impacts the bottom line when you have a lot of this kind of business relationships.

DAVID BLYTHE (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus means trying to help the customer to fulfill their needs in a timely manner and providing answers to their questions. Supporting the customers business as if it was an extension of our own.

The impact of a branch team is the quick response to the customers needs. Which, brings back the business and builds a great relationship between the customer and their branch team. It takes every person in the branch, working together, to create a atmosphere of truly trying to help the customer succeed in their business adventures.

MURRAY VAN ZEGGELAAR (Nachurs)

Customer Focus means that every decision and action made by our employees is looked at through the lens of our customer to ensure that we are meeting their needs. Questions we need to ask ourselves might include the following:

Are we delivering clear & compelling value to our customer?
Are we making it more convenient for the customer?
Are we saving our customers time?
Are we making it easy for the customer to do business with us?
Are we differentiating ourselves from our competition?
Are we building lasting & loyal relationships with our customers?

All of these things need to be taken into consideration so that we continue to make decisions and take actions that are customer-centric and not just for our own internal needs or wants.

Strengthening Customer Focus means developing loyal customers that actually become advocates for the ALPINE brand. These kinds of loyal customers can actually be our best sales people in the marketplace.

TOMMY MARTINEZ (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus to me means giving the customer what he wants and needs. Making sure we are making the customers feel comfortable with our service and products.

Strengthening Customer Focus would help us keep the customers we have and also bring in new customers when they hear through the grape vine that we really value our customers through our customer service and products.

Michael Chappelle (Agribusiness)

Customer focus is creating a relationship with a customer that allows us to connect with the customer on a level that creates trust. it creates a culture of trust, learning and growth. Customer Focus means loyalty to the customer and in turn the customer is loyal to our company and team.

Amy Torres (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus to me is keeping the customer on the forefront of all decisions and business processes that are being implemented or amended. Continuously thinking about how, why, when and where will these processes or decisions affect our customers should be the main topic of discussion to keep the focus on the customer.

Adam Balk (Corporate)

Customer focus means working to meet customer needs every day when coming to work. Without the customer, we wouldn’t have a business and so their needs must be kept in the forefront. Being a part of the support staff makes this a little more challenging as my goal is to make sure we do things in a compliant way. Sometimes that can make customer support and focus more difficult for a location. However, when the support teams can work with locations to come up with sustainable solutions and keep customer focus in mind, we all win.

Paul Patteson (Agribusiness)

Supportive Leadership is a culture.
At our branch we work only if the team works. Process and completion is only efficient when we support each other in our every day endevours.
By acknowloging the human side of each person and responding to their person, we can support each other to feel that their work team is there with them in the truck, in the warehouse, and at the office.
Greet each person, support them when things dont line up, and praise when problems are overcome.
Engaging regularly with our staff, we discuss challenges and upcoming opportunities to help delegate and support the overall operations of branch. Creating ownership and purposely looking to support efforts and praising successes. We are aiming to build the trust in each other so support becomes the expectation and ultimately the culture that we work in.

Sam Engel (Agribusiness)

In Wilbur-Ellis Minot we are strengthening support leadership by taking time to visit with employees on hobbies and interests outside of work. Those in official and unofficial leadership roles by handling high stress situations calmly and working to come up with safe and effective solutions to problems. Our thoughts are that if we can come off as calm in the face of adversity then we can help the team to relax instead of creating more stress. When errors are made we work as a team to correct them and make sure that we learn from them within a supportive environment vs a demeaning one. We aren’t just a team in Minot, we are a family

Tarin Blow (Agribusiness)

I am strengthening supportive leadership by meeting employees at their level and understanding their needs. What questions do they have? What do they need help with? How can I help achieve their goal?

Lindsay McWilliams (Nutrition)

I believe a key component to being a supportive leader and associate is taking time to get to know and appreciate those you work with. This can include personal hobbies and professional work styles. As a newer Wilber-Ellis associate, I have tried to understand and influence how we can work together as a team to improve efficiencies. For instance, we were recently faced with a challenge building out a pipeline of work and ensuring we had the resources to cover the work as we drive more innovation into our business. We took the foundation of work the associate had and applied a few suggestions around project tracking, in turn developing a system for project tracking and resource estimation that will ensure we can effectively make decisions for work prioritization. This gives each associate the power of influence with their style rather than a “my way or no way” approach. As a remote associate, I also desire to lead with a level of appreciation for our operations team. So on each monthly visit to our Ameri-Pac site, I try to do one kind or engaging action for an associate while I am there. It maybe gifting them with a notebook that shows their personality or providing trivia questions to kick off their next lunch meeting. It is important for people to know they are seen, appreciated and others have a vested interest in them.

Carrie Williams (Corporate)

How are you strengthening supportive leadership?

For me, strengthening my supportive leadership is done by being available to and listening to what my team and coworkers are saying. It is important for me to provide a sounding board and then encourage team members to be creative as they develop solutions to the challenges they face. I provide needed resources, coaching, and training to help team members develop the skills needed to be successful. Most importantly, I take the time to thank and recognize team members’ contributions to our success.

Connie Simpson (Corporate)

Being new to Nachurs Alpine, getting the plant workers and leaders to feel comfortable discussing the needs and issues in St. Gabriel was very important. I discovered that breaking bread together was the best way to foster open relationships there. We had a day with ice cream & fish fry and another day two weeks later with fried chicken, fish and fries. Everyone contributed from operations and maintenance in some way. This was a very effective team building and allowed everyone to talk on important issues and eat lunch together. It was a very rewarding thing to witness.

John Hoyle (Agribusiness)

Supportive leadership to me is being approachable and empathetic with team members. This helps I believe in building trust with your team and help them overcome challenges they each may be facing. The better you understand your team and making it easy to come to you for support is a great thing.

Tara Cox (Corporate)

https://vimeo.com/737698304

Beth Emmert (Agribusiness)

I am best with writing, so to support leadership I wrote up a few quick tips to follow to become more effective. Most of these are applicable in any situation.

Communication

• Tools – Use all communication tools available, then get your team on board with access to one main method to stay connected for important updates and notifications.
• Messages – Respond quickly. Acknowledge by repeating back or rephrasing, then give an estimated time to supply the requested information (it buys you more time that way). Set a reminder for follow-up so you don’t forget.
• Response – Tired of repeating yourself? Your responses need logical change. Try a different approach or ask for help from a peer. People don’t remember things that don’t make logical sense.
• Reaction – Delay reactions to stressful (non-urgent) news. Rephrase your understanding of the issue to ensure clarity, then allow yourself time to investigate before you decide what to do.

Connection

• Look at people in the face when they’re talking to you.
• Ask about families. Most of us have one.
• Relate on a positive subject. We all know gas is expensive. No politics.
• Eat food and drink coffee together.
• Don’t be afraid of people in power or customers.
• Talk to everyone with familiarity. Be genuine.

Learning

• Admit when you don’t know something. Everyone knows what they know.
• Know what is and isn’t your job. Don’t palm off jobs you don’t like, people will see you as lazy. Schedule time on your calendar to complete tedious tasks without interruption.
• Point out your mistakes. Others can learn from and avoid making them. Bring errors to a manager’s attention right away – especially if you suspect more problems could arise. Don’t make the boss come to you, they’ll appreciate your candor and that you saved them time.

Coaching

• Make tools available to others so they can find answers themselves. Publish procedures in one place and update them when needed. Notify users of changes with links rather than email attachments.
• Clarify goals behind policies. When others realize the reasoning behind procedure they’ll learn prioritization and find their own work rather than asking you what to do next.
• Be helpful but don’t take over for those capable. Never take away independence.
• Let people learn from mistakes. They develop deeper understanding (cause & effect) by fixing the mistake.

Holly Hambruch (Agribusiness)

I recently participated in an online class called “Dare to Lead” and what they presented as the definition of a leader really struck me and seems fitting here. Leader = Anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential. I think in my role as a BPL I am presented with many opportunities to strengthen supportive leadership. By visiting locations and developing relationships in those locations, I can encourage others who have the potential to impact the company in ways they may not have considered yet. Encouraging others to be a voice and empower those around them by stepping outside the box and sometimes doing things that might seem uncomfortable (sharing ideas on a TEAMS call). Also by recognizing when a process needs some work or seeing a process have great success that might be useful to a much larger audience and making sure to share that thought with others. I have been fortunate in my various roles with Wilbur-Ellis to always have had supportive leadership around me that continuously encouraged me to push myself to the next level and I want to do the same for others.

Smita Shetty (Connell)

I approach supportive leadership as a part of “Being Authentic”. Often supportive leadership is confused with “micromanaging” or “handholding”. It is more about being supportive of your team member & coaching them to achieve success. The first step i took towards supportive leadership was “Listening with attention to detail” when my team members talk & also when they don’t. I think this has helped me a great deal in my leadership journey. If one doesn’t listen to understand then one tends to depend on his/her preconceived notions & judgement of situation/people which surely doesn’t help. Leaders tend to focus on becoming a legend, but supportive leadership will help you leave behind a legacy!

Joshua Hansen (Agribusiness)

There are two things I focus on specifically to strengthen my supportive leadership – being openly available to my reports and trying my best to foster a supportive work environment. Each team member is valued and has something to contribute. The team I’m a part of is encouraged to bring new ideas and share their thoughts regarding existing work and the ways we work in the future. The goal is continual improvement and shared success, bringing value to the organization at large and our customers.

Madeleine Smeltzer (Corporate)

The core team members of Nexus: North America, the early-career business resource group (BRG), exemplify the practice of supportive leadership. Nexus: NA connects members within Wilbur-Ellis to a community of engaged and empowered people, gainful experiences, and opportunities for career development, education, and training. Nexus: NA is the convergence of ideas, talents, and insights of North American early-career employees.

Through programs like 100 Days and Growing, quarterly coffee chats, book clubs, and more, the Nexus: NA core team supports the well-being of each member by empowering members to lead thriving careers. The core team creates an environment where employees feel valued and supported while connecting members cross-divisionally. Nexus: NA members are in all stages of their careers, driving a welcoming, diverse, and inclusive workplace.

Nexus: NA core team members are Danny Vandecoevering, Katie Nix, Adam Lund, Corban Lehman, Rosa Marquez, John Kuhn, and Madeleine Smeltzer.

Denise Smutny (Agribusiness)

I believe it is critical to truly understands what motivates the people you are working with, what their strengths are and what their goals are that they want to achieve. Once you are aware of that you can support their growth to move to a management role, create learning opportunities for them in the current role or help them share their knowledge. Supporting and leading can be done upward, downward or laterally by capturing the needs of the employee and providing them the tools to achieve their goals. In my role supporting my team means listening to their ideas and working with them to show how those ideas can impact the larger picture making Wilbur-Ellis better for all of us.

Alik York (Agribusiness)

I feel like I am strengthening supportive leadership by asking my co workers more questions and helping them find the answers themselves. I feel like its important to have ownership and leadership in our roles and it helps us gain confidence in our products.

Daniel Groves (Agribusiness)

As the seed treatment specialist for Grand Forks I work closely with the bulk room making custom blends. I’ve learned over the past few years that everyone has long, strenuous hours and when an issue arises it’s best to take a step back and take a breath before the problem solving process especially when it comes to someone else making a mistake. Instead of getting mad it’s WAY more constructive to lead with a positive attitude and navigate the mistake so it doesn’t happen again. I’ve also learned that by taking some to buy the bulk room lunch every once and awhile or just stopping in and seeing how things are going goes a long way.

Daniel Woolley (Agribusiness)

I am strengthening support leadership by listening intently to feedback, being available and willing to help and go the extra mile, and understanding where there are problems that need solving. I try to mentor those that are early in their career.

I want to shout out Weston Buck for being a PHENOMENAL manager. He takes genuine interest in the team members individually and stands up for our successes. He works to make sure that everyone on the team is improving and is quick to give credit to his team and not take it for himself when he deserves PLENTY of credit

Ron DeRoche (Agribusiness)

I fully support “Water Cooler Talk Time”, many times we as a group don’t get to talk about general items that are going on around us both personally and professionally. We have many meetings to discuss specifics, but we don’t get to have those round table discussions that might be over cooking a pizza or solving a problem at work.
These are great team building times and where each of us learn a little more about our fellow employee.

Michael Chappelle (Agribusiness)

First I just listen. Then I follow up with possible validation. often time all it takes is to have a listening ear for an employee to move past an issue or a problem.

Amy Torres (Agribusiness)

I am strengthening supportive leadership by having an open door policy and asking for constructive feedback on policies and procedures. I welcome open suggestions and positive feedback from my team weekly.

Gary Dempsay (Nutrition)

How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?

One must not forget that learning/knowledge is a lifelong pursuit. There are so many ways to learn in today’s environment; webinars, podcasts, books, magazines, radio, television, DVD, YouTube, classes, etc. I personally find topics that I need to improve in my current job position or topics I want to learn more about due to foreseeable job changes. For example, I read some books about payroll and human resource management when I was taking on the Supervisory role of those areas. I continue that same concept as my career has changed over the years. I prefer reading books since I can refer back to those books at a later time and I feel the books provide a more in-depth learning opportunity versus a webinar. But no matter your personal preference since everyone learns differently, the important point is to never stop gaining knowledge.

Kimberley Fowler (Agribusiness)

The mentor program is a great opportunity for employees to develop within the company. I was selected as a mentee and had great discussions with my mentor. You only get out of the program what you put into it but it is a great opportunity for those looking to further grow and develop within the company.

Kimberley Fowler (Agribusiness)

Jack Ferri has encouraged and helped me grow as an employee over the past year. Jack has pushed me outside my comfort zone on projects and helped me foster networking opportunities throughout the company.

Heather Messer (Agribusiness)

I believe we have a couple of great examples of people development in the Inland Empire district of the PNW. Joel Mather (District Ops Manager) has developed clear guidelines and benchmarks for his operations team, so they have full transparency around their career path options. For example: Plant operator–>Field Service Tech I–>Field Service Tech 2/3–>Operations Lead, etc. In addition, he is transparent around value added activities at each location, and what employees can learn and add to their job duties to earn a higher wage – DOT/Fleet Coordination, EHSS Coordination, Applicator, Welding, etc.

Also, Joel and Tim Watts (District Sales Manager) work together on a sales person development track that starts inexperienced sales employees out on the operations side of the business, where they spend 18-24 months learning the business, crops, customers, and area before transitioning into a full sales role. This has proved invaluable not only for sales development, but for business development as well, solidifying the team atmosphere in the Inland Empire.

Jay Rajgor (Connell)

– What are some great examples of people development at Wilbur-Ellis? (A person, an opportunity, a training, etc.)
Being in Connell for over 3 years now though which is a short span to assess the overall people development, I see 2 of my colleagues whom I forsee as one of the best examples of people development at Connell specifically.
1. Dishank Gupta (who according to my knowledge joined as Financial Analyst in the regional team has grown to a role of Regional Director)
2. Smita Shetty (Who has grown tremendously in Connell initially leading the India F&N BU and now is Head of Core Products India along with leading Marketing department)

– How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?
According to me there are 3 main ways :
1. Seek a good mentor – Mentor can provide insights into specific professional situations and offer advice on how to develop our skills. Also, mentor will provide constructive criticism and feedback that can help us improve overall at our job. Mentor can be our Manager, colleague, etc.
2. Continuous learning – This can be structured learning like enrolling a training course or an unstructured learning which could be on the job learning or adhoc learning on the go via internet, peers, etc. This helps us to continuously polish our skills (i.e. Sharpening the saw regularly)
3. Set Goals – SMART goals with a beginning and end date. We all know SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based) with these we can at least track our progress and assess if any course correction is required.

– When you think about being developed yourself, who has inspired you or been instrumental in your growth?
When I see myself over course of last 3 years, the main element I see is the wonderful work culture which gives us the freedom to Learn, Experiment, Execute, Assess, Correct and Repeat – i.e. the Feedback loop which I think is the part of this culture has been instrumental for me continuously being developed and gives us the inspiration to achieve more and more.

Becki Muhlbeier (Agribusiness)

https://vimeo.com/737696841

Vincent Avila (Agribusiness)

When I think about being developed myself, I think about how influential my manager, Lorianne Fought has been to me. I originally intended to become a Pest Control Advisor out of college, however I ended up down the road of Ag research and stayed with it since mainly due to having a great manager. Lorianne has helped my sharpen my knowledge, not only with production agriculture but normal skills in life we take for granted like communication, problem solving, etc. She is never too busy to teach my team or answer any question regardless if it pertains to the work we are doing.

Rob Ogden (Agribusiness)

People Development: Wilbur Ellis in my opinion is the leader of people development. There are so many resources, trainings, and people wanting to help develop our employee’s. Leadership is always looking for new ways and ideas to help develop our people and they follow up to know they are doing their best to help.

Develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better: I like to focus on learning, listen to others that have been there or have an opinion. Don’t re-invent the wheel but learn how to make it run consistently and accurate. Approach challenges with a desire to want to accomplish your goal and find creative ways to succeed. Take advice, listen to others, learn as much as you can always!

Who has inspired you or been instrumental in your growth: Who hasn’t 😉 This company has so many good people with so much wealth of knowledge and integrity. If we are gonna name drop, I would want to say thanks to: Robert Walker, Keith Knutson, Shawn Wetterau, Sam Engel, Amber Ross, Tracie Gogolin, Adam Balk and of course my Wife and four boys. Each of these folks has been a part in my career and have helped me develop with Wilbur Ellis Company.

Such a great company!
Thanks much.

Bill Parker (Nutrition)

Some great examples of people development at Wilbur-Ellis, in my opinion, would be the training that we are offered, the ability to seek training and have the support of the organization behind you to succeed. I have found that my current manager is as much a coach and teacher as a manager. He allows me to make decisions and work through problems, always being there to support me. He does not expect me to know everything and is willing to teach and talk me through issues I do not understand.
I work on developing my own skills by taking as much training that Wilbur-Ellis offers me. I also listen to leadership and management audiobooks to learn from different aspects of life, such as military, successful business people, and influential people from the past. I also spend time in the evenings watching youtube channels such as TED, SMARTER EVERYDAY, HISTORY UNDERGROUND.
When I think of being developed myself, the first and most influential person was my father. We spent our lives working together and we would talk about past experiences and how it can be applied in the future. He was a very successful person by managing risk while looking forward to be prepared for opportunity. As far as being developed in Wilbur-Ellis, the first person that was instrumental in my development was Brent Quinton. Brent saw me as a potential leader and moved me into a position to make a case to take over a leadership position. As we made this transition we had the support of Ron Salter. The next person that has been the most influential is Pedro Curry. Pedro has an excellent ability to let you reach deep within yourself and bring forward skills you didn’t know you had. He explains how you could have done a task differently if you struggled. And acknowledges a job well done. He encourages you to learn and take any training that will help you with your future. He will give you the opportunity to be involved in projects to sharpen your skills.

Faythe Anderson (Agribusiness)

I develop my knowledge and skill to do my job better by always trying to go the extra mile. In addition to this, I ask questions when needed to find the information I need to succeed.

Mallory Robert (Agribusiness)

In search of expanding my own knowledge base, I utilize the learning management system via Direct Access. Within that system, I am able to search for areas of interest and find specific courses that I need a refresher on. The data provided in the classes goes beyond our normal realm of needed information but thoroughly covers topics. Specifically, I have recently been searching for more information on hazmat documentation for both the tickets and packages and between LMS and CDMS, I am getting closer to having a better understanding of the subject area.

Smita Shetty (Connell)

What are some great examples of people development at Wilbur-Ellis? (A person, an opportunity, a training, etc.

I think the ACE training which we had in Connell was a great people development initiative.. It helped me look at my inner self with a 360 degree feedback which has helped me shape up my skills & character.

How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?
I constantly keep mapping my skill sets v/s the roles i aspire for. This helps me in selecting the learning modules for honing those skills. I recently got selected into a Design Thinking & Innovation course at Harvard Business School(Online) which helped me gain deep insights on leading innovation.

Melissa Weber (Nutrition)

https://vimeo.com/737686514

Michael Chappelle (Agribusiness)

What are some great examples of people development at Wilbur-Ellis? (A person, an opportunity, a training, etc.) – I have a warehouse lead who started as a CSR and is now being promoted to a Warehouse Manager. Here at our location we try to create the opportunity for growth and advancement for our employees.

How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better? – I ask for help and instruction and do my best to get instruction with applications.

When you think about being developed yourself, who has inspired you or been instrumental in your growth? A past District Manager who took his time to teach me the importance of each individual under my leadership. Its my responsibility to grow and learn to better help those in my charge.

Kayce Tschetter (Agribusiness)

Developing myself has come with help from a lot of different people. Some who are gone and some who are still with us. I started here with no Ag background whatsoever and was given a chance with a new opportunity in the Wholesale side of the business. Starting low on the totem pole and watching the company grow over my time has definitely provided me an opportunity to move along with the company. I give credit to Matt Richmond who gave me my first chance with AgVerdict and technology to get to my current position. He trusted me enough to start me out with something I knew very little about, guided me and helped push me to more of a leadership role that I now have within our AgVerdict group. There have been a few others that are no longer with us that have pushed me to keep learning how to use new and more advanced tools so I can be more of an asset to the customer and to the team. They have taught me how to use tools they were experts with that I decided I could help utilize as well. Of course many members along the way through other positions I’ve had have also contributed to my current knowledge of not only the Ag world, but the technology and Wilbur world.

Ryan Garren (Agribusiness)

1) Dr. Benford’s online training classes.
2) I reach out to the key subject matter experts within WE.
3) Greg Griffin

Julie Magnuson (Nutrition)

Q: How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?
A: The simple answer….ask questions. If there is one thing I have learned during my 10+ years with regards to development is that as an individual it is important to ask questions. Everyone at Wilbur Ellis has always been very helpful when I’ve reached out while learning something new. It is important to be your own advocate when it comes to learning and growth. Express to others what you need, be specific and know that it is okay that you do not know it all right away. In my experience of being a part of the Business Services team, the learning and subsequent development are ongoing. Being the team who transacts the business involves interaction with a wide audience including internal and external customers, vendors and multiple departments as well as people across all career levels from administrative support to middle and upper management. Be your authentic self, ask questions, seek to understand, and take initiative.

NANCY REYES (Agribusiness)

I would like to recognize two teammates that have developed greatly in recent years. Not only have these individuals developed into standout leaders for the Shafter Ca, application team, but they have also developed personally in careers outside of Wilbur Ellis.
These individuals are, my brother-in-law, Miguel Gaspar and Garet Beach.
Miguel has been part of my family since 2015, when he married my sister. He became part of Wilbur-Ellis family in 2018. In just a very short time, Miguel has accomplished many things in life. He got his GED, became a US citizen and joined the Army National Guard in 2019, and has just reenlisted for an additional 6 years. Miguel is the first in our family to join the U.S. Military, and he has made us all very proud.

I met Garet when I came to Wilbur Ellis is 2011, him being just a kid, and I have seen him grow into a smart, respectful young man. Garet has been with Wilbur Ellis for over four years, when he would work seasonal. Garet joined the Air Force Reserve in 2021, with an additional 4 years remaining on his enlistment. Garet has shown great growth and maturity both personally and professionally. There is no doubt that Garet will accomplish great things in life.

Coincidentally, both Miguel and Garet have successful military careers around aviation mechanics. The skills gained in this field will easily transfer over to diesel mechanic skills that are very valuable around application, and application machinery. Here at the Shafter Ca, location, we are very proud of these teammates, and look forward to watching them grow at Wilbur Ellis, and in their military careers. We admire these guys, and appreciate them for being willing to give their time to defend our communities and our country. Moreover, it is inspiring to know we all work for a company that is supportive both in our Wilbur Ellis careers, and our outside of work dreams.
It is inspirational to see young men accomplish their dreams with hard work and support of their families and their employer. Thank you Wilbur Ellis for making this possible.

Mike Jorden (Agribusiness)

How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?

The main answer is “listen.” I listen and ask questions of my co-workers and direct reports to better understand their experiences and ideas and take the best ones and try to implement them in my work plans.

I value site visits. As one who works at a desk most days, it is very valuable to visit site offices to better understand work practices so I can incorporate working styles into our software.

On the more skill centric part of my work, I like to read books on better Program Management/Agile processes. I also like to listen to Pod-Casts and web videos on the subjects.

Carrie Williams (Corporate)

How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?

One method I use to develop knowledge and hone my skills is to use available resources available via the internet. I make time to read blogs and follow social media industry experts to stay current on the latest trends. By reading regular posts, I not only gain additional knowledge but also build relationships by commenting and reacting to posts. I also make time daily to review posts on Yammer to learn more about what is happening in all divisions and business resource groups.

Sharlyn Renner (Agribusiness)

1. I think all the training tools Wilbur has and offers, including the emails of anything new we can learn about has helped. We have employees that want to empower each other to be better because that is how we grow as a Company.
2. This year we listed goals that we wanted to achieve and for me it’s ALL ABOUT THE SALESMAN. I work mostly with the Salesman so I need to educate myself on things that matter to them. Products……what products to use and when to use them. So all the tidbits I get on Wilbur products is very beneficial to me.
3. James Williams – he has taught me so much about all things related to the Salesman and their needs to be able to do their jobs more efficiently. Including Programs, reports, weather, whatever the case may be.

Jeff Hershberger (Agribusiness)

Inspirational People:

Jim Loar – Accentuated the positive, faced the negative and lead by example. Don’t get caught in analysis paralysis. Embrace change, the opportunity it brings … and the mistakes that come with it.

Gary Saxton – Critical Thinking – Just because we have always done it that way, does it mean it is the best way? Is the new idea really better? Think before you jump.

Bob Redwine – Customer First – Had a strong relationship with his customers which enabled the business. Whatever is done, remember why WE are here.

These are only three of a long list of people who have moved on or retired during my 23 years with Wilbur-Ellis. I try to glean how these people accentuate the IDEAS values, incorporate them into my values and pass them on to others.

Jonathan Santana (Agribusiness)

A good example of people development that I’ve been a part of is having safety meeting at our branch because it brings all the employees in together to expand our safety awareness and at the same time we talk about other work related topics that need to be brought up. It’s a good communications and relationship development activity. I personally developed my knowledge and skills with repetition practice and asking questions. As the newer hire I like picking at the brains of the old timers here to learn a thing or two. Someone that inspires me to grow and develop my skills is my brother. He pushes me to be better and keep moving forward.

Fayley Meade (Nutrition)

2. How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?
I am a huge fan of educational podcasts, I subscribe to a few HR podcasts which help keep me up to date on industry changes and challenges in my profession. I also subscribe to the HR Brew newsletter which is Bi-Weekly. I regularly attend webinars through SHRM to gain education credits that I use towards my recertification. Around my yearly performance review I also try to discuss development opportunities with my manager for the following year so there is a plan in place. I feel while you can develop in your career through passive experiences, gaining knowledge through outside sources and actively asking for opportunities or even presenting ideas for growth opportunities to you manager is another tool you have to grow.
3. When you think about being developed yourself, who has inspired you or been instrumental in your growth? My manager has been instrumental in my growth. She has given me the training and provided the learning opportunities to grow my professional experience. Good managers truly make all the difference so I am happy to see the company provide so many development opportunities for our people leaders.

Tyler Bruck (Agribusiness)

-People development- Next Gen is a great program within Wilbur-Ellis to help the younger generation coming in get their feet under them quicker and build relationships with people from outside of their area. A really good example is of a gentleman who started out as a temp in high school in the fert plant, then full time in the fert plant, then after that to a CSR, and then to a full time Sales Agronomist!
-The newer online agronomy trainings have been very helpful. Our local monthly team meetings have trainings. I also go to industry meetings to stay up to date on what is new outside of Wilbur.
-I would say that everyone I have worked around in different areas of my life have been instrumental in some way. They have either taught me important “nuggets” to always remember, or how I don’t want to act or treat people.

Michael Doerr (Agribusiness)

Nate Squires is a perfect example of a supportive leader that has fully embraced People Development as core to the way he conducts his business. Nate is a Horticulture Specialist in the Cascades Tree Fruit District. Nate consistently puts people first, ALWAYS! He gets up everyday to make sure our staff that are new in their careers are well trained, confident in how they do their job, and he takes the extra step to get them in-front of important customers and internal leadership groups. Nate has the ability to show our staff a clear path to a successful career, and does so through careful and thoughtful guidance. I was excited to come to Wilbur Ellis inpart because of the opportunity to work with Nate!

Daniel Groves (Agribusiness)

3. When you think about being developed yourself, who has inspired you or been instrumental in your growth?

My Dad- He worked at Wilbur-Ellis for 30 years in the Grand Forks office. I was able to work with him in sales for his last 5 years. He guided me through difficult customers, changing environments and ultimately taught me to always put the customers’ needs first.

Lara Shuler (Agribusiness)

Our leadership team has been instrumental to my growth. Those individuals that took the time to train, check-in, and answered questions as they arose have been imperative to my growth. The opportunities we have for growth are important too, such as the Learning & Development workshops/videos/podcasts and BRGs like Women of Wilbur-Ellis. They help make personal development easier.

John Hoyle (Agribusiness)

How do you develop your knowledge and skills to do your job better?

There is no replacement for education to keep yourself refreshed on what you already know, need to know better, and what the future may hold in your line of work. It is very important for me to find training opportunities internally and externally to help me the best I can be in sales/agronomy in the field. Getting your CCA (Certified Crop Advisor) license is a great way to hold yourself accountable to get training hours each year to maintain your license. We try to get locally continuing education hours for our in house trainings, and most suppliers and extension service trainings offer them as well. Even if you do not have your CCA, seeking out training opportunities is key in my opinion to help you be the best you can be in your role. I had a mentor early in my career out of college that did this and once you do it make it part of your role then it sticks with you forever. Education does not end once you are done with school.

Brandon Wilhelm (Agribusiness)

Our team has found that collaborating on a bi- monthly basis via TEAMS allows us to get a better idea of what is happening throughout our entire region. Everyone has a slightly different customer base and we use this time to talk about what’s working, what’s not, focus products, wins, and areas of improvement. More times than not we are learning about a new product, sales strategy or product placement within a very informal setting. This has gone a long way with the team and even more so with a couple of newer hires.

I have a thirst for learning so I actively seek opportunities to learn about new products, application methods and sales tactics through various social/media outlets. Twitter and instagram have provided tremendous reach to industry leading professionals. The advanced agronomy training courses have also been a great source of information and education.

Jeff Schwab and Jason Otto have both been instrumental in my growth, development, and success thus far. Both have helped me develop, but it took me engaging with them to do so. Asking the right questions and constantly picking their brains has allowed me to grow with ease and confidence. Without their help and willingness to engage, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Angelica Estrada (Agribusiness)

Question: When you think about being developed yourself, who has inspired you or been instrumental in your growth?
Answer: Mark Lam & Lara Shuler have been instrumental in my growth. They are constantly guiding me in new responsibilities and are always available when I have questions. They are very encouraging and acknowledge my accomplishments.

Heartland Sales Leadership Team (Agribusiness)

https://vimeo.com/737675402

The Heartland Sales Leadership team is currently prioritizing the Empowering our People cultural pillar. We are partnering with employees to ensure they have the training, resources, and support to be successful. We are helping connect them with L&D, LMS, and our Advanced Agronomy classes. This roles directly into ‘Bringing our Best of WE to Customers’ – in order to do that, working as a team, and ensuring people have clear expectations for success allows our team to work together. We are also looking to continue supporting the pillars of “Operating with Excellence” and “Personal Accountability” – team work is essential and helping others out to ensure success is essential. Holding ourselves to high standards is essential. The future is BRIGHT!

Heartland Regional Process Managers (Agribusiness)

https://vimeo.com/737675114

The Heartland Regional Process Managers are excited to focus on People Development and Supportive Leadership within the “Empowering Our People” pillar. This new role of Process Managers, allows us as a leadership team to support people and the processes they complete in a whole new way. We understand the value of giving people to be the tools to be successful in their jobs and the work they are doing.
For the future, the Heartland Regional Process Managers are looking toward supporting the practices of “Operational Consistency & Customer Focus” – there is so much value in creating a culture of high-level value for customers and that comes through our teams working together, and having clear expectations for operational expectations, to bring our Best of WE to Customers.

Heartland Operations Leadership (Agribusiness)

The Heartland Operations Leadership is providing support to the various pillars. Empowering our People is the foundation to which all other things can be successful. Building up our team with training, clear expectations on roles, and how to operate in a way that supports Bringing the Best of WE to Customers, Holding Ourselves Accountable, & Operating with Excellence. We are making progress towards providing data to support these efforts.

Vivian Tan (Connell)

I would like to give a shout-out to my superiors- Lee Hong Leng and Lim Chit Kuen for their Supportive Leadership.

It is a challenging time being a sales person as we continue to be pressured by supplier’s rising raw material,shipping costs and managing customers’ expectations. I had great support from both superiors who would even take their time to have a 1-1 session to analyse customers’ behaviours to better relay price increase to price-sensitive customers. When it comes to problem-solving, I was often given some insights which helped me see things through new perspective, leading to a better and effective resolving methods.

Hong Leng and CK went beyond being a good mentor at work. Few months back when I was on maternity leave, I was reassured that my work will be taken care of and told to get sufficient rest and much needed sleep. I was given full support and even helpful parenting tips!

I am eternally grateful to be under the wing of supportive leadership!

Christopher Gonzales (Nutrition)

Even though life is very fluid, consistency will cause steady endurance and yield expected results.

This is why I believe Bringing the Best of WE to Customers, via Customer Focus, is one of the 8 Cultural Practices I am already practicing. May has been an interesting, and rewarding, month for me. In the midst of uncertainty, I have realized customers depend on confident decision making, and solution oriented behavior, from their vendors, such as Ametza Wilbur-Ellis. Building customers up by offering our support to help them prosper as a company, will only build us up, in return. I was told this many times, in various ways, by customer staffed employees, “You are the only vendor that I have seen here in the store, that will take time to talk to us, and our customers, about their product. You are like family and this is why I can confidently push your product in front of others.” Having our customers wearing our brand is great, but having them accept us into their cultural family because they believe in us, and trust us, is priceless.

Even though I believe all 8 Cultural Practices are are important, looking to the future, the one that I currently feel is the most important to exercise is Holding Ourselves Accountable, via Performance Transparency and Personal Accountability. It does not matter what kind of socioeconomic status a person holds, weather poor, rich, or somewhere in between, if they are a plain Jane or an extravagant Marvin, most people have the ability to detect sincerity and honesty in a genuine and truthful person. Failure is a great ingredient for success, because somewhere down that path of imperfection, we all have made adjustments to move us closer to the path of accomplishment. I would like to see transparency as a strong indicating pillar, in my life, that will go before me in all things I do, whether applied to business or personal relationships, that will show anybody I am an imperfect human that strives for perfection in an honest, and trustworthy, manner. I am not afraid to show a customer that I had made a mistake, or that my product may have been compromised somehow, because I am confident that whatever the concern may be, I can make it right with integrity and determination. This month especially, I leaned on even more, the need to be accountable. Being in New Mexico, associating with customers, I was made aware of how detrimental the wild fires were, especially in Mora, NM. It would have been non-accountable for me to turn a blind eye to the hardship NM residents were enduring when I knew we could help somehow. Therefore, I contacted my superior, Gerardo, who I genuinely appreciate working with, and I let him know my concerns and a possible solution to help, which would be to donate Ametza Pellets horse feed. Gerardo agreed, without hesitation, and the rest is brilliant and fantastical history. Accountability is not a weakness, but a strength in my life, and transparency allows a person to see it.

Barb Davis (Agribusiness)

I feel the most important practice is “Continuous Improvement” because if we don’t continue to improve on a daily basis we are failing our company, customers and co-workers. I strive to make an improvement on a daily basis while performing my work duties. This makes me feel good that I am striving to improve and the end result will benefit our company, co-workers, and customers. By practicing continuous improvement I provide a better service to everyone. Continuous improvement is vital to maintaining our customer base and attracting new customers. Continuous improvement will promote trust between co-workers and ultimately be a positive for the company. It doesn’t matter if the improvement is small or HUGE, it makes a difference.

My second choice for important practices is “Personal Accountability”. I strongly hope that everyone can practice this in the workplace. I feel that accountability makes you a better employee and person and benefits everyone that you have contact with on a daily basis. As employees, how we interact with each other reflects on the customers and ultimately affects the company progress and prosperity. Personal Accountability is BIG. As a Wilbur Ellis employee, You CAN make a difference!

Mary West (Agribusiness)

I am empowered by my team of colleagues through knowledge sharing. In our weekly End to End, Business Processes and Ag Center of Excellence team meetings, support is provided through collaboration, effective communication and issue solving, at a group level. Information gathered is then shared to our branches and ultimately provides a strong knowledge base of new and useable information and tools so branches can succeed by providing our customers with a high level of service. Each of us provide an important piece to this group and we all bring a slightly different perspective that is celebrated and encouraged. This group or team approach make us all stronger and is part of it’s success. With it’s direction and clear intention, this team exercises all the Cultural Pillars & Practices.

Jackie D’Souza (Corporate)

I believe that Performance Transparency is so important for a team to thrive and grow. It allows you to celebrate your wins and improve in areas needed. On the fleet team we did a full Tap Root Investigation on the vehicle ordering process done in 2021. With the all of the hurdles in front of us we executed many parts extremely well, but there were a few areas that we found that needed to be improved. We presented our wins and improvement plan to leadership. We then began to make changes in the process to ensure that we improved on the process for 2022.

Russ Stowers (Agribusiness)

Supportive Leadership – Show up everyday, and lead by example.

Operational Consistency – Annually, the Shafter Ca, location holds multiple hot weather, and hydration trainings through spring and summer. The teams are supplied with hydration equipment, and knowledge to protect themselves and teammates.

Gauri Kshirsagar (Connell)

“Which of the 8 Cultural Practices are you already practicing (please tell us how)?”

As someone who is less than 2 years old in the company, I would like to share on how I have witnessed the Cultural practices around me.
1. Empowering People – Supportive Leadership
From day 1, I have been lucky to have a super supportive Leadership be it my immediate Supervisor or the larger HR team and of course, Azita. I have been given the autonomy to make my own decisions and follow through while still being guided and given the help I have asked for. I think none of the people I have worked with have a term called ‘micro-management’ in their dictionary! It keeps me accountable yet independent. I also feel empowered when I am allowed to my best work from where I want to. I hadn’t been home for over 2 years due to the pandemic and Alex was totally supportive and empathetic and gave me the flexibility to work from home for a considerable amount of time.
2. Operating with excellence – Knowledge Sharing
Connell is the 5th organization I am working for in my career so far. But it is also the first where I have witnessed open, collaborative and genuine knowledge sharing. Nobody holds their cards close to their chest! Be it the HR Managers, the IT team or the COP team, every single person I have reached out in the way of my work has been prompt, responsive and believes in collaboration. They are all ready to share what they know, dig deeper into questions they don’t have answers to yet and then come back and share what they have found out proactively. Integration between HR systems and IT systems, streamlining or HR processes with other organization processes has been smooth because everyone involved brings their best ideas to the table and all of us walk away having learned something new each time.

“Looking to the future, which of the 8 Practices do you think are most important – and why?”

I truly believe that all practices go hand in hand and we cannot have one regarded more important than other. But if I have to choose, I will say Continuous improvement. Be it as a person, as a team or an organization, the only way to keep moving forward is to be better than yesterday. We need to constantly upgrade ourselves in terms of our learning, our sharing, our mindset and keep doing every little thing that will make us a better version of ourselves and make our organization better than it was yesterday.

Jay Rajgor (Connell)

According to me Knowledge Sharing is key to Operational Excellence.

Kristen Lee (Corporate)

Which of the 8 Cultural Practices are you already practicing?” (Please tell us how.)

Upon considering the eight Cultural Practices, “Personal Accountability” was the one which stood out to me the most as something I strive to incorporate into my daily work life. Whether or not each of us has a manager or supervisor who directly oversees our duties, I believe it is crucial to hold ourselves accountable to ensure that we perform at our best every time we put our hands to the plough (literally or not). Oftentimes, it is only each of us who is most aware of the various components of his or her job and the balance of priorities as they shift over time. It would follow then, that it makes sense to keep our own selves on task from day to day, instead of leaving it to others to keep us in check.

As someone who can quickly get absorbed in each day’s specific demands, I find it useful to regularly pause to think of the longer-term projects on my plate. As simple as it may sound, I always try to look past just that day or week on my calendar to ensure that I have a full-orbed view of not only the smaller, closer-range tasks which I need to accomplish, but also ones which may require more time and effort to complete. It is all too easy to lose sight of a “we-need-to-do-this” comment in a meeting or fail to take action on an “I-should-do-that” thought. However, I have found that if I can keep track of my various responsibilities by seeing where tackling them might fall concretely on my calendar, that helps me to stay accountable to myself and ultimately, serve others better.

Kristen Lee
Executive Legal Assistant
San Francisco, CA

HEIDI MOORE (Agribusiness)

One of the Cultural Practices I am currently using is continuous improvement. We are looking at current KPI’s in COP Metrics and using that information to dial in and takes steps toward making improvments. Like Processing Sales Orders, we are focused on that in the Heartland because it improves inventory visibility in AVN so that our Sales team is seeing a more accurate available inventory. Some are a quick easy fix while others take a slower, steady path to resolution. As long as we are headed in the right direction and not going backwards we are continuously improving.

I also believe that continuous improvement is one of the most important because it feeds into what I think is our number one practice, Customer Focus. If we lose sight of the customer what are we doing this for?

Jinghong He (Agribusiness)

1. I’m already practicing all of them, maybe more on some than the others. This year my focus is more on the continuous improvement, customer focus, and operational consistency. I’m taking CPE lessons (for CPA) to keep up with the knowledge and requirements, absorbing WE specific knowledge in daily work and trying to provide my best performance.
2. Looking to the future, I think supportive leadership and continuous development are critically important. They are the basic of development of people’s talent and enterprise prosperity. Continuous development is how we survive and thrive. And that cannot happen without a supportive leadership. Even though I’m not in the management team now, I’d love to see and try to practice as much as I can for a healthy and harmonious work environment and career advancement.

Wendy Joy (Agribusiness)

Continuous Improvement:
In order to continue to grow as an employee and company, we must constantly be re-evaluating what and how we approach our work. It is important not to just do things as they have always been done. Continually be thinking: Is there a better, more efficient way to accomplish this task? Does what we are doing make sense? Can we reduce costs or save time?
Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and bring new ideas to your team.

Steve Simon (Agribusiness)

I’m one of the newest employees in the Wilbur-Ellis Agriculture division. I’m the newest employee at the Clarke Branch in Boardman Oregon. I work with a great group of people under Shirley Purcell. She is very supportive and my coworkers are all very receiving and willing to help where they can. I just wanted to say how happy I am to work at Wilbur-Ellis as the Customer Service Representative 2.

My Cultural Practices:
 Customer Focus: From my training in customer service here and past jobs I have learned to treat people how they would expect to be treated. With respect, sympathy and common courtesy. The happier I sound on the phone the better their phone call will be. They will want to come back for more business.

 Continuous Improvement: Since I’m new, I am doing this every day to try to become more efficient. When I do that it makes my coworkers jobs and mine easier. I’ve been writing notes on how to do each function of my job better.

 Performance Transparency: I always try to be honest when speaking with customers and coworkers.

 Personal Accountability: I always try to push myself to do better and work honestly with others. If I make a mistake I am willing to confess and make it right.

 Operational Consistency: I try to be consistent in the way I treat customers, coworkers and how I do my job.

Looking to the Future:
 I think they are all important but will narrow it down to a few.
 People Development: With the range of different backgrounds of people that work for a large company, it is important to train with the same goal in mind. Then allow the different backgrounds to contribute their way so the culture is stronger.
 Supportive Leadership: If you want the company to succeed then you need leaders that understand the needs of the employees they are responsible for. When employees feel supported they do better work, are safer and look out for each other.
 Customer Focus: If we take care of our customers they will come back and bring more customers to our business.

Chad Desserich (Nutrition)

1) Thanks to great development from Gerardo Quintero, I’ve learned much over the past two years. One of the Cultural Practices that is on the top of my list is “Operating with Excellence”, specifically Operational Consistency. Over my time at Wilbur-Ellis (2018), one of the many items that I recognized was a potential risk to business, was the divided pillars in which the brewery team was running their business. All information, all operational activities, all knowledge of each business was retained by each business unit manager. This was not good for Wilbur-Ellis, the breweries we work with, and the customers we serve, nor was it good for the employees. If something caused one of the employees from performing his/her duties (health, accident, etc…), there would be a gap in service to our customers, to the breweries we service, and our overall business performance. This also means 24 hours per day, on duty or on vacation, these employees have to work (also not good for life balance). At the beginning of 2022, we designed a program and promoted two Business Service Specialists to start learning the flow of scheduling and begin the process of learning the overall operations of our business for back up if the need arises. While we are still in the infancy of the program, it is working and I can see this program closing the operational gaps to all stakeholders.

2) Empowering our People is most important. In Nutrition, there has been a significant cultural shift for the better. Previously, many activities were in silos and there was even a level of fear and lack of trust with many. Through great leadership over the past two years, this has really started to move in the right direction. When people feel empowered to work, have trust in their leadership, and are supported by the leadership, they enjoy their work more. The more we can empower our people and develop them, the more productive and more engaged they will be.

Adam Balk (Corporate)

Operational Consistency is very important to the success of an organization. When the company is able to perform the same task at a high level, over and over across the organization, it helps contribute to customers satisfaction, regulatory sustainability, and employee understanding. It also aids in transition when there is postion changes or employee turnover to ensure that business keeps moving forward.

Kimberly Dahlberg (Agribusiness)

Personal Accountability is a big one for me. I have been a Wilbur Ellis employee for 20+ years, the past 7 of those years in a management role. I have been told that I am a natural leader but I felt that I struggled since I didn’t feel I had enough tools in my toolbelt to manage / supervise others effectively. When the Learning & Development team announced they would be offering Manager / Supervisor training, I immediately signed up. I made it a top priority to adjusted my schedule so that I could attend the trainings, do the homework and actually put in the effort to incorporate what I learned into every day practice. I want to do everything possible to get the most out of this amazing opportunity put together for us. I am grateful to have new tools to help me be a better leader. And you can be sure when the next session is announced, I will be among the first to sign up.

Derek Simons (Agribusiness)

I do not get to interact with our end customers in my position, but one thing I have been trying to do is see how I can serve the team that does as they are my customer. Trying to provide them with everything they need to get up to date information, status on product, or anything that will give them the ability to show our end customers the best Wilbur Ellis we can be.

Gina Colfer (Agribusiness)

I believe I am practicing Continuous Improvement within our Cultural Pillars. In the agricultural sector right now, if we are not practicing this, we will get left in the dust. There are so many new technologies and products, if we are not continually striving to learn, then how can we bring new ideas to our growers?

Mallory Robert (Agribusiness)

Lara Shuler (Agribusiness)

Customer Focus is and will continue to be the most important pillar for Wilbur Ellis. Every action we take is with the customer in mind. The salespeople meet with our customers and find their needs. Our procurement team obtains our customer’s needs. Our office staff processes those orders for the customer, and our drivers deliver those customer needs. There are so many other supporting roles that help to benefit the customer. When we focus on the customer, excellence comes naturally.

Jeff Barnes (Nachurs)

At NAS one area we really focus on is operational consistency. This is important for several reasons. Our customers expect a quality product every time. As well the product needs to be delivered on time. Their business depends on this. A grower going into the field can’t have product that hasn’t stored well or is out of spec where it can harm the plant. An industrial customer needs the product to be in spec and delivered on time or they run the risk of having their operation shut down. This is also how we separate ourselves from the competition and gain a competitive advantage. Our brands (Alpine, Nachurs, and NASI) have great reputations in the marketplace for quality and reliability that has been built up over 75 years. For these reasons NAS has always emphasized operational consistency as we need to deliver a quality product on time – Every time!

Going forward NAS also feels operational consistency is the most important thing to focus and improve upon. Being a chemical company, we have significant exposure to EHS risks if we do not operate properly every time. We are implementing GPS to improve our safety practices as well as Management of Change (MOC) to minimize the risks of environmental or safety accidents. It only takes one time of not operating properly to have a severe accident – and nothing is more important than the safety of our employees. For this reason, it is important to raise our level of operations even higher than it is today – and to do so consistently!

Jocellyne Fernandes (Agribusiness)

People Development – Training and teaching new team members each day, enjoying the fellowship of the experience.
Supportive Leadership – Initiating new conversations and building trusted relationships with new people in our organization as often as possible.
Customer Focus – Believing that data quality is the star player in functional support, allows me to help my customers (locations, and I.T.) effectively.
Performance Transparency – Clearly documenting Projects and Progress, presenting DGO efforts to leadership teams and learning from mistakes made, receiving hard-to-hear feedback and pushing forward to achieve strategic goals.
Personal Accountability – I use the DGO Page in WEconnect to track issues and project progress. I use Teams to communicate with my DGO Team Members and to post agendas for upcoming meetings. I follow up the same meetings with notes to the attendees.
Operational Consistency – Documentation of processes and adherence to the business processes as they evolve keeps me on my Ps & Qs.
Knowledge Sharing – Just wrote an article (with Jeff Hershberger’s help), for Ag COE’s quarterly newsletter, speaking to the Idera database and how DGO is creating independence in accessibility to the data that grows our business. We are always adding to and developing Idera. I hope to be able to contribute in this way, more often.

Jeff Hershberger (Agribusiness)

People Development – I am thoroughly enjoying being a Mentor in the Program.
Supportive Leadership – Monthly Fireside chats with my direct reports.
Customer Focus – uhhh… NOBODY wants me to talk directly with our customers! 🙂 But YOU are OUR customer.
Performance Transparency – Data Governance Office Value Roadmaps developed to show our direction and results.
Personal Accountability – I use MY TIME to track my time off and appointments, and require my team does the same.
Operational Consistency – Data GOVERNANCE Office – Consistency is in our DNA!
Knowledge Sharing – DGO shares its knowledge in IDERA.

Mark Ripato (Agribusiness)

– One area of many that I believe represents Bringing the Best of WE to Customers is the CropSights effort. The most exciting part of that for me is the preemptive, problem identification and resolution dialogue that occurs with the customer. It sounds simple, but is often overlooked within our industry. The discussions happening around the organization about CropSights and the potential it could present is extraordinary to watch! Thanks to all involved.
– Each of the pillars and practices are important for our future success, but if I had to anchor into one of them, I would pick personal accountability. We each need to engage in defining, developing and understanding our strategy. Then, own our piece of it when we are ready to execute. If we get that right, the rest will take care of itself.

Gerardo Quintero (Nutrition)

The cultural practices and the four pillars are integral parts of our Nutrition strategy. Empowering Our People is driving one of those efforts. I have been working diligently with my entire team to assess the talent and will start setting individual development plans. The customer-focused practice also drives our improvement plans, growth initiatives, and process improvements. We are constantly looking at the customer needs to use our capabilities to deliver it compellingly and strategically while building customer loyalty. As an example of the last, in our Buhl location, we are developing a project that asses the current customer service end-to-end process and defining what will be the future state and capabilities needed to exceed the customer expectations.

Russ Stowers (-- Select an option --)

Which of the 8 Cultural Practices are you already practicing?” (Please tell us how.)
Supportive Leadership-When teammates feel victory, leaders highlight accomplishments.
When teammates feel defeat, leaders take ownership.
Operational Consistency-Accountability and reliability should be viewed as core value minimum standard, not an accomplishment. Show up for your team everyday.

Tracy Genest (Nutrition)

I am always working on continuous improvement to bring the best of WE to our customers. On a daily basis I deal with our customers regarding their account. I work to ensure they have all the information they need to settle their account, will help make adjustments to ensure the information flows freely between WE and the customer and to help answer any other questions they may have. When you continue to support your customers and go the extra step when needed that will be rewarded with continued business.

I believe one of the most important pillars is People Development. If we continue to strive to ensure our people are well trained and educated, as well as working on hiring the best we can, we will continue to keep WE in the forefront in the Agricultural industry.

Don Sauve (Corporate)

1. I’m already practicing “Knowledge Sharing” within the I.T. group. While I’ve only been at W-E for about 8 months, it was clear from day one that everyone in our group willingly shared what they knew to help each other succeed.
2. I think that Customer Focus is the most important of the 8 Practices, because we cannot succeed without customers. We should always strive to meet their needs (and exceed when possible).

Julie Magnuson (Nutrition)

While each of the 8 Cultural Practices is very important, I first practice Supportive Leadership. My team and I have been working from home since March 16, 2020 so this practice is especially important when you are not physically present.

I practice Supportive Leadership by:

*Holding regular meetings with each of my team members.
*Being available for questions or when they need some direction.
*Creating a safe environment so we can have open and honest dialogue with each other.
*Providing clear expectations, training, and feedback.
*Actively listening to them.
*Providing encouragement along the way.

I believe when you put people first and do the things listed above, your team will thrive, the work will happen, and the company flourishes.

Ty Zorn (Corporate)

1.) I am currently practicing continuous improvement in my day-to-day activities. Continuous improvement, to me, is when you actively engage in an attempt to make process improvements. I am fairly new, so when I am given a new task to complete, I immediately identify the fallacies in the process and find an alternative (if necessary) to complete the task more efficiently.

2.) I believe the most important Practice is “People Development”. Investing time/resources in our people will return dividends in the long run. It is also important to find quality people for specific roles. An important concept to keep in mind when developing people, is how to successfully connect/communicate with them. Adjusting your communication method is a valuable technique that helps better relay a message to your audience. Some people react/learn better to visuals, while others do better with physically going through the motions.

Hugo Garcia (Nutrition)

Bringing the Best of WE to Customers – This is the cultural pillar I believe I have been practicing, for the Angleton, Texas location. We recently had a Purina Customer audit this year, all the improvements we have done to our FSQR program and the commitment the employees have put into as well has paid off. Jennifer Hines (Auditor) noted “very impressed by the facility’s progress from the previous audit and am excited by the teams commitment and knowledge”. With this being said from our customer makes me believe we are bringing the best to our customers.

DONALD CROWE (Agribusiness)

Supportive Leadership/People Development:
By questioning each department or area’s needs are to improve working conditions. We have made improvements in safety and appearance of the Location. Warehouse ramp was uneven and needed improvement to reduce forklift damage and cargo transit. The truck scale had a bad step design and an unsafe fall/trip hazard. These were improvements submitted by location employees and are encouraged to look for safety or process improvements on an ongoing basis. Employees feel like they have input and can improve location conditions and take ownership of their area(s).

Denise Smutny (Agribusiness)

Empowering Our People: If we don’t empower our people, we cannot grow. It is so critical to listen to the the people doing the work, what they bring to the table, how to make processes and the company better. The best ideas come from the people doing the work as well as those people brought in from outside the organization into new roles who are bringing ideas and improvements with them. Empowering people means letting them take risks and learn, always give merit to an idea even if you don’t think it will work because it might. There is typically more ways to complete a task, process, or engage a customer or vendor and listening to our team members ideas and making sure there is a safe environment to share those ideas is critical and the path to the future.

Denise Smutny (Agribusiness)

Today and every day I hold myself accountable for my work and the work of my team. As a newer leader to Wilbur-Ellis there is much to learn and mistakes can be made. I believe it is critical to hold oneself accountable to be able to learn from your mistakes. Everything is fixable, maybe challenging to fix, but learning is such an important element for being accountable to yourself and others. I believe that when making decisions, make the best decision possible with the information you have and be willing to be flexible if that decision was not practical, make a new decision and move forward. Being accountable to me means taking some risks, learning and growing.

Brittney Iiams (Nutrition)

1. Currently I am practicing empowering our people. As part of my own goal to have a greater understanding of the FSQR department and all the roles that come along with it, I am diving into new tasks in order to be more well rounded and a greater asset to my team.

2. Looking into the future, Continuous improvement is one of the most important practices. There is always room for growth and improvement in all aspects of the life and in a company. I think we should all strive to be a little better than the day before, that allows growth both as an employee and personally. If we stop striving for improvement we stop allowing ourselves to be the best version of ourselves that we can be.

Amanda Scheving (Agribusiness)

I feel that I am already Holding myself accountable and Performance Transparency. As a newer employee, hired May/June of 2021, I have set a standard for myself to learn my position and stay accountable to that. I am still learning and continue to find opportunities to improve my performance and hold myself accountable throughout every day.

All of the 8 practices are important looking to the future. I do believe that Operational Consistency and Knowledge Sharing are very important due to the difficulty of finding employees and getting them trained in as quickly as possible. It is difficult to keep current employees and retain new employees when the operational consistency is inadequate. Also when it comes to knowledge sharing, if your employees have tribal knowledge that they have just learned overtime, that more than likely doesn’t get passed on to new employees. This makes it difficult for new employees to be successful if veteran employees don’t share that knowledge and just expect new employees to “figure it out” .

Lisa Hernandez (Agribusiness)

I believe we practice all areas of the 8 Cultural Practices at our branch. The areas we probably practice the most is Empowering Our People. At our branch we do our best to help and develop our people. We are always learning and trying to teach those around us best practices. At our branch we have Supportive Leadership. Our manager is there to help us each and every day and if we do not know something we are not afraid to turn to him for the answers to our questions.
Looking to the future, People Development is the most important of the practices. If the people in your company are developed and continue to develop the rest of the cultural practices will more easily fall into place.

Michelle Leal (Agribusiness)

“Which of the 8 Cultural Practices are you already practicing?” (Please tell us how.)
In my current role as Customer Support, I am already practicing people development by constant training and check-ins with the new additions to my team. I have an open forum when it comes to my knowledge and time with coworkers. If they need help with something they are tackling I will shadow in and work through their issue with them only offering guidance when needed, or if I am working on something they haven’t seen yet I will let them shadow me, and ask questions along the way. With that, I feel like continuous improvement plays a big part in how I approach people development because by working through training scenarios and constant communication we are always evolving as a team and individually.
I take a lot of personal accountability for my actions in my role. I am not afraid to speak up if I have made a mistake. No one would learn or progress without failures to improve from, with the structure of my supportive leadership team there is the ability for my group to function with all of the cultural pillars and practices in mind already.
There is not a part of me that is fearsome or leary to practice any of these pillars in lue of repercussion.

“Looking to the future, which of the 8 Practices do you think are most important – and why?
”

I think that empowering the people we already have should be the main focus. Retention of the right employees is key to keeping teams, and organizations running optimally. By empowering the people, operating with excellence will trickle into play because you have built the dream teams by fostering trust and support within the employee groups. Customer care and focus improve when employees feel safe and appreciated, they are willing to learn more and apply themselves a little bit harder than if they don’t feel like this is the company that wants them.

Manuel Ramirez (Nutrition)

Even if I’m not a team leader/supervisor or in any management role, I always love to give support to my team by sharing all knowledge (soft skills or technical skills) in order to get better and perform more efficiently. I strive to focus on my customers and bring to the table the best customer service that Wilbur-Ellis is known for. Even with day-to-day challenges, I continue to improve and get better in each area professionally and personally speaking. I continue working on improving and always do my job with best performance and transparency. As it said, “if you don’t care about your people and customers, somebody else will”

Jose Luis Castro (Nutrition)

People Development and Supportive Leadership is one of the Culural practices we try hard to live on our daily duties, as a people manager is my responsibility to make sure that the right tools are there for each employee to suceed in their professional and personal needs on our company.

Continuous Improvement is something that will definetely want to develop in our team to make sure we are better everyday, even though it is on small steps that keep is thriving on the right direction of innovation to succeed for the next 100 years.