Food maker chips away at workplace diversity

A LOCAL corn chip and tortilla manufacturer has turned to new hiring strategies to solve staffing shortages.

With three shifts to fill at its East Bendigo factory, Sonora Foods management had struggled to maintain sufficient staff numbers until they adapted a new hiring practice to attract employees on temporary work visas.

Human resources manager at Sonora, Brent Bruns, said expanding the company’s talent pool had been a good experience.

“This came because we need to introduce a night shift in our chip making facility and we scarcely are able to maintain manpower with two shifts, so we needed that,” he said.

Sonora hired up to 12 new staff members after the director of the company established a recruitment contact in Indonesia.

“These are people who are out to see Australia,” Mr Bruns said.

“They are not necessarily people who are considering relocating here permanently but they are working and a lot of them are qualified people.”

To assist new workers to settle in, Sonora made improvements to staff facilities including adding a prayer room and charging points for electric bikes.

“We had a spare room here, so we created a prayer room, and we took one or two of them around and it was adequate for them,” Mr Bruns said.

“It just resonates and putting in a power point is not a major thing, but it creates a good impression.”

Mr Bruns said the exercise had been a success and that Sonora would continue hiring temporary workers alongside permanent residents.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we do try and progress comes in small steps at a time,” he said.