Reap what you sow

By Lorna Davies

At a time when employees are looking for job security and reassurance, company mergers and acquisitions can prove unsettling for any workforce. Lorna Davies caught up with Viterra’s Senior Vice-President of HR and Transformation, Steve Berger to uncover his expertise in dealing with the transformation of organizations whilst simultaneously developing HR and communication.

“I think we'll start seeing a lot more of a changing workforce. How we deal with the multigenerational workforce, and this gets back to workforce planning, is planning for the future. What is the future workforce going to be?”
-Steve Berger

In May 2007 the battle for Agricore United was won by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool after the company boosted its offer and agreed to sell some assets to bidding rival James Richardson International Ltd. In August of the same year, executives were gleefully raising their champagne flutes in a toast to the new name of Canada's largest grain handler - Viterra.

Despite this rosy glow, the merging of two companies can often prove unsettling. Employees at all levels may become insecure about continued employment, demotions or decreased salaries. Completion of the acquisition and integration - operationally and culturally - of Viterra required human resources to play a major role.

With a varied career spanning 25 years, Steve Berger has seen his fair share of HR developments and changes. Prior to Viterra, Berger worked as a management consultant and for companies such as Accenture, A.T.Kearney, Booz Allen Hamilton and Capgemini America. The running thread through this assortment of organizations was for Berger to manage the overall integration and transformation of these companies and the big change programs they may experience when merging with other organizations.

After joining Viterra just over three years ago, Berger played a key role in the merger of Agricore and Saskatchewan Wheat Poll. It is during this integration process that Berger says he 'fell in love' with the company. "I become infatuated with the strategy, the vision of the leaders and the future that could be possible," says Berger. "And they offered me a great role which combined my experience and capabilities in HR and transformation, and that's how I became the Senior Vice-President of HR and Transformation at Viterra." 

Berger's responsibilities for Viterra are spread over the global reach of the company. "All things HR, from executive compensation all the way down to regional HR delivery, payroll, and all those kind of things at the tactile level fall under my remit," explains Berger. But he is also involved in transformation, working on what Berger describes as 'big change programs' within North America, Europe and Asia. "Any time we buy and acquire a company, my team go in, manage that effort and work with the organizations."

Workforce planning

Analysts have said that the baby boomers - people born between 1946 and 1964 - are aging. This means, according to federal statistics, that workers 55 years of age and older will likely constitute 17 percent of the workforce by the end of the decade. With projections for mass retirements and low birth rates, more retirees will be called upon to fill the gaps in the workforce. Berger understands the need to deal with this trend whilst Viterra is in a period of growth. "We're going into new markets and buying businesses," he says.

"And I think we'll start seeing a lot more of a changing workforce. How we deal with the multigenerational workforce, and this gets back to workforce planning, is planning for the future. What is the future workforce going to be?  Companies are becoming more and more global, and you've got different cultures from all over the world working together. 

"It's both the different age groups and the different generations, but also the different cultures working together, and how HR is going to manage that. So we, as an HR function, need to be able to work together remotely and with different cultures in order to enable that in the future with the growth of the organization and different business sectors."

These are issues that underline the changing attitude within the HR industry. Whereas in the past the role of a HR leader within an organization would be the 'people person', now executives are taking a more strategic approach. For Berger, this is the best way to cope with the ever-changing environment of recruitment, employee retention and engagement within a difficult economic climate.

"The secondary issue, I think, is making sure that our employees truly understand what our vision and strategy is, and how they individually relate to the organization itself," says Berger. In order to tackle these employee engagement challenges, Viterra has been putting a talent inventory into place for the past two years. The company uses the Lominger Model from Korn/Ferry. Founded in 1991 by Michael Lombardo and Robert Elchinger, Lominger's range of products and services are known as the Leadership Architect Suite and are research-based, experience-tested, and internationally recognized tools that can be customized to fit individual organizations' culture and operating style.

Lominger joined forces with the Korn/Ferry International family of companies in 2006 and now provides executive talent management solutions worldwide. Viterra has utilized the traditional nine-box approach from Korn/Ferry for a potential versus performance perspective in identifying where its talent is. "We've rolled that out and actually completed that in North America," Berger explains. "We're doing a refresh this year in Australia. First rolling it out through the acquisition of companies we bought down there so we can identify our talent where it sits."

In terms of succession planning, Viterra also has a top-down planning model from two years ago that has now spread to other parts of the organization. "We identify critical roles and then identify people to be backfilled," says Berger. "The challenge we have there is we are willing to let someone go to do a new job in order to take on new challenges, so the plan then takes on a secondary role."

Reaping the benefits

Incentives often play a key role in keeping employees happy and engaged within an organization. Pay is often the most important staff motivator, but Berger believes money is not the sole tool for keeping employees at ease. "I believe that money is in compensation and total rewards. You have to pay people fairly and appropriately for the work they do," he says. "To me, what keeps people happy and engaged is the concept of belonging to an organization where you believe in the vision, where you believe in and trust the leadership, and where the company is going - the strategy of an organization." For Berger, the next level from employee to employer trust and belief is learning and growing as an individual.

Diversity in the workplace is obviously a priority for many business leaders today. Berger appreciates that this is something Viterra may have to work on. "Wherever we go out to search, for example, I want to see diverse candidates on the slate. I don't want to see the same people with the same experiences," stresses Berger. "So for us, our business should reflect our constituents and the companies we do business with to the extent we can."

The more remote locations of Viterra can often prove a challenge when it comes to promoting this outlook. "It's really hard to drive diversity when you're working in a rural community with 200 people living there and our company is the main employer," he says. "So for me, where diversity makes sense, we absolutely support it, but we don't force diversity where it doesn't make business sense."

Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, Canada, is a reasonably small town with a population of just under 180,000. Although the town is the cultural and commercial metropolis of southern Saskatchewan, the somewhat remote location can often be a barrier between Viterra and prospective employees. "It's a fantastic city and a great place to live but in terms of attracting new talent, it becomes a blocker," Berger says. "So for us, it's less about more people in the job market, more about the issue of location." Viterra is currently recruiting for its headquarters in its Calgary executive offices where the company is relatively unknown. Berger understands the need to market the company to prospective employees. "Once they hear our story, our growth strategy and our future, they're on board and they want to join us," he says. "So really it's about making sure we can get the talent to come and talk to us, because we're not a known commodity."

Introducing a coherent corporate culture often depends on the type of organization in terms of locations and differences within sectors. Viterra takes a unified approach to the overall culture. "In my opinion, I think a coherent corporate culture is very important," says Berger. "It's the glue that holds the organization together, especially in a growing organization such as ours." This culture can be affected by the changes and unsettlements that take place during mergers and acquisitions, but Berger insists this is precisely why it is important everyone is on the same page. "Each acquisition, you take on the culture of that company and what we need to do is either blend the two or help them come closer towards the Viterra culture."

There are a number of golden rules Berger promotes when handling an acquisition within the company: transparency, fairness, openness, and clarity.  The company try to be open and honest with employees when discussing the daunting idea of cutbacks and changes. "We make it very clear what our process will be so there aren't any surprises," says Berger. "And when we do exit people from the business we do so in a fair way. We don't try to take advantage of people and we help them re-enter the workforce in any way they can." Viterra follows the M&A Playbook as a template for good practise when going through an acquisition. This way the global workforce of Viterra can be reached and engaged through the same outline of steps.

So what's next for HR trends? For Berger, it's all about understanding the industry he's in. "I think HR professionals tend to be very deep professionals. So, they know a lot about compensation. They know a lot about labor. They know a lot about HR things, and the only way that HR people are going to get a seat at the table is going to be if they start relating to the business. They either have come from the business, or they've done a stint in the business, or they are strategic in nature."

Berger would not describe himself as a 'traditional' HR person. The ability to think about the strategic business side of things is one of the reasons he states for his success at Viterra. "I'm able to talk about business strategy. I'm able to talk about where we're going and how it relates. I'm able to look at how the business operates, and then bring it back to my team, who are deep experts in compensation, labor, and benefits, whatever they may be. And they translate that into the appropriate programs." This is a trend that many companies are beginning to come around to, that - as Berger puts it - they need to be business people first and HR people second, "and if they aren't then they're never going to be able to join up."

Viterra

Viterra is an agribusiness based in Regina, Saskatchewan, providing premium quality ingredients to leading global food manufacturers. It was formed from the takeover of Agricore United by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and employs approximately 1100 people across its Australian and New Zealand operations. The company has operations and distribution capabilities across Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Bountiful Harvest

Viterra Inc. posted net earnings of $145 million for the 2010 fiscal year, up 28 per cent from 2009, thanks to a strong fourth quarter, which saw profits of $53 million versus a $1 million loss during the previous 12 month period, the company announced in January.

Viterra's revenues reached $8.3 billion for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, increasing $1.6 billion, or 24 per cent, from fiscal 2009, the company said. The increase in sales was mainly attributable to Viterra's Australian operations, which contributed $2.3 billion to fiscal 2010 revenues, and to new food processing contributions.

Grain Man

Steven Berger, Senior Vice-President of Human Resources and Transformation is responsible for leading Viterra's global Human Resources function, overseeing employee management and recruitment and retention initiatives, incentive and compensation programs, labor relations, career and personal development programs and succession planning initiatives.

In addition, he works with the company's senior management team to lead all change and transformation related initiatives throughout the company, including the successful integration of Agricore United in 2007-2008 and the current integration of ABB Grain of Australia into Viterra.

Mr. Berger has over 23 years of management consulting and information technology experience across a broad range of industries, especially Agri-business and Consumer Products/Retail. He has extensive experience in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, transformation and change leadership.

Prior to joining Viterra, Mr. Berger was a Senior Executive (Partner) with Accenture, a global management-consulting firm, in their Corporate Strategy practice. In his role with Accenture, he worked with Viterra's executive management team and other key individuals throughout the organization, planning and managing the execution of the integration program following Viterra's acquisition of Agricore United. He helped to design Viterra's operating model, and has been instrumental in identifying and tracking synergy savings. Previously, Mr. Berger worked with A.T. Kearney and Booz Allen and Hamilton.