Tyson feels good about filling move-related vacancies

Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King admits he expected to see some employee turnover when the company announced that it would close its corporate offices in Illinois and South Dakota.

Roy Graber Headshot
(Tyson Foods)
(Tyson Foods)

Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King admits he expected to see some employee turnover when the company announced that it would close its corporate offices in Illinois and South Dakota.

However, he remains confident that the vacancies that are created will be filled by well-qualified people.

In October 2022, Tyson Foods announced its intention to close its  corporate offices in Chicago and Downers Grove, Illinois, and Dakota Dunes, South Dakota. Downers Grove is a suburb of Chicago. In doing so, the company intended to move the operations handled from those three offices to Springdale, Arkansas, where Tyson Foods is headquartered.

Speaking during both an earnings call with analysts and a subsequent call with media personnel, King said the process of consolidating those operations is going well, although a significant number of people who work in the three closing offices have chosen not to relocate.

“I don’t think there were any major surprises in terms of who would be willing to relocate to northwest Arkansas and who wouldn’t,” King said. “I don’t like telling you or anyone else that we had team members that  chose not to relocate. We’ve offered and worked at trying to get them (to relocate).”

King said the company spoke to team members in those offices and brought them to the Springdale area. Some brought their families and even spent the weekend there, he said.

But ultimately, Tyson Foods learned they won’t retain everybody. However, King said, “We ended up about where we   thought we would relative to that.”

Recruiting efforts

Efforts have already been made to fill some positions that will be created by employees who are unwilling to move.

And King is pleased with what has happened so far in filling positions, and is confident there won’t be any significant difficulty in future recruitment efforts.

“In terms of recruiting and adding talent, I’ll be honest that we have no issue attracting and retaining talent here in northwest Arkansas, whether that be a beef or pork person, ag expert, an analyst or if you’re a branding, marketing or commercial-type person,” King said.

“We’ve got good people already hired. We’ve got that second and third level, in a number of cases, in the organization already hired. But, remember we also have that team in Chicago and (Dakota) Dunes that are going to stay with us until we get them backfilled, so I’m not losing any sleep today over our inability to be able to staff this organization with best-in-class talent.”

Leveraging technology to handle tasks

As the company goes through the attrition of losing employees who don’t want to leave their  current communities for Arkansas, King said they are examining ways to use technology to complete the tasks ordinarily completed by resigning workers.

“If you think about some of the experience in Chicago and the Dunes, we certainly are taking this opportunity to try to use technology to replace some of the decision-making support that people are providing, today and over the longtime term. I think that we’ll be in a much better position as a  company. We’ll be more modern and more accurate. And we’ll be able to use tools and technology to help us make faster and better decisions,” King said.

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