In an effort to improve retention among new starters, Tassal’s people and culture team developed a hands-on training and onboarding program with impressive results.

As Australia’s largest seafood producer, with more than 35 years’ experience in aquaculture, Tassal Group is no stranger to the challenges of retaining employees in a demanding and complex industry.

After skill shortages necessitated bringing in more entry-level staff, Tassal’s people and culture team and Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) trainer noted that the volume of required training was overwhelming new starters in the organisation’s farming teams and leading to high levels of turnover within their first year with the organisation.

To address this challenge, the team developed and implemented the Accelerate program, a dynamic onboarding process designed to equip new farming employees with the skills and confidence needed to thrive on the job from day one.

The program has transformed the organisation’s approach to recruitment and training, significantly improving safety and overall job satisfaction among new recruits and contributing to decreasing voluntary turnover among first-year employees by 40 per cent.

“[The program means] they’ve got the confidence to know how to handle themselves when they’re on the water, and that ability to be integrated into a team quickly has made a huge difference,” says Liz Luck, Senior Manager of Organisational Capability and Development at Tassal.

The success of the program saw the 1700-strong business win Best Attraction, Recruitment and Retention Strategy at the 2023 AHRI Awards.

Know someone who has made award-worthy contributions to their organisation or the HR profession? Applications for the 2024 AHRI Awards are open until 14 June. Read more and apply here. 

Accelerated onboarding

Learning the ropes of a role in the aquaculture industry can be a complex and lengthy process.

A combination of factors such as safety risks, complex equipment and strict regulatory requirements means it can take a farming employee between 18 months and two years to become fully proficient and comfortable in their role.

“Previously, we’d been able to employ people who had experience in similar roles, but it was becoming a challenge to source anyone with any experience,” says Luck.

“We were faced with hiring people who had never worked on the water, and sometimes hadn’t really been out on boats before.”

This meant new employees sometimes felt lost when they started, she says, which impacted retention and integration into the broader team. This was exacerbated by the fact that new team members were starting sporadically, making it hard for WHS trainers to provide suitable training. This tension led to the decision to develop the Accelerate program.  

Launching with two pilot programs in 2021, which ran for two weeks each, the training program is conducted in a controlled environment, offering new farm attendants exposure to various aspects of their roles before joining their permanent teams. This includes off-the-job training for necessary licenses and hands-on practice in a safe setting. 

“They’re learning the basics of the job. It’s a sampler, but it’s got lots of variety that helps them hit the ground running,” says Luck.

“It also does amazing things for the confidence of these participants, as they’re learning in a safe space, and then they can go out and actually hold their own and feel that they’re contributing [from the start].”

Safety is at the forefront of every decision at Tassal, she says. The Tassal aspiration of ‘Zero Harm’ extends to everyone, not only direct employees, and the Accelerate program is no exception. 

Leveraging onboarding to boost belonging

After outstanding feedback from participants in the pilots, the program was developed into a six-week onboarding course, which has now been completed by around 75 employees. The program has also been very well-received by existing employees, who no longer feel they have to start from scratch when training a new starter.

The success of the program has led to plans for expansion across other divisions. One of its most significant achievements has been fostering a strong sense of belonging among new and existing team members, says Luck.

During the Accelerate program, there is one week dedicated to learning “the Tassal way”, where participants can see the full salmon life cycle and meet the teams associated with each stage. This helps them see their place in the larger puzzle and feel more connected to the organisation, says Luck. 

“It does amazing things for the confidence of these participants, as they’re learning in a safe space, and then they can go out and actually hold their own.” – Liz Luck, Senior Manager of Organisational Capability and Development at Tassal

The program has also allowed Tassal to change its approach to recruitment, with a shift from seeking people with previous experience to actively promoting the role as having little or no experience required. This has led to an increase in female employees applying for farming roles, with 19 per cent of participants in the program being women compared to six per cent in the overall workforce.

In the past, female applicants with previous experience in farming roles had been limited, and Accelerate allows them to begin their career with established skills and licenses, and feel comfortable and confident working in what has historically been a male-dominated area, says Luck.

She recalls a particularly rewarding instance where a stay-at-home Mum was empowered by the program to pursue new career opportunities with Tassal. 

“She had always wanted to do something that wasn’t an office-based job, but had never applied because she didn’t have experience,” she says. “And so she was able to apply and do [the program]. And she’s great – she’s out there and just loving it. It’s so nice to see.”

Challenges and reflections from the program

Getting buy-in from management on an extended onboarding program like this was somewhat challenging at first, says Luck. Tassal’s workforce is fairly lean, she explains, and the number of new recruits is generally aligned to current needs. 

“But, with the Accelerate program, we were having to employ people before they were needed,” she says. “It was a really big mindset change for our managers.”

This is part of the reason why the initial pilot programs were only two weeks long.

“At first, there was a bit of weariness about it. But even those two weeks made a huge impact, and so managers decided they would be happy to expand it… It was just a case of needing to demonstrate that it was working. Once we got through the pilot, it was much easier.”

The success of the Accelerate program is a valuable reminder of aligning training and retention efforts with an organisation’s strategic goals. For Tassal, these goals included having world-class engaged teams delivering optimal performance, and establishing psychosocial safety as a foundational component of its safety strategy, both of which guided the rollout and continuous improvement of the Accelerate program.

Tassal is proud to have the people and culture and WHS team’s achievements recognised with an AHRI Award at last year’s ceremony.

“It was such a fabulous sense of recognition for the people that have put in so much work to get it up and running,” she says. “It was nice to have them recognised as having done amazing work because they really have made a difference in the way that we operate on the water.”