Collaboration is the only way to deliver workforce nutrition
Olam Agri is its people and the health of a company is reflected in the health and well-being of its employees. Olam Agri’s investment in nutrition at our workplaces and throughout our supply chains has a tremendously positive impact. As a result, the company’s strategy is to continue taking bold steps to meet our ambitious nutrition and sustainability goals.
Looking after the welfare of employees and enabling them to perform their work in a healthy and favourable environment was my main personal motivation to join the Workforce Nutrition Masterclass, a technical support programme organised by the Workforce Nutrition Alliance (WNA). It’s so important because employees’ poor eating habits can have a long-term negative impact on the company and, more importantly, on that person and ultimately their family.
We learned from WNA’s experts – and from discussions with other participants -about the significant benefits that workforce nutrition provides to both the organisation and its people. The Masterclass also has provided me with the tools and resources I need to implement workforce nutrition programmes at Crown Flour Mills. The Masterclass also helped me in planning my weekly activities and allocating appropriate time to each required task or step.
When we started to implement the programme, we encountered a few roadblocks, but there was nothing we couldn’t overcome. A key to success is approaching programme implementation collectively, step by step, which means one office or workplace at a time. An effective workforce nutrition programme requires the entire organisation’s collaboration and teamwork and, of course, motivated and capable project managers. That’s how we can win the battle against malnutrition.
The most challenging aspect of the programme was securing and managing its budget framework. We are planning to collaborate with a consultant who complemented our team with the required additional skill sets.
If there is one piece of advice, I would offer anyone wishing to implement a workforce nutrition programme at scale is the importance of actively implementing all four workforce nutrition pillars. Just one or two isn’t enough.
We worked together as a company, learned from other organisations in a similar position to ours, and found the right external consultant. That’s what true collaboration looks like. What matters most, in my opinion, are the positive outcomes that resulted from our actions. There has been a gradual positive cultural shift toward proper nutrition at our worksites. We are only getting started, but our ambition is to be able to document and show hard numbers and evidence of our workforce nutrition actions and the resulting benefits.
For more details on workforce nutrition at Olam, you can contact Malory Henry at crs.thinkin@olamagri.com
Moshood Quadri
HR Professional at Olam Agri
Moshood Quadri is a seasoned Human Resources (HR) and Industrial Relations (IR) professional with over 25 years of experience in HR, IR and Nigeria Labour Law, 12 of which is in Crown Flour Mill of Olam Agri as the Head of HR/IR.
Moshood supervises HR/IR in 10 plants of Crown Flour Mill and ensures policy formulation and implementation, adherence to work-ethics, recruitment, performance management, employee engagement negotiation and collective bargaining among others.
Olam International was one of the first signatories of the Workforce Nutrition Alliance in 2021. The company reorganized, creating Olam Group, comprising Olam Agri, focusing on food crops, Olam Food Ingredients (ofi) and Olam Group (diversified business units)