Tyson Foods Inc. has a new director for its inhouse chaplain program, a key component of the meat giant’s faith-friendly workplace concept, an idea apparently catching on around the nation.
Mike D. Tarvin, 57, an Army veteran, was recently named Tyson’s director of chaplain services. He said the foundation of Tyson’s chaplain program is strong, and some of his goals include adding more diversity among the chaplains that all currently are from Christian denominations. He also hopes to expand the program to Tyson’s operations in China and India.
A chaplain program for an operation the size of Tyson is unusual, industry experts say, but some other companies use contract companies to fill the niche. Key players are Dallas-based Marketplace Chaplains; Wake Forest, N.C.-based Corporate Chaplains of America; and Corporate Care Inc. of Edmond, Okla.
Tyson Foods began its chaplain program in 2000, started by the current chairman John Tyson. It employs 120 full- and part-time chaplains that serve 256 facilities in the U.S., Mexico and Brazil. Chaplains assist employees with a variety of issues, including anxiety, the death of a loved one, divorce, parenting problems and work concerns. They also make hospital visits or attend funeral services, if requested.
According to researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, workers are reporting more and more stress on the job. In 2002, when asked in the institute’s Quality of Work Life study “How often do you find your work stressful?” 31 percent answered “always or often.” In 2010, 34 percent chose that answer. The researchers noted that other surveys indicate similar trends.
Tyson Foods is one of the world’s largest meat companies and employs 115,000 in about 130 countries and 400 facilities and offices. Chaplains are not required at each site. Plant or complex managers decide if the facility needs a chaplain. Speaking with a chaplain is voluntary for employees.
Tarvin said the majority of Tyson facilities have chaplains, and most that do are sold on the concept once they see what chaplains can do. He said that while there are studies underway to gauge the impact of chaplains, there seems to be a relationship between the program, and employee satisfaction and lower turnover rates.
“We try to meet the employee’s needs, no matter what,” Tarvin said.
The chaplains do not replace human resources managers and they often complement one another, Tarvin said.
Art Strickland, vice president of public relations for Plano, Texas-based Marketplace Ministries, parent company of Marketplace Chaplains, said the demand for workplace chaplains is growing. The company was founded in 1984, and the company has doubled in size since the early 1990s. It provides chaplains at 2,300 locations in 44 states and in six foreign countries.
Marketplace Ministries chaplains are not employees of the contracted company, which allows for a level of confidentiality, Strickland said. Overall the goals of the company are similar to those of the Tyson program.
Chaplains help by visiting employees in the hospital, assisting with marital problems or even helping to fix flat tires.
“Personal relationships are important,” Strickland said.
Alan Tyson, no relation to the food-giant’s founder, arrived at Tyson Foods in 1997 when the poultry company purchased Rogers-based Hudson Foods where he was a chaplain. During the transition period, the Hudson Foods chaplains were let go, but John Tyson sought out Alan Tyson about two years later and rehired him to run the new chaplain program. Alan Tyson retired in 2008 and now is the pastor of the Lost Bridge Community Church in Garfield, northeast of Rogers in Benton County.
Early in his career at Tyson Foods, the company purchased South Dakota-based IBP, the nation’s largest beef packer and a major pork producer. Alan Tyson said he recalled working after a plant shooting at a Tennessee facility that had been an IBP plant. He said once the plant manager saw the support a chaplain could offer workers, he requested a chaplain for the plant.
“Nowadays, the chaplains are part of the company’s DNA,” he said.
Boe Parish, president of Corporate Care Inc., said chaplains are important to workers since the role of human resources isn’t necessarily to be concerned about employees, it’s to keep the company in compliance with the law.
“People don’t care about how much you know, until they know how much you care,” he said.
Parish said there is a lot of interest in his company’s programs, and its chaplains are highly utilized. In addition to its corporate chaplains, Corporate Care offers mentoring and consulting services.
Tarvin is a newcomer to Tyson Foods. He has more than 30 years of service with the U.S. Army, including time spent as chaplain with the 82nd Airborne Division and 25th Infantry Division, and as chief of pastoral care at Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, Colo., and the Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Wash. He oversaw 300 chaplains during combat operations in Iraq and was senior chaplain for U.S. Army Forces Command.
A graduate of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Tarvin has graduate degrees from Boston University, Brite Divinity School and the U.S. Army War College. He also is a graduate of the Army Ranger, airborne, jump-master and air-assault schools.
He said chaplains in the workplace help in a variety of ways. He noted that if a worker has a problem that can be discussed and then resolved with the chaplain’s help, the employee is not only happier but better able to concentrate on work. When a worker applies his “whole-self” to the job, both the employee and the employer win.
Tarvin replaces Chaplain Rick McKinnie, 66, who is retiring. McKinnie, the program’s director since 2008, has had extensive service with the military, including serving as a supervisory chaplain of the Veterans Affairs Eastern Kansas Health Care System.
McKinnie stressed that the chaplains are not in the workplace to evangelize. He said the job of the chaplain is to meet the employees’ needs, not replace the local clergy.
“We’re not here to build a little church in the plant,” he said.
Business, Pages 25 on 07/24/2013