Hundreds Of Workers Will Go As Tyson Foods Closes Offices

Tyson foods, an American multinational corporation also the second-largest producer and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork has decided to consolidate its corporate offices in Chicago and Dakota dunes to Arkansas next year. These offices currently hold about 1000 employees who work in the beef and pork division.

The Largest U.S. meat supplier announced the matter in October to close its divisions in Chicago and Dakota dunes. As per the company this decision is taken place as an effort to converge all their employees in one place, for effective decision-making and to improve collaboration as well as to speed up the process. nationwide, around 120,000 employees are working in the meat company.

Employees Decide To Leave Company Rather Than Relocation

The company gave workers until to decide if they want to relocate to the company’s headquarters in Arkansas by early 2023 until November 14. Almost 400 employees from the 500 in Tyson’s South Dakota office refused to relocate to Arkansas and made the decision to depart the company by the time office closed the next year.

In addition, more than 90% of the employees have declined to move to Arkansas from Tyson’s Chicago office. Chief executive of the Tyson company Donnie King revealed in a statement that the company was expecting such responses from the employees when they announced the merging of their corporate offices. 

Some of the company’s high officials and managers have decided to leave the company for personal reasons. Shane miller the leader of its beef and pork unit, told that he would consider leaving the company rather than relocating because of family reasons.

On Tuesday, Tyson revealed that Shane miller is being replaced by the former COO of Smithfield foods Inc. Brady Stewart at the start of 2023, as well as Mr. Stewart and Mr. Miller will work together to ensure the smooth transition of handing over the position. Leah Anderson, the senior vice president of Tyson’s pork business is also expected to leave the company for personal reasons.

The company is confident in recruiting world-class talents to their northwest Arkansas unit as they have already recruited the former chief marketing officer Coca Cola’s North America division  Melanie Boulden as chief growth officer and Brady Stewart replacing Shane miller to lead the beef and pork division unit.

The employee departures were also a result due to reshuffling of some top leadership positions. Tyson’s south Dakota office’s employees have decades worth of experience and contacts in the industry, many employees have been there since 2001 when they acquired the company from meatpacker IBP Inc for more than $3 billion.

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Those employees who have decided to relocate or keep the job until newly trained Arkansas-based workers were hired, will be offered retention bonuses. As well some of the new positions have been listed on the company’s website like food safety manager, employees who wish to employ in that role should learn the skill required before relocating. In this way the CEO, Mr. King believes the final number of the employees who eventually decided to move to Arkansas by 2023 will change.

In the hope to recruit or relocate more employees to the company’s headquarters, the company has purchased a building for $20 million, which was previously operated by Walmart, to make room for the employees relocating to, as well as recruiting based, on the region. The building will house more than 1,000 employees and will also provide more space for the company’s planned expansion of its Springdale headquarters complex.

The chief executive of the company Donnie king is confident of the consolidation of their corporate locations and believes that the plan will ensure long-term success in the future.