Energy, Excellence, and Experience, in that order: Finding the very best H-2A workers.
Hernan and Luis at Multinomah Falls on their way to the airport after a good season of “echandole Ganaz” at K&K Land Management.
In early August 2023, we met our first H-2A workers in Hood River, Oregon, Hernan and Luis. They had flown into Portland late the night before and were on their way to work for a K&K Land Management in The Dalles, OR, where they would pick pears for a few months. They were nervous. One of them had been an H-2A worker in California before, but the other had never left his home state of Oaxaca. Mostly they were nervous, they said, because they didn’t want to let their community down. They knew if they performed well, it could open the door to more job opportunities for their friends and family members.
The stakes were high. Forty percent of the community’s male population had already migrated illegally to the US. One of Hernan’s neighbors was at the border now, but they hadn’t heard from him and didn’t know if he’d made it across. The cost to cross the border with a coyote (human smuggler) is $7000 USD with no guarantee of success. So the pressure from their family and friends to open up a free, legal route to good jobs in the US was intense.
Hernan grew up picking coffee and planting and harvesting corn and beans. Nowadays, with a new baby, he travels down to the beach town during the week, working long days in 90-degree heat carrying sacks of concrete. He’d sleep on a hammock on the construction site at night. No bathrooms. He didn’t really see this as a hardship. And their boss was nice, he said.
After their first season as a Ganaz H-2A worker ended, we asked, “How does construction compare to picking pears?”
“Oh, pears are way easier,” he said breezily. “Estas en la sombra…” “You’re in the shade”.
During the first week on the job, they only picked 2-3 bins, but by the second week, they were picking 4-5 bins. And there were a few days where they picked 7 bins of Bartletts. Each bin can weigh over 800 pounds. Hernan picked about 4,000 pounds of pears a day, and his reflection was that it was easy. When we recounted this story to a grower, he replied, wide-eyed, “That’s the kind of worker we need.”
But as we all know, it’s not just about productivity, it’s also about whether they take care of quality, whether they are reliable, whether they can perform throughout a long season away from their family, and whether they are good roommates and teammates. That’s why Ganaz built the Good Fit Assessment.
If you have gone through the complex, costly, and stressful H-2A contracting process, only to receive workers who weren’t suited to your needs, you know that just telling your recruiter you want a certain kind of experience isn’t enough. As Ganaz board member, Peter Van Oppen, likes to say, “Energy, excellence, and experience in that order. Experience is sometimes necessary but never adequate.”
“Energy, excellence, and experience in that order. Experience is sometimes necessary but never adequate.”
We know that the quality of your workers, not just the quantity of workers, is critical to avoiding costly setbacks and ensuring your labor needs are covered. That’s why we set out to revolutionize H-2A workforce recruitment with our Ganaz Good Fit Assessment.
In addition to evaluating a candidate’s physical abilities and past work experience, we’ve also partnered with a psychologist to develop a framework for assessing their commitment, motivation, emotional intelligence, and cognitive skills.
For physical abilities, we’ve developed a circuit that includes doing complex manual tasks, sorting for color, climbing a ladder, lifting heavy objects, and running. This allows us to screen for the basic physical ability to do the job. And it starts to give us a window into motivation or the “energy” they would bring to the job. After one recruitment event, our H-2A program manager and Director of Product Research, Diego Rodriguez, remarked, “You could tell who really wanted it.” They took the exercise seriously, they focused, they hustled, and they performed well. They were able to channel their energy, or motivation, into excellence.
And with our Ganaz dashboard, you’re the one in control. You'll have full visibility into your candidates' profiles and assessment results prior to their arrival, so you can rest assured they've been rigorously vetted and are well-suited to your needs.
With Ganaz, recruiting your workforce isn’t just a numbers game. We are committed to finding the right match for you, so it’s a win-win for both employers and employees. We know that when this program is executed well, you are building a foundation for future success and well-being - for your company, for your workers, and their communities.
K&K’s first group of H-2A’s for 2024 arrived in mid-February. Monica Zipprich, H-2A Program Manager for K&K Land and Management, said, “Ganaz provided us with specific details throughout our whole process. The timeline tool really helped us stay on track, we never worried if our workers would arrive late! Our workers raved about their awesome experience with Ganaz. They mentioned more clarity and they appreciated all of the guidance from Mayte and Iván [Ganaz team members] in Tijuana, Mexico.”
Ganaz H-2A Visa Workers–are about to get on the bus to Oregon. They are “Ready to Work.” In addition to obtaining the visa in Tijuana, Ganaz issues payroll cards, processes reimbursements, and handles hiring paperwork and employer training so they’re ready to work upon arrival.
“Our workers raved about their awesome experience with Ganaz.”
“Thank you to K&K and Ganaz for giving us the opportunity to go work in Oregon. We had a good experience. I came to help my family, my mom, dad, wife, and my new baby girl. It was really beautiful here in Oregon. Back at home you just earn enough to eat for the day. Here, you can save enough to get ahead. We hope to return next year to help K&K’s business grow, so they can hire more workers from our town and from other towns to help us get ahead in life. There are a lot of low-income families that need the opportunity. We were able to help our families through our work, and we feel proud,” said Hernan, Ganaz H-2A worker at K&K Land Management, at the end of the season.
We’re deep into the 2024 filing and recruitment season, with crossings each week. There’s still time to upgrade your H-2A program to Ganaz for contracts 90 days in the future and beyond. Book a demo and consultation to learn more here.