Ganaz Connects Farmers with Farmworkers to Cultivate Employee Loyalty
By Stephanie Metzinger “ I have 1,000 workers and have no way to tell them that it’s raining and work is canceled, and if they show up I have to pay them for their time.” “I don’t have an easy way to call back my seasonal workers to be sure they return this year, other than having my foremen spend hours and hours of paid time calling people.” “My company has high turnover and I don’t know why people are leaving.” Throughout Hannah Freeman’s 14-year tenure at Fair Trade USA, hearing concerns stemming from a breakdown in workforce communication from farmers all over the Western Hemisphere was a common occurrence. Her main focus at Fair Trade USA was to create partnerships with retailers like Costco and Whole Foods Market and build relationships with thousands of farmworkers and growers, but after learning about the crippling labor and communication issues the industry faced, she decided it was time to take action and find a solution. “I had a front row seat to what the industry was grappling with and really developed a passion for aligning the interest of different parts of the supply chain by building tools that truly helped all parties,” said Freeman.
In April 2017, she co-founded Ganaz, which is a technology platform that connects farmers with farmworkers, translating communications into their native language. The tool enables employers to connect with large numbers of workers to recruit, engage and manage their multilingual workforce at the touch of a button. Farmworkers don’t read email, they read texts When cell phones became a necessity rather than accessory in the 2000s, the rapid advancement of its technology transformed every industry—including agriculture. “What’s different today than 10 or 15 years ago is that most farmworkers have a cell phone,” said Freeman. “There’s now this huge opportunity, especially on a global scale, to serve the needs of employers who need to connect with their desk-less workers— whether it be on a farm, at a processing plant, or in a factory.” Freeman has spent the last two years developing a communication platform that breaks the mold of typical software products that are e-mail and app based. While creating the tool, she always keeps in mind that the types of technology that engage white-collar workers will not work for agriculture. For example,
most seasonal workers do not have e-mail, and if they do, they rarely access it. “Farmworkers don’t read e-mail. They read texts,” she said. “Plus, text messages have a much higher read and response rate as compared to e-mail or any other engagement tool.” Ganaz delivers messages from the employer to the employees directly to their cell phone through SMS (short message service). Workers can then easily respond to employers by simply replying via text. Additionally, unlike applications on smart phones, SMS messaging does not count against data plans.
18 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com JULY | AUGUST 2019
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