Vhi support services for Tirlán farmer shareholders continue across 2023

Tirlán recently announced it is to continue to offer farmer shareholders access to a free and confidential counselling and information service provided by Vhi Corporate Solutions.

In times of crises or emotional distress Tirlán employees, farmer shareholders and their immediate families can have peace of mind that the Support Services from Vhi’s Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is available 24/7 365 days a year.

The Tirlán farmer shareholders (EAP Programme) offers expert, practical assistance and emotional support for some of life’s challenges including:

• Advice on mental health challenges
• Addictions
• Financial pressures on and off farm
• Bereavement counselling
• Relationships and struggles with parenting

Speaking about the launch of the service for a second successive year, Tirlán Chairman John Murphy said: “This is a great resource for our farmer shareholders as it’s important to promote positive mental health. We’re all aware of the stresses that running a farm, like any business, can bring.

“We would hope that those who need it make good use of this counselling and information service offered through Vhi. We all need to remember that as much as we look after animal health, it is equally important to take a step back and look after ourselves as well.”

Tirlán employees and farmer shareholders also have the option to see a counsellor locally for up to six face-to-face counselling sessions and whether you decide to get in touch by phone or email, support is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In addition, support services for Tirlán farmer shareholders also provide access to a specialist information service, coaching programmes, trauma support and an interactive online portal.

A panel discussion to celebrate our first year as a Co-op was held this week at Abbey Quarter

It’s been one year since the conditions of purchase of Glanbia Ireland were met by Glanbia Co-op, forming our independent farmer owned Co-operative. Since April 4th of last year our Co-op has taken great strides forward in creating our new identity as Tirlán.

The last year has not only been an extremely successful one for our business, but there have also been huge changes over the past 12 months, from turning the sod at Kilkenny Cheese, to moving in at Abbey Quarter, starting the rebrand of our branches, creating Tirlan’s new ESG function and designing a whole new Purpose, Vision and set of Values. We can all be proud as we’ve laid the groundwork to become one of the world’s leading Co-ops.

Earlier this week Tirlán’s Head of Culture and Engagement, Helen Kiely, hosted a panel discussion at Abbey Quarter to celebrate and recognise our company’s achievements with CEO Jim Bergin and panellists Ed Elder and Louise Hogan. Ed led the programme of change and all it involved arising from our new identity, while Louise led out on media and corporate comms promoting our new brand to a local and global audience.

A new uniform is cementing the new Tirlán identity

Our company’s new identity as Tirlán is being further embedded across the country as our farmer facing teams receive their new branded uniforms. By May, the new look will be evident across Tirlán as, along with branch colleagues, the agronomy, milk supply, ruminant, technical, sustainability and operations teams receive their uniforms.

The Tirlán Farmlife brand will be displayed on the branch uniforms, while our 12 Countrylife stores will show their logos on an array of garments. There are a number of different uniform styles, which have been designed around functionality and to make our farm facing teams easily identifiable to customers.

Yard staff in branches will wear hi-visibility clothing, which is paramount for health and safety, while the branch staff uniform consists of a black polo shirt paired with durable work trousers. The teams will also have a black sweatshirt, gilet and winter coat to chose from.

Below are examples of some of the uniforms that will be worn.

The milk supply, technical and sustainability teams will don a smart looking light-blue shirt with the Tirlán Farmlife and Living Proof logo embroidered on the breast, matched with navy chino trousers. The agronomy and ruminant team will wear the same uniform with a variation of logos, which will include the Mastercrop logo and GAIN Animal Nutrition logo, while the operations team uniform will display the Tirlán Farmlife logo. All teams will have a gilet and winter coat with their logos displayed.

HR Officer Rob Mosse has been working on the creation and rollout of the uniforms over the past number of months. Overherd caught up with Rob to hear some more.

“The whole idea behind the new look is to have a slick uniform which is professional and makes our employees recognisable to customers and more approachable. The other aspect of designing the new uniform, which I had to keep in mind when I met with Portwest who manufacture the clothing, was making sure that employees were comfortable in whatever uniform we decided to go with and that they liked it.

“The uniform project started in July, we had to wait until the brand was announced before we could do anything. Everything went out to tender and we met a couple of different companies. Originally, we were going to use the Tirlán brown as the uniform colour. We sourced samples in China and we knew once they arrived that the colour wasn’t going to work, so we chose the off-the-shelf black colour along with the Tirlán green.

“All our locations have now taken part in sizing days and our team in Bunclody was the first branch to be fully kitted out. The other branches are due to receive their uniforms in the coming weeks and we aim to have everyone in full uniform by the 1st of May.”

Bunclody Countrylife branch manager Mark Morrissey said: “The feedback from staff so far has been positive, I think everyone is really behind the Tirlán brand and what it stands for. You can see that a lot of thought has gone into it.”

“We were thrilled to be the first branch to get the new uniform and everyone was very excited to get the new gear. Our customers have been very complimentary of our new look and with new staff joining us recently, it makes it easy for customers to identify them.

“A customer the other day commented that the new uniform was very swanky for ‘Glanbia’, I replied that it was the new normal for Tirlán!”

Each month, we put the spotlight on a Tirlán employee and for our April newsletter, we’re talking to Gwen Gould

The Tirlán rebrand has provided an ideal opportunity for our farmer-owned cooperative to introduce uniform packaging across all products and ingredients, build on our new identity, promote our core values and plan for the future, Senior Marketing Manager Nutrition Gwen Gould says.

The Carlow native, who works in Commercial Ingredients, says it’s been absolutely non-stop since the re-brand late last summer and the launch of the complete protein offering, Promiko, in the midst of it showed how agile, enthusiastic and driven the entire team is.

“Our new identity has been really well received. Everyone loved Glanbia Ireland. But being able to create a new identity, build on our core values, celebrate where we’ve come from and look to the future sits very well. Our customers all over the world understand where we have come from and what our vision and mission for the future is.

“From September onwards, our key focus was on our international markets, Japan the US and Europe, introducing our new name, telling the story behind it and reinforcing with our customers that while our identity had changed, our people hadn’t and our world-class ingredients hadn’t.

“With the company restructure and rebrand came an exciting opportunity to change all of our packaging. Some of it was the exact same since the Waterford Co-op days. We grasped this unique opportunity to bring our new identity to life through our packaging and bring consistency to it. It has taken a huge team effort and has been so incredibly worthwhile.

“At the very same time that all this was happening, we got to launch our new sports category brand. The separation from Glanbia gave us an opportunity to promote Promiko to our customers and that too has been very well received.”

There isn’t a typical day, per se, for Gwen, who joined Tirlán in 2018 and started out in the consumer wing of the business. “My role very much involves looking at how we promote our brand, both Tirlán, Tirlán Ingredients and our ingredient brands; how we showcase our capabilities and our talents and expertise within the business and how we apply these through our high quality ingredients and make our customer’s products better.

“We promote our products, people and capabilities through industry platforms. We create webinars and we showcase our brand at trade shows. We now have an opportunity to meet our customers on site at our state-of-the-art new Innovation Centre and Collaboration Hub. My weekly agenda is very much based around what product we’re promoting at the time.

“The best part of the job is seeing all our work come together for webinars, customer visits, trade shows etc. It’s incredible to see the whole team work together, bringing the brand, the power behind it and what it has to offer to life. People want to talk to us, they want to talk about us. They believe in who we are and what we do.
“The most challenging part at times can be keeping all the plates spinning, keeping all of the balls in the air. But to be honest, I thrive on it and I wouldn’t be happy in a quieter job.”

And what does Gwen do to unwind, to recharge and step away from it all? “I like to run. I run a lot with my running buddy during the week and with my sister at weekends. I’m doing more trail running at the moment, which gives me an opportunity to appreciate the mountains and the forests at the same time.”

Unearth Your Future, Tirlán’s new two-year Graduate Programme, is offering graduates a wide range of opportunities and career progression prospects within our business

Graduates are currently being recruited across a range of disciplines, including Accounting & Finance, Agribusiness, Commercial, Corporate Affairs, Engineering & Operations, HR, IT (Business Analysis & MES), Marketing, Quality & Compliance, R&D and Strategy/Project Management.

Unearth your Future has been designed to provide all the structures that graduates need to grow their career, including personalised development planning, access to coaching, mentoring and individual wellness planning.

Successful applicants will enjoy rotations that will deliver exposure to the Tirlán business through on-demand and structured learning. The programme will culminate each year with the graduates being given the opportunity to showcase their learnings at the annual Tirlán Graduate Summit.

Speaking about the grad programme launch, Michael O’Leary, Tirlán’s Chief People, D&I and Org Development Officer said: “I’m incredibly proud that within 12 months of becoming a standalone co-op and operating under the Tirlán brand, we have created a graduate programme that reflects the ambitions of our organisation and whose participants will impact communities locally and globally for years to come.”