Zoetis recently presented Milk Source LLC with the 2014 Zoetis Customer Diversity and Inclusion Award. The award recognizes customers who promote outstanding employee diversity and inclusion programs. Zoetis selected Milk Source LLC from a pool of 13 candidates, the largest group of award nominees to date.

Milk Source LLC, based in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, employs more than 500 employees on eight dairy operations throughout Wisconsin, Michigan and Kansas. Workers come from across the globe, including Mexico, Canada, Israel, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Australia. Milk Source also has hired immigrants from Sudan and Eritrea through a collaboration with World Relief Fox Valley, an organization that assists with and supports refugee resettlement and placement.

Given this unique employee base, Milk Source incorporates culture training, including:
– Weekly Spanish language courses for English-speaking employees and English language courses for Spanish-speaking employees.
– Cross-discipline employee panels during which leaders from various departments (Operations, Herd Management, Business) engage in discussions and respond to questions from their peers.
– Bilingual keynote speakers that help bridge communication gaps in their cultural training sessions.
– Team-building exercises that celebrate the different cultures and acknowledge how the blended culture base work together as one company. A recent exercise had culturally-blended teams produce bilingual commercial messages about Milk Source’s core values.

“Milk Source emphasizes cultural diversity at every turn,” said Bryan Mergen, senior territory business manager, Zoetis. “They invest significant amounts of time, money and resources in providing ongoing training and education programs to help their employees communicate and collaborate, despite their cultural differences.”

“Our corporate credo is ‘sustainability starts here,’” said Jim Ostrom, Milk Source president and CEO. “And that extends beyond farming techniques and animal care. A sustainable workforce is one that embraces its people — all its people — and helps them reach their professional goals. We are honored to have those efforts recognized by Zoetis.”