Retention Part II - Communication
Over the last few months I have discussed the importance of remuneration as one of the key things for retaining your manager/contract milker/sharemilker and the impact retention can have to the entire farming business. Another critical component, that especially when combined with average to below average remuneration, is going to be the nail in the coffin in retaining your manager/sharefarmer – Communication.
The reality of dairy farming is that when farming a farm yourself, you spend the vast majority of your time working alone and with the scale of farms being smaller historically, there has been little need to learn people management skills. However, as farms grow, the need to develop skills has too but with few pathways to attain them. This has led to some pretty poor outcomes with sharefarmers leaving the industry because of it. Our industry as I have mentioned before, struggles to attract people on a good day – retaining them is critical if we are to ensure that succession pathway will still be there. And this isn’t a new story, the Sharemilking Act is the result of some pretty smart farmers back in the 1930’s dealing with this issue.
Sharefarming Farm Owner/Employer Comms 101:
Set boundaries for formal and informal communication. The cowshed is a sanctuary for only informal and relaxed communication as so much of your staff/sharefarmers time is dedicated to this space. Important communications or where there is something like a task that needs to be done needs to be communicated outside of this space, preferably a phone conversation followed by a quick text or email, or if really important, a sat down conversation – business to business.
We recommend at least having a monthly meeting, or if you need more intensive management to get things on track, a fortnightly meeting. For the first season at least these should be facilitated by a farm consultant with meeting minutes and a monthly farm report provided by the sharefarmer to refer back to.
Try and adhere to business hours. Unless it’s a true emergency, most things can wait until the morning. Try and limit any communications to between 8am and 5:30pm. This is good for everyone’s mental health to be able to take a break from the farm.
Instead of pointing out what hasn’t been done, try complimenting what has been done first and wait and see what happens next. A pretty smart and very excellent farm employer taught me this one and he swears by it.
And for some things that I wish didn’t have to be said: No shouting. No showing up at the staff/sharefarmers house unannounced (true emergencies excluded). Other than a friendly hello chat, leave them to get on with the task they are doing. And recognise that if you do see anyone on farm not busting their backside, you don’t know what they have been doing before that point or what they have on their to do list after. Just leave them be.
Sharefarming relationships are incredibly intimate compared to most business to business relationships. If you are struggling with communication (or setting boundaries), get in touch and we will work through options to support you to make this work better for everyone on farm.
