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Hire The Right PersonBefore you go looking for help, it helps to decide what you really need |
CHUCK
SCHWARTAU |
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Are you having trouble keeping good help? America's 1.3 million hired farm workers earn an average of $7.83 per hour. Given those statistics, are you asking yourself, "Why can't I keep two or three employees for any length of time when I'm paying $10.00 per hour?" One of the main reasons people leave a job is because they aren't the right person for the job. Selecting the right employee in the first place is probably one of the most important things you can do to keep satisfied employees on your farm. Four Steps to Successful HiringThe process of selecting the right employee starts long before the interviews--even before you put the ad in the paper. It really starts with an analysis of your farm's labor needs. The following four-step process will help ensure you hire the right person for the right job. 1. Make a detailed list of all of the tasks to be done on your farm, how long it takes to do each task, how often they are done (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly), and who does them. Don't forget to include management tasks--bookkeeping, supply purchasing, visits with consultants and lenders, and so on. 2. Multiply the time per task by the number of times the task needs doing to determine how many hours of labor are needed on the farm per week and per year. 3. List the current workforce on the farm, including you, your spouse, your children, and anyone else who contributes time to the farm. List how much time each of these people has available (per day, week, month, or year), how much time their jobs take, and when they are to be done. If possible, put all this information onto a grid similar to the cash flow sheets you prepare for your lender. 4. Look over the information you've put together. Who is trying to put in too much time? Which of their tasks could be assigned to another person on the farm? You might learn, for example, that management time is being shorted because the principal operator is doing a lot of milking, feeding, or other relatively routine tasks that could and should be taken on by someone else. After you've filled out your existing workers' schedules, what's left tells you how much and what type of hired labor you really need. This kind of analysis is helpful because it lets you assign people to the tasks best suited to their skills and abilities. It also makes clear to both you and prospective employees the quantity and type of help you need. By communicating an accurate job description, you increase the chance of hiring the right person for the job. |
Consider Timing, TooWhen defining your need for help, consider not only what kind of help you need, but when and how often you need it. Farm work falls into several categories:
Why is this important? Say you get bogged down helping the hoof trimmer one day and make a quick decision to hire help. If you don't think about timing, you might end up with a full-time person when what you really needed was a list of people willing to provide occasional help on a day-to-day basis. Full time, part time, seasonal, temporary--if you carefully consider both your circumstances and your options, you will be more likely to have the amount of help you need, when you need it. |
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Editor's note: This type of job analysis exercise is one of the elements of the "Employment Skills for Today" course the University of Minnesota Extension Service has been teaching around Minnesota during the past year. For more information about the course and its contents, contact Chuck Schwartau in Goodhue County at 651/385-3100 or 800/385-3101, Lee Gross in Stearns County at 320/255-6169, or Patrick Kearney in Kandiyohi County at 320/231-7890. |
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