More money isn't always the answer - so how do you attract staff to work for you

Tonka

Member
Location
N Yorkshire
We all need them, we all want them to work for us. Huge amount of choice for anyone looking for a job with stock or land work.

So what works for you - money is not a motivator. Joss Haynes, HAAC, 1980's.

Please share your success stories, as majority of us are very poor man managers😉
 
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Many years ago I started to work for a new employer who was a man in his mid-fifties and treated me well. My overtime was never queried, wages board increases were back dated to start of the month.
I’d come in on a Sunday to turn hay and when he heard my tractor return to the shed he would always come out and thank me, then offer me something from the garden.
Simple courtesies and I would have done anything for that man. It fashioned the way that I treated employees later in my career.
 

An Gof

Member
Location
Cornwall
We all need them, we all want them to work for us. Huge amount of choice for anyone looking for a job with stock or land work.

So what works for you - money is not a motivator. Joss Haynes, HAAC, 1980's.

Please share your success stories, as majority of us are very poor man managers😉

Whatever happened to Joss Haynes?
You’ll have to dig out the college notes on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 😉
 

Tim W

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
From experience (working for other people) to attract staff i think you have to
1) Offer a decent wage packet
2) Ask what their long term ambitions are and see if you can help them achieve these
3) Set out a proper employment review at regular intervals so everyone can air problems & share ideas
4) Try to set out a roadmap for a career so employees can see that they are not standing still and there is a way to progress to more responsibility/money/whatever else they value

Once you have staff and want to keep them you need to
1) LISTEN to employees , discuss ideas they have don't just dismiss them as idiots
2) Inclusion in decision making goes a long way to make an employee feel wanted/part of a team
3) Take them out for a meal/drink/day at the races ---building friendships within the team is essential
 
Location
southwest
5 R's

Recruit
Retrain
Rewards
Relationship
Retain.


Don't just take on anyone no matter how desperate you are> you'll just end up in a cycle of hire & fire (or resign) every few months

Make sure the new guy understands what you want and how you like it done.

Up their pay to reflect good work done.

Talk with (not at) them. Listen to what they say. Understand what motivates them. You have to be part of the team-master:slave doesn't work.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Having worked for some really good people and really bad to I’d echo a lot of the above. Not having any time off at all is tough, I did it with small kids and on a pittance (I’d eat only my evening meal so the kids were fed and clothed) hours were beyond with no break from 70+ hours a week for years on end.

Now I’m my own boss and the girl working for me has a minimum of 2 days off a week, often more if she wants them. This week coming we’re doing 2 days as she has hunting, Christmas parties and her other businesses to organise, she also doesn’t mind a few quiet weeks at the moment before we’re busy lambing and moving electric fences every day come January. Even at lambing I try and work it so every member of staff doesn’t work more than 6 days in a row. This year lambing I was slightly over staffed as the weather was good, if the weather was poor we would have needed more possibly 🤷🏻‍♂️ I kept one of the lambing staff on for a month after the rest while we still had a few hundred left, the worker asked why did I keep that person on? Simple, we weren’t rushing around and for the sake of a few thousand £ we finished lambing fresh and not tired as we still had sheep work to carry on with for the rest of the year. The girl with me was shocked how I’d rather employ more people than struggle on and push for more hours from the ones I had already, she was saying the last few years where she has been lambing (various places) they’d be worked into the ground like dogs with way to much to do as the farmer was to tight to get more help. The year before me she broke her leg on an RSJ as she forgot to lift it in on the quad as she was so tired..
 

toquark

Member
I’d echo all of the above. As both an employee and a small business owner, I can see both sides of the coin, although I don’t employ anyone directly and have no ambition to.

As an employee, after the basics (salary, hours, pension etc), autonomy in the job goes a long long way. Nothing demotivates me more than a boss on your back all the time. Treat people like adults and accept that no one’s perfect and you’ll not go far wrong.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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