What dairy farmers can learn from Ireland's shopkeepers
Research Eight Want From According Employment, Main Teagasc Employees Has Found That To Criteria
What does running a shop and a dairy farm have in common?
Not much, you might think.
However, Teagasc experts noted that both businesses operate seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, and there's an early start every day.
Therefore, according to Co Galway Teagasc Dairy Specialist Martina Gormley, dairy farmers can learn from shopkeepers how to solve the key challenge of finding and retaining good staff.
She says the main lesson to learn from shops is that flexible hours and good working conditions are key to attracting and retaining staff.
Many dairy farms have moved beyond the owner-operator model, due to increased scale, and family labour in many cases is not sufficient to fill the gaps. The focus must be on how to attract people to work on dairy farms.
Martina looked at how Eugene and Dymphna Sharkey run a convenience store retail business in Tuam, Co Galway.
They employ six people full-time, plus part-time staff. “We have been in business since 2011, and finding staff has always been a challenge,” said Eugene. “Over the years, we have learned that flexible working hours, pay, giving responsibility, and a good working environment, are the four big factors to recruiting and retaining staff.”
“We facilitate a wide range of working hours. The business is open from 7am to 11pm. We have staff that work from 6am to 2pm, 10am to 6pm and 3pm to 11pm, etc.
“By having this menu of hours, we widen the pool of potential people to work in the business.
“We use a WhatsApp group, and if anyone needs to change hours, we find that WhatsApp is the easiest way to make that change.
“We have some students who play sports. They tell us their fixtures in advance and we work around them. It’s the same for students in college. They send us their timetable and we work around this when scheduling their working hours.
“We get the big jobs like stocktaking, ordering, analysing reports, pricing, and staff rotas done during the week, and this means that the basics only need to be done at the weekend. This works well for us to take some time off at the weekends and also means less pressure for staff.”
Can these lessons be implemented on dairy farms, asks Martina Gormley?
Fergal Keane from Moveen, Kilkee, Co Clare, works on the dairy farm of PJ, Carmel and Kevin Murray. After completing the dairy diploma course at Pallaskenry Agriculture College in May 2019, Fergal started working with the Murray family. “Last year, I worked full-time with the Murrays in spring and then it was mainly milking for the rest of the year. If they needed a hand with vaccinating or moving stock, I would do a few extra hours.
“I am helping with the suckler farm at home, so flexibility is important to me. If I need to go home to calve a cow in spring, there is no issue. We discuss the week ahead, and if they need extra help outside of milking, I know a week in advance so I can plan this around the jobs at home.
“If I was working in a nine to five job, I wouldn’t have that flexibility to help out with the farm at home during the day.” According to Martina Gormley, the tradition of working six days per week as an employee on a dairy farm has changed. The Murray farm is an example of where offering a set number of milkings plus some additional hours, if required, is working well for their employee Fergal, who wants time to do other things during the day.
"Every second or third weekend off is also becoming more common."
Research has found eight main criteria that employees want from employment, according to Teagasc.
Dairy farmers can offer a greater range of flexible working hours for their employees. This is not always ideal for employers, but to find and keep quality employees, farmers are finding ways to make this work.
Some farms are now offering full-time employees every weekend to every second or third weekend off. Part-time employees can play a major role in getting the milking done at the weekend. Aim to have all the bigger jobs done during the week so that the weekend work is mainly milking.
Farms, like any other business, are giving pay increases for full-time employees who are an asset to the business. Is this person worth an extra Euro per hour? Also, for employees who carry out milking on dairy farms, the pay per hour can be well above the average pay. This makes milking very attractive, especially for part-time employees where weekend work suits best.
Farmers delegating responsibility can give employees job satisfaction and confidence. Delegating responsibility should be given in small amounts at first.
Having employees shadow the employer for the first week is key to giving them the right start. Begin by delegating small tasks, and build on this over time. Even if the employee has milked before, they still need training, as they have never milked in your parlour before.
A simple thank you and acknowledgment of a job well done, and even an outing at Christmas time is all that’s required. Seeking feedback is something that is not too common on dairy farms. Employees need to be asked for feedback and maybe asked a few times in order for them to feel comfortable.
Knowing your employee and making it your priority to find out what their ambitions are is very important for staff retention.
Some of the improvements may be adding in more gates to separate animals, a manual drafting facility, or more lighting around the yard. Having ideas form filled up every four months can work well where it is standard to give honest feedback. It’s up to the employer to question the ideas and prioritise what gets done and when.
