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Image of growing crops. Image by Edwin Remsberg
Orientation and Training of Employees
Once your employment offer has been accepted, bring the new employee in as soon as possible to complete the paperwork, forms and procedures necessary for compliance with state and federal law. Get your new employee off to a good start with a planned orientation program as well as initial and ongoing training opportunities.
If your farm has not previously conducted an employee orientation program, planning may seem like an overwhelming task. One way to think about orientation is to sit down with current employees and ask for input. Ask current employees what they wish they had been told when they first started working at your farm. Find out what they view as important information for newcomers. Every farm business is different, but some possible content areas to consider include the following:
Considerations for New Employee Orientation:
✓ Background and Overview of Your Farm: Provide new employees with your farm’s story - the history and development of the farm business. This should include information about key people in the farm’s history as well as present-day leadership. Share your farm’s mission statement, goals and objectives and maybe even your business plan. While a farm tour may have been part of the pre-employment process, this should be repeated, perhaps over a series of days as the new employee is introduced to the layout of facilities, fields and operations. Throughout the process, emphasize the role and importance of employees in the farm’s success.
✓ Employee Policies: Even the smallest farm should consider development of an employee handbook or policy document. As part of the employee orientation process, all key policies, compensation and benefits information should be reviewed. Do not just present the new employee stacks of documents and instructions to read. Orientation is the employer’s opportunity to review the policies, explain rationale and provide opportunities for questions or clarification.
✓ Introductions: While the new employee may have been introduced to some individuals during the pre-employment process, introductions should be repeated. Name badges (or embroidered shirts/apparel) can be very helpful in the farm workplace. Provide the new employee with an organizational chart or list of names. Include names of people who visit the farm on a regular basis such as drivers, veterinarians, suppliers, service personnel, neighbors or relatives.
✓ Job Duty Information: While a position description was most likely discussed during the employment process, this is a key part of the new employee orientation phase. Provide the written position description, and use it as a guide to discuss specific tasks including training that will be provided to the new employee. Emphasize basic safety and indicate the importance of ongoing safety training and awareness. Help a new employee to understand the relationship and importance of the position to other jobs and functions on the farm. Even after initial orientation, training is important. Relating your expectations around safety, duties/tasks, communication, timeliness, important policies, regulations or production methods and/or changes is a continual process. Consider planning quarterly meetings with personnel.
Considerations for ongoing training:
✓ Document the top principles that every employee on your farm needs to clearly understand. Spell these standards out in writing. The goal is to make it easier to discuss what really matters.
✓ Set clear expectations and procedures that are unique to your farm. Putting them in writing makes it easier for employees to do the right thing every time. These could be topics about dress, use of vehicles, land/buildings orientation, first aid, safety topics, what to do if something wrong happens, how to maintain equipment/facilities etc.
✓ Think about how you can invest in your employees’ ongoing training and development. They need to know that they’re getting better every year while being trusted with more responsibility.
✓ Consider making short videos that provide some of the information about your farm operation and make them available to new and existing employees. ✓ Consider using existing resources for training. Check out Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Small Farm resource found here:
✓ Consider setting up more formal check-in meetings with new employees at the 30, 60 and 90/180 day time periods to review progress, needs and feedback. This will be in addition to informal meetings to aid in the new employee’s learning and/or addressing of issues/problems.
Action Steps / Questions to Consider
What topics do I want to be sure are covered in a new employee orientation and who can help conduct that training?
When and how do I want to conduct new employee orientation?
How do I determine what that training needs are of my employees?
What other topics do I want to be sure are covered and who can help conduct that training?
What are next steps?
References
O’Rourke, M. (2023). Farm Employee Management: New Employee Orientation. Iowa State University Extension. Found: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c1- 78.html
Farm Employee Training Resources and Standard Operating Procedures. Cornell Cooperative Extension Small Farms Program. Found: https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/resources/farm employee-training-resources-and-standard-operating-procedures/
Communicating Effectively with Employees
Employee communication is the sharing of ideas, information, and feelings between business managers and employees. When communication between a manager and employee is positive, the objectives, expectations, and tasks become clearer for all parties. Not all managers have effective communication skills. But managers must take leadership and responsibility on how to effectively communicate with employees. At work, and as in life, people communicate differently. Understanding potential differences between you and among employees and how to best communicate is critical to ensuring your business’s success.
Communication is essential for the success of any business. Without it, managers wouldn’t be able to lead employees properly and effectively. Employee communication can take shape in many different forms such as verbally or electronically. Electronic information consists of channels such as email, texting, and online collaboration tools. Verbal communication can take many forms too; individual meetings, team meetings, training opportunities, coffee breaks etc. No matter which method, it is important to meet/share regularly. Research shows that businesses that possess an employee communication strategy makes them more effective.
Considerations:
✓ To improve communication with employees, they need to feel comfortable communicating with their manager. It is imperative to be open with the individuals/teams on expectations, tasks, and anything else work related.
✓ Make sure to be as clear and concise as possible on what expectations are. ✓ Keep employees in the loop about the big picture and how they fit into making the vision/mission of your business come to fruition.
✓ Try to be positive and look for ways to brainstorm solutions to problems. ✓ To assist in communication, you may need to use different strategies because different people learn/understand differently. For example, you may need to offer information verbally and in writing or provide hands-on training opportunities. Having an open-door policy also facilitates trust and communication. Treating everyone equally fosters stronger trusting relationships.
The sign of a strong manager is one who can ask for and learn from feedback. Periodically ask employees how they view their managers communication style. Feedback, whether positive or negative, can improve the communication strategy to meet the needs of the team/individuals.
As there are things managers can do to improve communication with employees, there are also things that managers should try to avoid: Being inapproachable, being either too involved or under involved with managing employees, focusing solely on weaknesses and being too critical, blindsiding employees or hiding feedback in negative humor, providing conflicting directions, or placing blame on employees. Each of these can lead to employees being less engaged in their work, generating avoidable conflicts, creating a distrustful work environment or even employees leaving your business.
Action Steps/Questions to Consider
What strategies will you use to communicate with individuals? Teams? What plan will you put in place?
How will you provide feedback regarding an employee’s performance? How can you foster an environment of trust and support?
How do you want to receive feedback about your communication style?
What are next steps?
Resources:
Washington State University Carson College of Business (November 9, 2023). The Do's and Don'ts of Manager/Employee Communication. Blog Article Found: https://onlinemba.wsu.edu/blog/thedosanddontsofmanageremployeecommunication
Keeping Employees Motivated
Data shows that rewards and recognition are consistently the strongest drivers of employee engagement across all industries. To keep good employees, it’s important to find ways to recognize and reward employees. As a manager of employees, you will want to create a supportive atmosphere and a place people want to work.
Considerations:
To develop a strong recognition and performance system you’ll want to think about:
1) Create an employee recognition process that recognizes employees in a consistent way across all employees and also has employee input. Be sure that:
✓ The recognition rules are clear and consistent for yourself and employees
✓ The measures are relevant to aspects of the work that are relevant to you as the employer
✓ Recognition rules are applied consistently
✓ Employees have some input into what recognition should/could look like.
2) Expectations regarding performance and recognition need to be transparent and clear. This is to be sure that employees understand exactly the performance that is expected of them in order to receive recognition. Be sure that:
✓ Employees are trained about the performance process and how decisions are made regarding their level of performance.
✓ Employees understand the goals they need to accomplish and expectations around work performance to receive rewards/recognition.
3) Outcomes are fair and what employees feel is important. This includes making sure that the reward/recognition is suitable for their performance. Be sure that:
✓ The level of reward is in line with the level of effort or impact delivered.
✓ The recognition or performance rating received (not received) is on par with other employee’s performance rating. Consistency is important.
4) There are different levels of recognition that can be offered that allow all employees to participate and be recognized. Consider offering a mix of these to keep them engaged and motivated and create a positive employment atmosphere.
✓ Day to day recognition – examples include verbal praise or other ways to show your gratitude for all your employees.
✓ Informal recognition - spotting good performance and highlighting employees who have gone above and beyond in performance and who amplify your enterprises values is an example. This could be things you spot or “nominations” offered by other employees for their co-workers.
✓ Formal recognition – This is offered to employees who really stand out and are exception. This could include recognizing individuals for their 5-year anniversary or offering additional training opportunities.
5) Get to know your employees so you know what is important to them. Financial goals of wages/salary will be part of what motivates employees, but consider there are other goals that you could tap into as part of your plans to engage and support employees such as personal, educational, wellness/fitness, family or happiness. If you know a bit about what motivates them, you’ll do a better job of connecting those motivations to on farm work projects and/or ways to support and provide recognition.
6) Make sure employee skills and talents fit the job they are doing. Provide training will help them build competence but people have different work preferences. For example, if someone is not computer savvy and doesn’t want to be, that person is not suited for recordkeeping or other tasks that require computer skills. So, key to creating happy work environments is matching interests with tasks at least some of the time.
Action Steps/Questions to Consider
Do job descriptions provide details regarding tasks required for the job that you can measure against to see how well employees are doing?
How will you provide feedback to employees – both positive and corrective?
What are some day-to-day and informal actions you can take to show gratitude for employee’s good work?
What are some recognition rules that you could use that are clear and consistent for yourself and employees? Think about the tasks and expectations associated with the jobs on your farm and identify what “great work” looks like. Can you articulate this and recognize employees for this?
What are your next steps?
References
Fresh Ideas for Motivating & Recognizing Top Performers [Webinar recap]. Blueboard Blog. Found: https://www.blueboard.com/blog/fresh-ideas-for-motivating-recognizing-top-performers webinar-recap
Resources: Blueboard Interactive Workbook: Build an employee recognition program that sets your company apart. Found: https://www.blueboard.com/resources/blueboard-method employee-recognition-workbook
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This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2021‐70027‐34693, and is funded by the NE Risk Management Education Center.