Lancaster farming. (Lancaster, Pa., etc.) 1955-current, March 27, 1993, Image 32
A32-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 27, 1993 Farm Employers Learn How To Attract, Keep Workers VERNON ACHENBACH JR. Lancaster Fanning Staff INTERCOURSE (Lancaster Co.) —An almost ideal class room setting would include a respected, charismatic teacher with a solid grasp of the subject, and a class of several eager, will ing students. While that may be the epitomy and the rare reality for those within the traditional educational system, it is not the norm for the many seminars coordinated and offered to those in agriculture. Normal agricultural seminars are a series of speakers with hand outs and slide shows or overhead projector transparencies. However, on Wednesday, Dr. Bemie Erven, professor and Extension specialist in labor man agement at Ohio State University, used about every classroom teach ing trick in the book and a few others to evoke participation in discussions, and to pass along techniques and tools for hiring farm labor. Erven, who grew up on an Ohio farm, has degrees from Ohio State and University of Wisconsin and just recently returned from a year at Cornell University, N.Y., where he worked with several national leaders in farm and personnel management Twenty-one people attended the Intercourse $3O-per-person, $5O-per-couple event, held at Harvest Drive Restaurant, on Wednesday. A repeat of the class was held Thursday at the Allen town Days Inn. The seminars were sponsored by the Penn Stale University Extension offices of Chester and Northampton counties, and included a noon meal. The seminar went from 9 a.m. to a little past 4 p.m. Specifically, Erven covered finding, recruiting, training and keeping farm employees. While he followed a certain for mat, the professor said that he tries to stay flexible in his presentations to the needs of the group. He said the dialogue and participation was above his expectations. The program was the fust one of its kind offered by extension in the area, and will likely return, accord ing to Alan Shock, multi-county extension agent However, Shock said that the program will likely be picked up under the Dairy MAP program, which is a coming series of intensive educational offerings designed to aid successful opera tion of a dairy farm. According to Erven, manage ment is nothing more than the art of creative problem solving. In order to be a better and more efficient manager, it helps to be exposed to a number of different tools used successfully by others according to certain scenarios. The key of the information offered from Erven seemed to be that a personal desire for honesty and a constant re-evaluation of perspective, facts and priorities, can help establish a working envi ronment desirable and mutually beneficial to the employer and employee. The lessons offered by Erven were numerous. Those who parti cipated said they felt the seminar was worth the cost His teaching technique seemed to be to hint at the what he was try ing to convey, through partial, sen sationalized statements, or through ancedote and actual or reported occurances. The participants then offered summaries of what he was saying. He would stay on a topic until it was clear that the concept was grasped and that the “students” had vocalized an understanding of the material. The group was set up in a semi circle around Erven, who manned his overhead projector and fre quently used a portable black board, but spent most of the time traveling the room, maintaining eye and verbal contact, offering participants equal access to himself. He also relied on humor to cre ate a sense of ease. Among some of his offerings, he warned the group about seeking identical-quality people for all jobs on the farm. The point was to build a force with multiple talents, viewpoints, and personal goals. The reason was so that the work force not only gets along better because worker infighting from direct competition is lessened, but because of the greater depth of experience and skills which can be brought to use. “Every dairy farm should have somebody who doesn’t like cows,” he said. He said that the employer has to be honest with self-analysis and figure out who they are and what they want out of life and their busi ness, before starting to decide what they want others to do. He told the group they must ‘Know yourself. Know your farm. Know your strengths and weaknesses.” One of the class participation activities included breaking the group into four groups two groups were to write down the advantages of working at a farm, the other two groups were to list the disadvantages. After a 10-minute period, the group got back together and, using a blackboard and chalk. Erven wrote down the reasons. He and the participants reviewed each of the reasons listed. For each advantage, they talked about validity of them as selling points for a job. For each disadvan tage, they talked about ways to minimize the disadvantage or eli minate it On the list of advantages were working with living things; diver sity of job; outdoor working; flexi bility in hours; job satisfaction in creating a needed product; no traff ic problems to get to work; work with family; and recreational perks, such as hunting and fishing. The disadvantages were work ing in miserable weather; long hours and low pay; dangerous; no vacations; little chance of advancement; fewer benefits than non-farm jobs; the work is never finished; jobs are undefined; and their is low prestige. Of course, other considerations for both points of view were given, but Erven limited the issues to those which could be listed and dealt with in a reasonable time. The conclusion reached was that there are “Some very important pluses in farm work,” Erven said. The disadvantages, he said, could be addressed through management creative problem solving. For miserable weather, the solu tions provided by Erven and the group was to provide adequate protective clothing for workers, which would include rain gear, boots, etc., and to also consider modifying equipment to provide for worker comfort. Erven said that many studies and farmer seminars deal with ani- mal comforts and improving their environmental working conditions to get more efficient results. He said that same concern should also be address toward the worker. The issue of long hours and low pay is one by which the farm employer knows he is getting free work beyond a reasonable number of hours. According to Erven, a study showed that farmworkers working beyond 40 hours a week were being paid $1.60 for each addition al hour. At 60 to 80 hours per week, a worker will get tired. Tired people make mistakes and take shortcuts. Erven said that employers have to look at the potential losses which can be felt to a business when ask ing workers to put in long hours for low pay. On the other hand. Erven told the group, “Good labor manage ment is not an excuse for poor bus iness management” His point being that there is a lot of work to be done in setting up an organized, functional farming operation, and labor management is but one consideration. Erven said that the reasons given most often by an employer for an employee leaving a job is compensation. However, Erven said that employees reveal that compensation is far down the list in what keeps them on a job. While not suggesting that pay is unimportant. Erven said it’s not everything employers have to realize they can and do offer more than compensation for work performed. “Employers tend to overesti mate pay and underestimate job satisfaction.” He also told the group they must treat their workers as individuals, as people. He said there is no for mula for success in estalishing a good relationship. He said that rewards and incentives expected or unexpected should be in place for good performance. He said that if a worker is doing a good job, instead of giving that worker money (depending on the worker), there are other creative ways to reward that person that shows that you understand what that person likes. It does two things; it helps create a loyalty and it doesn’t have to be as expensive, or more expen sive than a cash bonus. Another guideline Erven offered is that small businesses should be regularly losing their best employees and their worst employees. Although purposefully losing a good worker may not seem like a good move, it is important to rec ognize when a worker is overquali fied or has worked up to a position where there is no longer any room for advancement. Erven said in these cases, it may be best to talk to the worker, sug gest trying to help him secure a better job, tell him that the busi ness can’t afford to pay him what he is worth. The key to it is, the farm gets the benefit of having a good worker who is moving up. If the employer tried to keep a good worker with out eventually recognizing an ina bility to compensate that worker for skills developed, etc., that farm may never see another informed good worker again, because even tually the reputation will get out that there is a poor employer run ning things. Getting rid of the worst workers is also a necessity, but how the employer handles the dismissal of that worker is also very important Erven suggested taking the tact that it’s obvious the job isn’t suited for him, and to try to leave the for mer worker with opinion that he left a place that was good for the right person. Erven said the goal would be for the former worker to tell his friends, “It wasn’t for me. but you’d probably do pretty well.” As far as the safety aspect, that also can be minimized through education, adopting a safety atti tude, and through regular mainte nance of equipment and maintain ing safety features. The undefined job is really the failure of the employer to properly analyze himself, his farm and weaknessess and strengths. Erven said, “I know. You hired the man to do the milking and any thing else you want him to do, when you want him to do, and at anytime. That’s why he gets use of the house.” The participants’ laughter at Erven’s sarcasm, however didn’t last as he addressed the low pre stige associated with some farm work, and went back to address the lack of farm job definitions. For low prestige, there are many things which can be done to improve that. Mostly, however, is the attitude of the employer. If he does not consider it to be a presti gious job, the worker won’t either. Moreover, community interac tion goes a long way to establish- ing prestige. He said that a survey done among the American people of what they thought was the most prestigious job in U.S. society showed the most common answer was supreme court justice. PSU Dairy Club Contest UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre Co.) Nearly 200 young people participated in Penn State’s Spring Dairy Cattle Judging Contest last weekend, including 120 in the4-H division, 51 in FFA, and 25 in col legiate intramural competition. The winning senior 4-H team from Susquehanna County con sisted of Josh Harvatine, David Harvatine, Steven Pavelski, and Andrea Gamer. Susquehanna was also high team for reasons. Plac ing second overall was a team from Blair County including Joe Still, Rebecca Kelly, J.D. Kelly, and Kristi Morrow. Lycoming, Lawrence, and Wayne Counties placed third through fifth, respectively. The high individual in senior 4-H competition was Donald Har wood of Franklin County, fol lowed by Josh Harvatine, Susque hanna; David Fava, Washington; Maggie Whiting, Lawrence: and Zack Bryant, Wayne. In oral rea son competition, David Fava ranked first, followed by Matthew Day of Cumberland County and Jessica Dean of Lawrence County. The Armstrong County team brought back the highest honors in the junior 4-H division in dairy. Team members included Leland Claypool, Roy Claypool, Travis Walker, and Todd Walker. Wayne County’s Jessica Chyle, Jarrod Burleigh, Alan Woodmansee, and Shelly Woodmansee placed sec ond. Lawrence, Lycoming, and Susquehanna Counties were third through fifth. Jessica Whiting of Lawrence County was high junior 4-H indi vidual. Matt Pease. Susquehanna, placed second, and Roy Claypool Erven then discussed all the negatives associated with being a supreme court justice. “For every single job. you can make an impressive list (for disad vantages),” he said. Once all the job descriptions are done “Be specific. Milking is not a job description; it’s the name of some work.” the best way to precede is to try to create as large a pool of applicants for the job as is possible. Erven said that he presents this formula: get the largest number of applicants (Don’t make the appli cations too specific or irrelevant. He said he likes one-page applica tions which give the basics —- name, education and experi ence.); select from the applicants those who should be interviewed; do the interviews and make a selection. White he offered some insight into each aspect of the hiring for mula, he did say that the best way to build up a good pool of applic ants is to advertise. He said the best way to do that is to use want ad sec tions of newspapers. Using word of mouth advertis ing for a job, or relying on close references, limits the number of applicants and puts the farm employer at a loss of control in get ting the best workers he can. He also suggested training someone with desire but little experience, as opposed to some one with lots of experience, but also attitude. Although there was much more offered during the seminar, Erven said that it was key that the parti cipants changed their operations slowly. He suggested five years. of Armstrong and Jessica Chyle of Wayne County tied for third. Leland Claypool placed fifth. For reasons, Adam Dean and Jessica Whiting of Lawrence County tied for first, followed by Jeremy Stackhouse of Lycoming. Tulpehocken walked away with the senior FFA contest. Team members Andy Bicksler, Jennifer Grimes, and Melissa Bicksler placed first, third, and fifth indivi dually. Tulpehocken also was high team for reasons, with Andy Bicksler high reason individual. Placing second overall was a team from West Perry, followed by Central Cove. Meranda Dum was second high individual overall and for reasons. Katie Biddle of Slate College was fourth high overall. In junior FFA competition, the winning team was from Centre County. Members were Kenny Brown, Brandy Semestrote, Ryan Connelly, and Trish Watson. Teams from Oxford and Sugar Valley placed second and third. The top five individuals were Brandy Semestrote; Doug Har bach, Sugar Valley; Ryan Connel ly; Mike Benfer, Central Cove: and Jill Booth of Oxford. In rea sons, Jess Lawrence of Lawrence County, followed by Brandy Semestrote. In collegiate intramural com petition, high overall individual was Thad Sturgeon, followed by Todd Biddle, Andy Foster, Kathy Pavelski, and Dwight Sloltzfus. In oral reasons, Biddle placed first. Stoltzfus, Sturgeon, and Andrew Morley followed in second through fifth. The contest was sponsored by the Penn State Dairy Science Club.