Experts: Having Good Workplace Helps with Retention
Published: Friday, September 9, 2022
On Monday, schools and businesses closed in honor of America's labor force.
According to the Department of Labor, "the holiday is rooted in the late nineteenth century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America's strength, prosperity and well-being."
Today, the American workforce seems to be dwindling, and Michigan State University Extension and Purdue University Extension educators are saying that this trend is due, in part, to worker dissatisfaction, the COVID-19 pandemic and the distance between farming and the youth of today.
Phil Durst is the MSU senior Extension educator for dairy and beef cattle health and production and serves as the president of the National Assn. of County Agricultural Agents in Ogemaw County. He works with dairy and beef farmers across the state and has published two papers in Journal of Dairy Science based on a project he and a colleague conducted to improve employee management on farms.
He says farms need to pay extra attention to the hiring process.
"We need to look at labor efficiency and labor productivity," he said. "The longer someone is on staff, the more productive they should be." This starts with hiring and training capable employees.
Emily Kreska is the Kosciusko County agriculture and natural resources Extension educator. She started her job earlier this year and has been working with a focus on how the stresses of farming are affecting farmers.
She says labor shortages correlate with signs of stress and depression in farmers.
If you are a farmer and are feeling stressed due to the ag labor shortage or the many challenges farming brings, you are not alone."
Stan Moore is a farm business management Extension educator in Antrim County and has worked specifically with labor management. He has also co-authored the annual bulletin on farm labor laws.
He says farmers must focus on creating good workplace environments.
Moore and Durst worked together in 2015, studying employee engagement and satisfaction on dairy farms across Michigan, and now they give their comments on the workforce shortage and how it is affecting farmers across Michigan and the U.S.
"Finding efficient labor is –it's not there. And I don't know if it's a case of fewer people or of fewer people willing to work on farms," Durst said. "That tends to be my assumption."
The problem is it creates issues on the farm and requires other people, generally the owners or the managers, to work longer hours and do more jobs, he said.
Smaller farms can cover their bases easier than larger farms by extending their hours for owners and managers, Moore says, but that creates a problem of safety, as owners and managers are hurt the most out of anyone on the farm.
"As challenges on farm continue to increase, signs of stress are also rising among farmers," Kresca said.
Some of the challenges Kresca identified include: an increased workload, not being able to take personal time away from the farm and a bleak outlook on retirement, as it may seem unrealistic or may not be an option.
Durst added, "In order to get through the day-to-day, they sacrifice the forward planning that they really need to be doing."
He also states that dairies, in particular, are facing challenges of maintaining help year-round due to the round-the-clock nature of the work.
"What I hear from farmers is that many local workers don't like to work as hard, long, early, whatever, as the job requires," Durst said. "The population of young people these days isn't used to hard work."
It takes extra effort to use local workers because they need more help, encouragement and to be challenged by the farmers, he said. They need that help because they simply aren't prepared for the workload.
Moore and Durst both mention the utilization of the H-2A program.
Between 2005 and 2020 the number of H-2A workers grew from approximately 50,000 to 275,000, and now there are over 300,000 H-2A workers being utilized, Moore said.
He mentioned the program's expense as a problem in the program as well, because it is far over the minimum wage. H-2A workers have the set wage of $15.30 per hour in Michigan and $15.89 per hour in Indiana. This puts pressure on the farmer and the farm wage, Moore said.
It is hard for dairies to hire via the H-2A program because they are limited to a span of nine months, Durst said. He is working with farmers to try to get around this problem and says he is developing a plan to create a hiring cycle so the three-month gap gets filled.
"We think it's actually workable for dairies," he said. "I know it's a stretch. I know that it takes more management, but the employees will help out in that regard by recruiting people to be the next one who takes their place."
"The reality is that we're going to have to piece things together in order to have a full workforce," Durst said.
Farms that need more labor are often specialty crop operations, and will be affected first by the labor shortage, Moore said. H-2A has been a help to those vegetable and specialty crop farms, but the issue is that it has become a very popular asset for farmers to turn to.
Moore says challenges farmers face because of insufficient labor vary a lot based on the employee turnover rates they have and the market they're in.
A farm with a high employee turnover rate is going to be more affected than one with a low turnover rate, Moore says.
"Consistency in labor eventually affects quality and supply," he said.
This affects a timely harvest in specialty crops that rely on hand labor. "All of these challenges could then begin to negatively affect the farmer's mental health," Kresca said. "I don't think there is one sect of farming that is struggling more than others. There are shortages in all areas of agriculture because there are fewer young farmers and the general population is further removed from the farm."
She cites the 2017 Census of Agriculture State Profile for Indiana, noting the average age of a farmer is 57.5 years old.
"As farmers begin to reach retirement age, there are fewer young farmers ready to fill in that position. With only 2 percent of the U.S. population involved in agriculture, the general population is getting further and further removed from the farm," she said. "Some reasons for this may be due to high land prices, the volatility of the markets and the need for work-life balance."
During the pandemic, many people decided to retire or start their own business, which pulled people out of the available labor market, Moore said. He thinks that a portion of these individuals will re-enter the workforce because they realize entrepreneurship is not for them or they retired too early.
"It won't be the solution (to the labor shortages), but it will help ease the pressure," Moore said.
He says farmers are struggling with shortages in their workforce because the entire country is experiencing a lack of labor. He holds hope for rural areas, though, because they often have less job opportunities, which acts as a buffer against the competition.
Moore also recently conducted a study in which he and colleagues asked farm employees what their intention to stay with their employer was and why. They found that the biggest factors in this decision were whether the individuals had a good relationship with their employer and co-workers and whether or not they had the training to work independently.
Those who had good work relationships were 1.6 percent more likely to stay and those who had the independence, confidence and knowledge to do their jobs well and address challenges quickly were three times more likely to stay than those who did not have adequate knowledge confidence or independence in their job.
Farmers need to begin focusing their efforts on the priority of retaining employees, Durst says. This starts with the training; giving new hires the attention they need to be able to do their work well and independently, he said.
Farmers are currently looking at labor efficiency because productivity increases with the longevity of employees' services.
"The reality is that it takes more time, but the results will be far greater in the end," Durst said.
Farmers are starting to use different types of technology to make up for the lack of labor on their farms (i.e., robotic dairies), plant crops that are easier to manage and require fewer laborers and scale back their operations or put a hold on plans to expand their farms, Kresca said.
Durst says technology can't replace the people because they have brains and can notice slight changes in animal behavior and health long before a machine can.
"Employees are needed to meet consumers' needs for careful and kind care of the animals and for the quality of milk and meat," Durst said.
He encourages farmers to be open to non-traditional hires.
"In recruiting employees, you have to be creative, but you also have to paint a picture of what it is employees experience on the farm. The good and the bad," he said. "Give them a vision that is higher than themselves and higher than the farm because frankly, it is an important job to our country."
To attract and keep workers, farmers must be the employer of choice, Moore said. This can be done by creating good relationships. His study also found that employees are twice as likely to recommend the farm if they experienced good work relationships compared to those who experienced bad work relationships.
The strength, prosperity and the well-being of America are not only all aspects of the Labor Day celebration, but they are also all points that Durst encourages farmers to focus on as they seek to strengthen their labor forces.
"The best employees will want other good people to work on the farm, and the best employees need to be encouraged to be a part of recruiting. We need to build our teamwork on farms and take pride in what we do on farms," Durst said.
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