Newsletter #18

I had the pleasure of speaking with 2 farmers this morning, both new to me and we hadn’t chatted before. They had approached me due to people recently leaving their businesses and now they are having recruitment processes to address (which I will be helping them with).

It will be interesting to meet up with these farmers, to understand why these people left (absolutely the first thing to understand when looking to recruit) and how we go about finding them new people.

Now, the horse has bolted so to speak, for these 2 farmers. But, and this is important and I will come to it shortly in more detail, they are being proactive about things….

An hour or so after speak to these guys, I took the dogs out for an hour and its normally whilst walking that my mind is most active. I took to Instagram (if you don’t follow me, here you go - Agri Support Instagram) and chatted about why I feel being proactive and not complacent, is so important when it comes to recruitment and retainment of good people.

^{_{Point 1 -}}

The situation = Right, a key member of staff has handed in their notice and they are off. 

Being proactive is absolutely key here, don’t ignore things and just put it down to bad luck. People move on for a reason, lets establish that before much else, exit interviews exist for a reason after all. Learn what you can and don’t sit around wallowing about it.

Regardless of if you have 1, 2 or 3 months notice period to get things in place (they DID have a contract with notice period I presume….), time will fly by. Put the wheels in motion to replace this person asap, BUT - DO NOT RUSH THIS! Take your time, just start the process. Lean on other people to help here if need be.

The important thing is being proactive and intentional.

^{_{Point 2 -}}

The situation = A team member is clearly unhappy, and has been for a while.

Although unhappy, this person is still turning up and doing the job you need them to be doing, admittedly they might not be as up to speed as normal etc. The key thing is they are still here and still useful to you and the business.

We need to establish what the situation is here. Why is this person unhappy. It might be you, the boss, who is the issue. It could be the business or it could be something completely non work related and more like home issues etc. Whatever it is, if you are aware of it, you are more likely to be able to help and do something about it.

My experience here would suggest calling a big formal meeting will work with some people, but a more subtle approach, without catching them off guard, will be a more relaxed way of getting to the route of the unhappiness.

By doing this hard graft, finding out what is going on, could potentially save you from loosing this person to another farm and not having the recruitment headache to deal with.

^{_{Point 3 -}}

The situation = The team is flying, everyone is happy and productive.

Fan - bloody - tastic!

Lets sit back and watch from a distance, our wonderful team getting on and doing their jobs amazingly……we can do this of course. BUT…there is always a but…

DO NOT get complacent now.

There is always learnings to be had. Why is the team performing so well now? Ask them, what are they enjoying about their job right now. Can we look at past results / trends / data to back things up?

Things can always be improved. ALWAYS.

If we take our foot off the gas now and our eye of the road, things can change in a heart beat.

Retainment of great people is absolutely key to successful teams and businesses. Establish why its working and keep building on this 💪💪

I hope some of this has been useful to you.

As ever, if it has left you with more questions that need answering, get in touch and lets see if we can tackle things together.

Good luck to those of you that are still busy with drilling (I guess that will be most of us) and I prey for some better weather for us all.

Thanks for reading, take care.

Ben