How to employ the best workers for your Farm.

It is a well known fact that employees are one of the integral parts of of any business, agriculture is also not left out. It is obvious that no matter how small your farm is, either you have other businesses or not, at some point you will need to employ extra hands. Asides educational background, field experience or qualifications of the person you intend to employ, hiring the wrong person to manage or work on your farm can make your business collapse before you know what is happening. As much as you can’t completely avoid these kind of people, because we all know everyone is of their best behaviour while seeking for employment, right? only a few are really true to that behaviour, there are ways to identify them and correct that to avoid.

​Types of employees that can make your agribusiness crash before your own eyes:

1. The absentees : They always have an excuse to be absent. These types of employees are talented with different “reasons” why they wouldn’t be able to show up at work the following the or for the next few days. It is either because their cousins mother father sister’s naming ceremony or emergency illness. Now don’t get me wrong, these things happen, we are all human beings not robots and at some point we can have health issues or need to attend to important functions. Which is why as a farm owner you should make sure your workers have days off, now this might seem difficult for livestock farmers because animals have to eat everyday, either Christmas or independence day. If any of your workers wants to request for days off he/she should notify the management at least three days before hand so arrangements can be made for someone else to stand in for them. The worker should inform the management as early as possible regarding emergency reasons like health related issues or unforeseen circumstances.

2. The often late comers: These type of workers are never time conscious, they should be cautioned and there should be penalty for this behaviour. Ensure as a farm owner you have a way to monitor what time your employees get to work. Maybe your opening time is 8:00am you don’t want your workers strolling into the work premises by 9:30am. You can have a time book, I know what came to your mind yes people can easily lie with that afterall it is just a pen and a book. Let me tell you about an experience I had when I visited a feedmill in Akure Ondo State, I was at the feedmill by few minutes past 7am on a Tuesday because I had get feed ingredients for the farm, unfortunately, the gate was still locked no one was there, so I had to wait by by 7:29am I saw one of the workers rushing towards the gate, she couldn’t even respond when I greeted her, she was in so much hurry, she opened the gate then went to the admin office to call the Manager with a phone that was locked in the office to confirm her resumption time before signing the time book. You can adopt this method.

3. The wasteful ones: These types of workers waste resources on the farm like feed, medication, fertilizers etc. Here is why record keeping (accountability) is very important, ensure that you go through the record regularly or have someone do it for you, also it is advisable to have a weighing scale on your farm.

​4.The lazy ones: A lot of farms have these group of people working with them. They just want to get paid for doing nothing. Visit the farm unannounced to supervise or have have someone to that for you.

5. The know it all: These types of workers are not ready to improve their knowledge, they believe they know it all which is dangerous for farms because there are new discoveries from researchers almost everyday. Organizing trainings for these type of workers will also be a challenge.

6. The smugglers: They can move (steal) anything and everything from your farm before you know what is happening. Keep records and check the records regularly, as the boss, show up or have a trustworthy person stand in for you.

Conclusion: There are great workers and experience workers out there. Your employees can help grow your business and at the same time bring it down. Be careful, vigilant and be nice to your employees. Remember they are humans too STOP taking advantage of your employees, appreciate little things and be approachable, don’t be an undercover masquerade and most importantly PAY WELL and pay on time, if you feel like your employees are not doing enough try doing it yourself, this will make it easier for you to explain to them. Please don’t forget to like, share and comment Thank you.