A fresh approach to their staff roster has paid dividends for Scotts Gap sharemilkers Mark and Megan Cordiner. They pride themselves on how well they look after their employees and the team culture they build.
When the time came to recruit a new team member three years ago they gave some serious thought as to how they could attract more applicants. At the time they were running an 11-days-on, three-days-off roster. It seemed to work well for their system but they had noticed staff productivity tended to drop off about day seven of the 11-day stretch.
“Silly mistakes often happened in the last few days before the employee’s rostered time off and you could see the staff were getting tired,” Megan says.
The Cordiners have historically had a low staff turnover but were finding it increasingly difficult to attract quality employees to their farm, located almost an hour north-west of Invercargill.
They concluded the 11-and-3 roster was not providing the consistently high level of productivity and performance that they wanted in their business. The solution they came up with was to offer a work roster that would provide staff with a better work-life balance at minimal extra cost. They took a leap of faith and offered a five-days-on, two-days-off roster and haven’t looked back.
The job advertisement for the vacancy highlighted the 5-and-2 roster they were offering and they had more replies than ever before.
“We even had someone email not because she wanted to apply, but to congratulate us on offering that roster and say how impressed she was with our approach,” Megan says.
The Cordiners picked the 5-and-2 roster over other rosters because it’s simple.
“We can’t fault it,” Megan says.
“We want our staff to have a social life and to have a level of work-life balance that is sustainable. The 5-and-2 roster gives them that.”
The couple have two full-time employees and work full-time onfarm themselves. A casual employee works when needed.
The full-time employees work the 5-and- 2 roster year-round and are also given statutory holidays off. One employee has Friday-Saturday off and the other Sunday- Monday. This approach of one weekday and one weekend day means they can make appointments in town on a weekday, rather than needing to take unrostered time off during the week. Mark says they are open to employees opting for two weekdays off if that suited them best.
“The days off don’t change from week to week like some rosters so it’s easier to book appointments rather than always needing to refer back to the roster,” Megan says.
“We know that we have someone off work Friday to Monday so we make our appointments on the other days of the week,” Mark explains.
Both employees are onfarm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so team meetings and any jobs that require everyone on board are scheduled for those days.
The Cordiners find they get the same amount of work done with the slightly reduced working week compared with the 11-and-3 system.
“The increased efficiency because our staff are fresh more than makes up for the slightly reduced hours that they work on the shorter roster,” Mark says.
“Our wage bill hasn’t changed, we haven’t employed more casual staff to take up any slack or worked any harder ourselves.”
Mark and Megan say they struggled a bit at first with the new roster themselves. They initially had both employees off on Friday-Saturday and would take some time off themselves on Sunday-Monday but found they tended to go out and work those days anyway. They now take a more flexible approach to taking time off themselves, preferring to have “floating” time off that fits around their workload.
“Mark and I work pretty hard between calving and Christmas, and we ease off a bit later in the season,” Megan explains.
“We take time off as we are able to but it’s not set in stone.”
Under the 5-and-2 roster the employees work a full 10-hour day for each rostered day, compared with a more traditional 11-and-3 roster where at the weekends “on” days are often milkings only, with no work done in the middle of the day. This explains the minimal difference in hours worked per fortnight under both systems.
The downside of the “milkings only” weekend is although people have time off, it’s often not enough time to go anywhere and they don’t tend to think of it as time off when they need to be back for afternoon milkings.
The benefits to the Cordiners business of adopting a 5-and-2 roster have been a clear improvement in employee performance and productivity, fewer mistakes, and happier staff.
“We haven’t had any serious harm accidents on our farm, but we are mindful that a large portion of our farm is quite steep and a potential hazard, particularly when staff are tired,” Megan says.
The team start at the same time every day and get an hour for breakfast and an hour for lunch.
“We don’t operate sleep-in systems like some farms do – we find this upsets the body clock a bit much and it’s not such a big ask to get up early five days in a row compared with 11 days in a row.”
Feedback from employees is it’s much easier to catch up on what is happening when they return to work from two days off compared with three, particularly over the busy spring period.
Megan reckons that the shorter roster actually made the calving period easier.
“Staff are working long hours through spring either way, but the more regular time off helps them to stay reasonably fresh and we benefit from fewer mistakes and better attention to detail.”
While it is difficult to quantify these benefits in dollar terms, improved employee productivity and performance suggests there will be some degree of financial advantage.
The Cordiners’ herd manager Steven is a big fan of the 5-and-2 roster, although he admits he had his doubts initially.
“I previously worked an 11-and-3 roster and that was just what I was used to. The biggest benefit of the 5-and-2 roster is I’m nowhere near as tired as I was at my last job.”
He now has more time to pursue his love of competitive snooker and see friends more regularly. When asked what the downsides are to this roster he replies, “I haven’t found one yet.”
Steven has also worked an 8-and-2 roster and says the downside to that was never having all staff on the farm at the same time.
The younger staff often wanted to swap with other employees so they could have weekends off and this could lead to conflict.
“I think you need set days off,” Steven says.
“Chopping and changing all the time like the 8-and-2 roster is difficult to manage.”
In terms of remuneration, the salaries paid to the Cordiners’ employees under the 5-and-2 roster are comparable to what they would be paid on an 11-and-3 roster.
The hours worked tend to be relatively similar under both scenarios so the pay should reflect that.The way the Cordiners have structured their system means they achieve win-win outcomes for themselves and their staff.
Staff are still well paid and benefit from a better work-life balance and the Cordiners benefit from improved productivity, a happier team, and a business that runs more smoothly.
They want to attract employees who are dedicated to farming and who they can help to progress in the industry. They encourage staff to pursue training and development opportunities and enjoy seeing their staff develop their skills and abilities.
“Now that we’re at this stage of our career we get as much satisfaction in helping young people succeed as we do from our cows,” Mark says.
Mark and Megan joke that while a 2-on and 5-off roster would be even better, they have no reason at the moment to consider another roster system.
“It works for our business, for the infrastructure we have, it’s flexible and our staff tell us they love it. If our staff are happy, we are happy,” Megan says.
Key points
50:50 sharemilkers: Mark and Megan Cordiner
Location: Scott’s Gap, Otautau, Western Southland
Contour: Two-thirds gently rolling, one-third hills
Farm dairy: 40-aside herringbone
Effective area: 210ha
Cows: 625 crossbreds
Production: 260,000kg milksolids (MS), 413kg MS/cow, 1238kg MS/ha
Farm system: System 5
