The state-owned farming enterprise has five dairy farms in the top half of the West Coast, ranging from 720-cow herds to 1120 cows and four to five permanent staff on each who now work no longer than six days straight even in the thick of calving.
Rebecca Keoghan has only recently moved into the role of business manager of the five farms after years working for the health and safety-conscious cement industry. She runs a 200-cow farm with her husband Nathan, so understands the long hours and fatigue that staff face. It’s the health and safety aspect of fatigue that makes her a strong advocate of the farms’ new rosters, followed closely by the effect it has on team morale.
“It’s all about reducing those risks. And happy people enjoying their work perform better.
“Most of these people are working 12 hours a day during peak periods. The cups are on at 4am and they’re getting back home quite late sometimes.”
Staff can only continue those long days safely and happily for a short time, so to Keoghan it’s a no-brainer to have shorter rosters and recovery time before going back to work. At Cape Foulwind’s Tram Road dairy farm, the team of five full-time staff have opted for a roster of five days on and two off for the twice-a-day milking of 1000 cows. The roster is split between those starting on a Sunday and on a Monday to ensure the busy week-days are covered and also allow staff to have one day in the weekend to spend with family and friends.
Manager Josh Van der Weyden was sole charge on a 200-cow Landcorp farm before moving to Tram Road two years ago and experienced the dramatic change from 12-days-on, two-days-off to four-days-on, two-days-off.
It’s easier manipulating the roster with more staff, but he wouldn’t want to go back to the grind of 12 days when there are so many positives with a shorter roster.
These days he works a five-day week from Monday to Friday, while two staff take a break Friday-Saturday and the other two Saturday-Sunday.
Landcorp’s Tram Road employee Mikaela Neighbours works five days on, two days off.
“The guys really enjoy it; they’re not so fatigued and they’re getting some weekend days off. During the weekend they just do the basics of milking and feeding the cows and we get in a casual to help because we need three people at milking for safety.”
With only three people needed for milking, they take turns for a sleep-in each morning and that also helps keep fatigue at bay.
“I can see why guys do the longer rosters because they want to get the most out of their staff instead of getting casuals, but all you’re doing is grinding them down. We have one permanent casual relief milker at $20 an hour who works seven hours a day for two days over the weekend. It’s a really minimal cost when you look at it.”
The critical factor for shorter rosters is employing experienced, sensible casual staff to work during the weekends, he says.
In spring the dairy farm had four staff while it looked for a fifth experienced employee, so changed the roster to six days on and two off to make sure it had sufficient people at the weekend. With the fifth employee on board, they dropped it back to four on and two off.
Next door at Landcorp’s Totara dairy farm, the five staff have chosen a roster of six days on and three off for the once-a-day milking of 1180 cows.
“They’ve been all over the show deciding what suits their team and have decided on six and three because they find the extra day off means the team is more refreshed. It’s too hard otherwise and fatigue becomes a health and safety issue.
“They did try five and two and that worked at the peak, but after the stress of calving they decided to make the most of six and three to get people away for holidays before mating.”
Along the road at Bassetts dairy farm where 1100 cows are milked twice-a-day, the team of five staff aged between 18 and 60 worked on a four-on, two-off roster through spring before moving to five-and-a-half-days on and two days off. It takes four hours to milk the cows in three herds, so the roster allows those staff on Friday’s morning milking to do a half day before taking their two days off.
Bassetts 23-year-old farm manager Jack Raharuhi began working on the farm as a 15-year-old doing 12 days on and two days off and remembers the exhaustion during those two days off and dreading the beginning of the next 12-day stint.
“I remember being a wreck, whereas now you’re always energised.
“With four days on and two off, everyone stays fresh. You get good quality work and they’re working safely because they’re not tired. They’re focused. I think the quality of work you’re getting out of your workers pays for the hours they get off.
“It means you can be efficient on the farm while having a work-life balance.”
Landcorp has a policy that employees on dairy farms work no more than 110 hours a fortnight and Raharuhi says long days on a roster of four days on and two days off still adds up to about the maximum hours during calving and mating.
He rotates the roster so those with children end up with a bigger stretch of weekdays and get two weekends off a month. Shorter rosters also increase the opportunity for employees to take four days annual leave to combine with their rostered time off, which helps use up annual leave through the year without impacting on the farm.
In the Grey Valley at Landcorp’s Sommervilles 980-cow farm, five staff worked six days on and two days off through calving before dropping to four days on and two days off. It’s a once-a-day herd because it’s a 5km trek for the cows from the furthest paddock to the dairy. Also in the Grey Valley is the Thompsons farm, where Landcorp employs four permanent staff for the 720-cow twice-a-day herd. They also work four days on and two days off after doing five days on and two days off during calving.
On each of the five Landcorp dairy farms in the region, the rosters have been a team decision, Keoghan says, so everyone is happy with the result.
“The team approach is good for morale and if you want a team working well together, they need to be happy. So get them away from the farm and fresh, then they will work better as a team.”
It does mean each farm has to pay more hours for casual staff than they did on the 12-day-on, two-day-off roster, with relief milkers during weekends and calf rearers through spring. It’s an extra cost, but she says the business is better for it.
“You either have relief milkers and casual staff to cover or you have fewer people onfarm through those change-overs and we would prefer extra people coming in. So there is a cost, but there is no cost to health and safety.
“I think if you looked at productivity versus time off and recovering though, you’d be in the positive,” she says. “We’d be distressed if anyone wanted to go back to over eight days on.”
As well as introducing shorter rosters for the teams on each farm, Landcorp is making sure staff get a good feed during those peak periods of long hours to avoid health and safety issues as well as boosting morale.
“During calving they’re doing long hours, so it’s important they eat properly, particularly those 17 and 18-year-olds.”
It varies between farms, with a wife or partner of one of the staff employed to cook breakfast each day. Often a crockpot will be simmering away in the smoko room for staff to tuck into after milking. It’s also a chance for staff to sit down together for a chat, Keoghan says. Another option is lunch boxes filled with healthy snacks to munch on through the day and keep energy up.
Once a month, Landcorp puts on a lunch that brings staff from all five farms together for a health and safety meeting, but also a chance for a chat and laugh, she says.
“We want happy people enjoying their work and so they perform better. It’s all about happy workers and retaining staff and our goal is to keep good staff.”
Before retaining staff, Landcorp, like any dairy farm, has to attract staff and Keoghan says the changes should make it more attractive to prospective employees as well. That means getting the message out there, and has led to a scholarship programme with the local Buller High School.
This is the first year Landcorp has offered the two scholarships of $2000 a year toward study in agriculture, science or a related field, with three years’ paid holiday employment at one of the Cape Foulwind dairy farms.
“Some might come back and work for us one day. Plus it gets Landcorp’s name into the community and is a way of giving back to the community.”
