On large farms, people are the most important element of the operation. Stuart Taylor, general manager for the OB Group, knows how important it is to get that aspect right. Having changed over the past 24 months from the traditional 12-on, 2-off, or 18-on, 3-off rostering systems to a 5-and-2 system, he and Regent Park farm manager Mark Broughton say it’s helping them attract good people and improving all areas of their business.
A key part of OB Group culture is “management leads from the front”. Stuart has seen managers burn out from 80-hour weeks, which begged the question, “how do you protect your team and keep the culture of management leading from the front?” His answer was to drop everyone’s hours.
“From the 1960s through to the 1990s it was mainly family-run dairy farms with a few hundred cow herds. They worked hard in spring and had time off the rest of the year; they had the luxury of taking time off when they needed.”
However, the scale and structure of dairy farming has changed, farms and herds are larger and more staff are being employed, Stuart says.
“As dairy farming entered the modern era, the old systems stayed intact, but that wasn’t going to work anymore. The drop in workload after spring ceased to exist and 80-hour weeks became the norm. Rigid rosters came into force and flexibility and life-work balance was lost.
“The old saying that you work hard, own your own farm isn’t happening and people are burning out still trying to get there. The systems we used up to the 90s don’t work any more. You go into some farms today, and there’s brand-new workers, just out of high school, and they’re excited and love their job – you go back in a few months time and they’re just zombies because of their workload.”
Stuart says he didn’t want a culture where management ordered everyone around. He wanted a system that was fair on everyone, so people could come in at 16, have a job they enjoyed, and still have time to do what they wanted in their personal lives.
Stuart decided to adopt his current system of 5-on, 2-off for all farm staff. Staff work about 50 hours a week over 48 weeks with Friday-Saturday or Sunday-Monday as typical days off, allowing staff to enjoy a break at the weekend. The 2IC and manager work on a 12-on, 2-off roster, about 60 hours a week, which allows Mark to keep in touch with his team and helps keep consistency in the system. Most farm work is done on Tuesday through Thursday when they are fully staffed. Having one extra person on the team who works fewer hours means the rest of the team don’t have to take up the slack.
“It also creates flexibility. If someone wants to go and see their kid at cross-country they can go, and they feel comfortable approaching us to ask for that sort of thing. That’s the best bit about working on an hourly rate as opposed to salary.”
At busy times of the year the roster stays the same but the hours are increased slightly to accommodate the increased work load.
Since the roll-out of the new roster, Stuart and Mark have noticed fewer breakages, and say staff are happier in general, not as tired, more efficient with their time, and come up with more ideas. And it’s at no extra cost when compared to their previous system.
“They learn faster because they’re not tired and stressed, which are key drivers to learning. In the old system we would stress them out, make them tired and then wonder why they weren’t learning anything.”
The change has helped them attract better people into the business. The farm is going through a rebuilding phase and while the team is relatively new, Stuart and Mark agree they have decent, hardworking people who are keen to build a career in the industry, something they are happy to facilitate.Stuart says there are good people out there, it’s just a matter of offering a package that will suit them.
“An hourly rate draws in the contractor, the fencer and the drystock worker, all good people who don’t want to work long hours but are happy working five days a week.
“It’s definitely not a system that takes away from high performers who want to work hard to get ahead. The high performers are captured, and promoted if they want management-ownership roles. We simply offer a package that allows them to get ahead and have a life outside work as well, which is important.”
Half their workforce drive from town to work, allowing them to step away from the job at the end of the day and come back the next day refreshed.
The more staff you employ, the stronger your roster needs to be, Stuart says.
Stuart says sometimes it can be difficult to have fluidity in the day-to-day running of the farm, with people coming and going.
“If you just have three workers and you’re just doing the same thing all the time it’s easy, but here someone could be starting a job and another person finishing, but that just requires a bit of skill from the manager to make sure it all flows smoothly.”
“I encourage them to communicate with each other, which they are really great at. It’s a culture of feedback and creates accountability and responsibility,” Mark says.
One negative of the system they are trying to solve is the drop in hours and change in pay. During busy periods, because staff are paid by the hour, they have an influx of cash, countered by the quiet time of the year when they have less coming in.
“We have minimum hours in our contracts so they get a minimum of 45 hours a week, but it does make it a bit harder for them to budget. We do have a few options on the table, one being bringing in temporary labour for the busy periods and dropping them out, but we really want to keep the team together.
“We also thought about doing a savings scheme were we can equalise out their income throughout the year, so basically they are saving through the busy period and we pay that back out to them, but it doesn’t allow much transparency. We really want the individual to take responsibility for their own finances, but we are working to find a solution to that one.”
Mark has drawn up a season rotation planner showing staff what their hours are at different times of year to allow them to do some forward planning. He also schedules monthly reviews with all his staff, to track progress and keep his finger on the pulse.
“It means everyone knows what they need to do, and knows we are all in this together and can function well as a team, which makes for a pretty neat work environment.”
Stuart says the change in roster has been about keeping a balance, and keeping managers and workers from burning out.
“My greatest need is to have really good people who want to learn, come up with great ideas and are reliable self leaders. Previously I wasn’t capturing these guys because what I was offering in terms of hours wasn’t fitting what they wanted in life.
“A lot of young guys don’t want to own a farm, but they want to work in the industry and have work-life balance that has been absent from the industry for a long time. So it was a matter of saying, how do we make the job fit the people that we want.”
Stuart says the system will continue to evolve as they get new people on-board but they will stick with the basics, and he hopes it will continue to attract motivated and passionate young people.
“We treat our team with respect and find out what they want in life and try and help them along the way. If we have kids come here who want to progress in the industry and we can help them then we will; if they want a long-term career here then we can provide that too.”
Stuart says every farm is different, and for some, their system might not fit, but it’s about being flexible and figuring out what’s going to work best on your farm and for the people you want to employ.
Farm facts
- Location: Santoft, Rangitikei-Manawatu
- Owners: OB Group
- Area: 430ha
- Cow numbers: 1000
- Staff: six
- Roster: 5-on, 2-off
