What makes staff join and stay?

For the last three months, they have visited a dozen of the state farmer’s farm hubs, meeting with dairy assistants to find out exactly what attracted them to the dairy industry and what will make them stay longer with the company.

A quality health and safety regime is the key to attracting and retaining staff, as discovered during extensive research of staff just completed by Pāmu Farms. 

The number of actual dairy farms at each hub varies, but Nancy Ford, the company’s talent acquisition manager, says they have talked to about 50 staff.

This research has involved Ford meeting with all the dairy assistants at each complex, led by her colleague Dasha Loukina. Feedback from the staff is noted and will form the basis of a report to Pāmu's leadership.

“Our objective in talking to the staff has been to find out a number of things — especially to probe the issue of our turnover rate to see if we can improve this,” Ford tells Rural News.

“We have also been trying to know about the experiences of our dairy assistants onfarm, what attracted them to the role and what they like about working for Pāmu.” 

The company also wants to understand their reasons for possibly leaving Pāmu and to see if they can mitigate or address some of those reasons in the hope they will stay longer.

Ford says while her research is related to the dairy side of Pāmu's business, other staff are doing similar work on the livestock side — sheep, beef and deer.

There is a turnover issue with dairy assistants at Pāmu, but this is not unusual and is a problem right throughout the dairy sector, Ford says. There is also an issue recruiting new staff because of the competition from other industries also recruiting talented staff.

“While the turnover of staff in the dairy sector is generally higher than it is at Pāmu, we don’t want to settle for that. We want our people to understand that we value them and want to retain them,” she explains. 

“Also driving that is the cost to our business when staff leave. It can be hard to recruit staff and while that is happening, animals on farms have to be cared for and this can put pressure on staff that remain.” 

Ford refers to something of a ‘revelation’ while surveying the staff. Feedback from the dairy assistants has given her a better insight into why people are coming to work in the dairy sector -- some of it surprising.

“For example, we had a young lady who was working in a retail store in Auckland.  She was tired of all the traffic and the pressure, so she moved down to the West Coast with her sister and decided to work outside -- something completely different. She is really enjoying working onfarm, being outside, not having to deal with traffic and is now working with the animals which she enjoys.” 

The love and pleasure of working with animals is one of the attractions of the dairy assistant’s role.” 

Ford says staff refer to the cows as “the ladies” and take great pride in caring for their welfare. They often refer to the personalities of the cows and describe their individual characteristics.

“For example, one of our staff noted that cow 429 wouldn’t go anywhere until she was given a cuddle and a back scratch.”

Issue of retention

While lack of good internet broadband has been an issue for young people working in isolated areas in the past, Ford says this does not appear to be so now. 

Pāmu has now finished making high speed broadband available to all 125 of its farms nationally, including 205 farm houses.  Staff are known to quit because of the long hours especially at calving.

“But when we go out into the market to recruit staff, we make it clear what working for Pāmu involves,” Ford explains. “We are upfront that during certain times of the year, especially at calving, the hours will likely be longer. But we also say that during the rest of the season they won’t have to work these hours. We have also implemented a system of shifts that are working really well on our farms.”

Instead of the traditional 12 days on and two days off, people maybe work five days on and two off, or six days on and three off, or other combinations that give staff good time off.

But it’s Pāmu's approach to health and safety that has struck a chord with new and existing staff, Ford says. The company has spent a lot of money on safety leadership and training for all staff.    

Pāmu and its safety partner Wilson Consulting have set up Pāmu Academy as a joint venture. This aims to achieve world-leading mental health and wellbeing, and safety programmes, for staff and other organisations.   

“Like all farms, we value our staff and want to make sure they are safe,” Ford tells Rural News.

“In our conversations with the dairy assistants, the overwhelming majority said they appreciate the health and safety environment we have. That differentiates us in the market.”