SkillSmart Logo
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Careers
  • Who We Serve
    • General Contractors
    • Owners/Developers
    • Diversity Directors
    • Project Executives
    • Other Industries Served
  • Products
    • SkillSmart InSight
    • SkillSmart Seeker
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press / Media
  • Events
  • Resources
    • Case Studies
  • Contact
Schedule Demo
Support
SkillSmart Logo
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Careers
  • Who We Serve
    • General Contractors
    • Owners/Developers
    • Diversity Directors
    • Project Executives
    • Other Industries Served
  • Products
    • SkillSmart InSight
    • SkillSmart Seeker
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press / Media
  • Events
  • Resources
    • Case Studies
  • Contact
Schedule Demo
Support
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Careers
  • Who We Serve
    • General Contractors
    • Owners/Developers
    • Diversity Directors
    • Project Executives
    • Other Industries Served
  • Products
    • SkillSmart InSight
    • SkillSmart Seeker
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press / Media
  • Events
  • Resources
    • Case Studies
  • Contact
SkillSmart Logo
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Careers
  • Who We Serve
    • General Contractors
    • Owners/Developers
    • Diversity Directors
    • Project Executives
    • Other Industries Served
  • Products
    • SkillSmart InSight
    • SkillSmart Seeker
  • News
    • Blog
    • Press / Media
  • Events
  • Resources
    • Case Studies
  • Contact
Blog
Home Press How to Hire Good People for Your Farm Operation
Press

How to Hire Good People for Your Farm Operation

September 8, 2016 SkillSmart
0 Comments
624 Views
43

agby Alison Rice, AgWeb.com

Spend just a little time talking with dairy farmers, and you’ll quickly learn about one of their key pain points: finding and keeping good workers.

“We do have a lot of challenges in New York that’s keeping farms from expanding,” Tonya Van Slyke of the North East Diary Producers Association told AgDay this summer. “The first one is really labor.”

It’s a challenge that extends to both hiring and retention. “It’s just difficult to find that person who wants to put in a long day, get dirty, and come back the next day. The folks we have tried to hire typically will stay six or nine months and then they will go on,” added Sarah Noble-Moag of Pavilion, N.Y.

If this situation sounds all too familiar, Mike Knapp has some ideas for you.

“Most employers are pretty bad at identifying the skills they need,” says Knapp, CEO and co-founder of SkillSmart in Germantown, Md., who urges ag employers to focus not on applicants’ specific job title history, but the skills they used in those jobs and whether or not those are a good fit for your operation.

He also encourages ag employers—farmers, ranchers, ag retailers—to think longer term about each new hire and how they might contribute to the future of your operation and even the industry overall. “You can’t just make sure you have the right person today,” says Knapp, particularly if you hope to grow your farm operation. “There is a big gap between the smaller family farms where a few people do everything to the large operations where things are more specialized.”

For smaller farm operations, that’s an advantage worth highlighting with applicants. Rather than pitching a position as just a job, tell potential hires what skills they will learn and how those might fit into their future ag career, Knapp advises.  “This can really help smaller farmers get the entry-level workers they need and also build the pipeline for the industry,” he says.

Afraid of investing all these extra effort only to have these more promising workers leave too? That’s understandable, but Knapp reminds farmers to stay committed to hiring quality workers and helping them develop their skills, rather than simply filling the slot with someone who is good enough for now. “The reality is you’re seeing the same turnover (regardless of who you hire), and you’re not getting the good people,” he warns.

Read the Article   Download the Tear Sheet

AboutSkillSmart
SkillSmart provides construction technology to transform the way project data is tracked and reported. Our team supports some of the largest economic development and construction projects in the U.S. SkillSmart Insight helps organizations address diversity, prevailing wage, and regional workforce compliance, moving to quantify the economic impact of every project in the communities where you are building. We provide a secure solution for tracking and reporting all of the data that you need to run your project and your business. Our team works collaboratively with yours to streamline the way data is collected and stored so that when it comes time to report, analyze, quantify, and deliver the results there’s no second guessing.
Do courses really lead to a career?August 24, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Local Tech Startup SkillSmart to Support AAWDC’s efforts to Staff Retail and Restaurant Positions at BWI AirportSeptember 13, 2016
InSight was created to capture, store and report project, workforce, wage and business compliance data.

Learn how InSight can help your project today!
Seeker is a community engagement platform to build a skilled workforce pipeline for your business.

Build your workforce with Seeker today!
Newsletter

About SkillSmart

SkillSmart is a compliance, reporting and tracking technology company with a strong record of transforming communities by creating tools and services to build strong markets and clear paths to economic success.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Website Accessibility
Latest News
  • The InSight Minute: How You Can Track the Impact of Your IIJA Project
    The InSight Minute: How You Can Track the Impact of Your IIJA Project
  • 2022 Blog Recap: Exciting Revelations in Data Collection + Reporting
    2022 Blog Recap: Exciting Revelations in Data Collection + Reporting
  • The InSight Minute: Data, Insights, Action
    The InSight Minute: Data, Insights, Action
Comparisons
  • SkillSmart InSight vs. LCPTracker
  • SkillSmart InSight vs. B2Gnow
Connect
SkillSmart
PO Box: 1116
Germantown, MD 20875
(301)250-1015
Proud Member
SkillSmart Construction Association Logos

Copyright © 2022 SkillSmart. All Rights Reserved

#softlab_button_642167856c88f .wgl_button_link { color: rgba(255,255,255,1); }#softlab_button_642167856c88f .wgl_button_link:hover { color: rgba(234,118,0,1); }#softlab_button_642167856c88f .wgl_button_link { border-color: rgba(234,118,0,1); background-color: rgba(234,118,0,1); }#softlab_button_642167856c88f .wgl_button_link:hover { border-color: rgba(234,118,0,1); background-color: rgba(255,255,255,1); }#softlab_button_642167856f36d .wgl_button_link { color: rgba(0,114,206,1); }#softlab_button_642167856f36d .wgl_button_link:hover { color: rgba(255,255,255,1); }#softlab_button_642167856f36d .wgl_button_link { border-color: rgba(0,114,206,1); background-color: rgba(255,255,255,1); }#softlab_button_642167856f36d .wgl_button_link:hover { border-color: rgba(0,114,206,1); background-color: rgba(0,114,206,1); }#softlab_button_642167857481c .wgl_button_link { color: rgba(234,118,0,1); }#softlab_button_642167857481c .wgl_button_link:hover { color: rgba(255,255,255,1); }#softlab_button_642167857481c .wgl_button_link { border-color: rgba(234,118,0,1); background-color: transparent; }#softlab_button_642167857481c .wgl_button_link:hover { border-color: rgba(234,118,0,1); background-color: rgba(234,118,0,1); }