Farmscape for October 26, 2017

A retired extension educator in workforce management says, as livestock operations look more to non-traditional sources of labor, the integration of new employees into the workforce is becoming an increasing important consideration.
"Giving New Employees a Successful Start" will be discussed as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2017 slated for November 14 and 15 in Saskatoon.
Chuck Schwartau, a retired Extension Educator with the University of Minnesota in the area of workforce development and management for agriculture, observes a key challenge is orienting new workers into the culture of the farm.

Clip-Chuck Schwartau-University of Minnesota:
The supply of labor willing to work in our swine operations, any livestock operations for that matter, and bringing some of those skills is becoming harder to find.
We're looking at sometimes a less traditional source of our workforce than we might think.
Here in Minnesota we are employing more and more immigrant labor and I would anticipate much that same thing is happening in Canada.
That's one of the things that does present special challenges.
Besides the fact that you are perhaps bringing people who are from a different culture into a new area, they're looking at all kinds of challenges for themselves personally not just those that relate to the work itself and so you have a lot of different factors to consider as we're brining new people in.
I think this is what's going to be happening in much of our livestock industry as they look farther and wider for people who may not have livestock experience but they have got a good work ethic themselves and those are the people we'll be looking to bring into our livestock operations.

Schwartau says orientation begins during recruiting and carries right through the first days and months on the job.
He says we need to imbed in the workers why they are important to the farm, what their role is in the farm, their place in the order of getting things done and how their job impacts other people and fits into the whole scheme of what's happening on the farm.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork