Reading Time: 4 minutes On a sunny June afternoon, productivity comes to a standstill at Big Marble Farms as more than 300 employees leave the offices, greenhouse and packhouse and spend several hours playing games, navigating obstacle courses, throwing axes and jumping in blowup castles, all as part of the annual Employee Appreciation Day at the farm. “A reduction […] Read more
Time to celebrate
Summer is the perfect opportunity to host an employee appreciation party
Next gen talent scouting in agriculture
Reading Time: 3 minutes Taylor Schmitt, son of company founder Barry, is operations and business manager at Barr-Ag and is in charge of Middle East and domestic sales as well as domestic logistics. Yet it is on the HR side where Taylor has really come into his own. Over the last seven years, Taylor has interviewed 250-plus candidates and […] Read more
Get the best and brightest
Attracting new employees is tougher than ever, but there may be lessons to learn from other sectors
Reading Time: 4 minutes With job vacancies in a growing number of economic sectors across Canada far exceeding the pool of people available to fill those jobs, businesses are running harder to recruit and retain staff. It’s turning into a marathon. “We anticipate the employee-driven labour market will continue in the next few years,” says William Howard, director of […] Read more
Keeping workers on the farm
Scientific HR really can help ensure your farm business has the people and skills it needs
Reading Time: 8 minutes There are multiple moving parts to any busy farm, and there have to be just as many to a sound HR plan too. You can pretty quickly run out of fingers if you try to count them. There’s recruitment, retention, training, evaluation … the list goes on and on. But that doesn’t mean HR has […] Read more
Tap into these labour markets
Labour is harder to find than ever, and the future isn’t looking any better
Reading Time: 5 minutes “It’s grim,” admits Nita Chhinzer, professor of human resources in the department of management at the University of Guelph. It’s a function of demographics, she says. Our population is aging, the pool of young replacements is thin, and our immigration policies are tilted in favour of those at the mid-to upper stages of their careers. […] Read more
Overcoming personal biases
You think you’re not biased. So put it to the test
Reading Time: 3 minutes Do you stand with your arms crossed when you talk to an employee or family member about work? Do you ignore some people when they share ideas or contribute to a conversation? Are you cheerful when you say good morning to some work colleagues, but others not so much? These are all warning signs of […] Read more
Manage anger on the farm
Angry outbursts affect you, those you work with and ultimately your farm business
Reading Time: 5 minutes A Chinese proverb says, “if you can be patient in a moment of anger, you will escape 100 days of sorrow.” It’s wise advice, but we all know it can also be tough advice to follow if you’re prone to angry outbursts. Yes, you may feel remorse for it afterwards. But do you understand why […] Read more
Facing facts
It’s still very early days, but agriculture is on its way to becoming a more diverse and inclusive sector
Reading Time: 11 minutes Canadian agriculture has a problem and needs to talk about it. Partly, it’s a human resource issue. Every year, Canada’s farms and agricultural businesses fall further behind. More and more traditional farm jobs go unfilled while, at the same time, new job descriptions are being created that demand even harder-to-find skills and vision. And it […] Read more
Are you a good boss?
Take our quiz to find out. The payoffs can be much bigger than you ever thought
Reading Time: 6 minutes You have a good rapport with your team. They mostly return season after season, and you have even started hosting an annual luncheon to reward them for their hard work. Even so, the farm doesn’t exactly do an employee satisfaction survey to tell you what your team members and employees really think of your leadership […] Read more
Networking in a new era
We thought the online age hit agriculture two decades ago. Then came the pandemic. Are you ready?
Reading Time: 9 minutes Everyone knows that farmers spend a lot of time on the farm, but farmers know how vital it is that they maintain excellent off-farm contacts too, whether it’s for the health of their businesses, the health of their soils, or their own personal and social health. In fact, farmers value networking as much or maybe […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
