Reading Time: 7 minutes It’s not every government department that has a deputy minister who makes a point of having coffee with staff in the morning. But then, not every deputy minister is John Knapp. Knapp retired from Alberta Agriculture in 2013, but he’s still active in the leadership field. He wrote a book, titled The Leader’s Practice Guide, […] Read more
The effective leader
Being effective as a leader doesn’t come from throwing your weight around. Instead, with John Knapp as proof, it starts by discovering what your team members bring to the table
The new employee
Are your HR skills holding your farm back?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Farms keep getting bigger and more complex. But at the same time, farm families keep getting smaller, with farming couples having fewer kids, just like other Canadians. On many farms, this collision of demographic and economic trends means the days of running the farm by putting the family to work are gone. You can’t even […] Read more
How good are your HR skills? Is it time to upgrade?
If you are going to have employees, you can never run away from being a supervisor,” says HR consultant Leah Knibbs. It’s a role, she says, that pays well when it’s done well
Reading Time: 7 minutes Not only are our farms getting bigger and more complex, but farm families are also getting smaller as farming couples have fewer kids, just like other Canadians. It’s a demographic combination that has changed the ag labour dynamic, says Leah Knibbs. For many farmers, the days of running the farm by putting the family to […] Read more
Three red flags to watch for on your farm
Is it time to call in an HR consultant to boost your farm’s performance?
Reading Time: 2 minutes The first warning sign seems like it should be an obvious one. But it isn’t always that simple. This red flag is a farm that can’t keep staff. The trouble is, it’s easy to blame the employees instead of taking a hard look at whether the problem is closer to home, says Leah Knibbs of […] Read more
Five ways to avoid payroll fines
Just hired your first employee? Don’t get stuck paying fines for filing errors
Have you recently hired an employee for your farm? Are you doing your own payroll and bookkeeping? If so, I’m offering you an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. There is a lot of information available about conducting job interviews, creating job descriptions and deciding how much to pay employees. However, it’s hard to find[...]
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A farm for all
For the Burns family, the goal has always been a farm with a place for the entire family. Now it’s the reality too
Reading Time: 5 minutes John Burns had spent eight years getting a PhD in chemistry and two years working at the Department of National Defence in Kingston, Ont., but his Saskatchewan farm roots began to beckon and he jumped at the chance to get out of the lab and do some off-campus teaching, which led him to the area[...]
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It’s their job
More farmers like John and Kristi Burns have family and non-family members working side by side, making it vital to set clear job expectations
Reading Time: 8 minutes Job descriptions for new farm employees help them understand how the farm operates, what their job is all about, and what the employer expects of them. But family members working on the farm often think they don’t need one for themselves. They’ve been on the farm forever, after all, so they already know what to[...]
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Profit by putting people first
Attracting and retaining good workers on your farm doesn’t just happen — you have to make it happen
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you don’t have people, you don’t have a farm. It’s as simple as that. While most producers think about their farm in terms of their livestock and crops, they neglect to think about the people, says a rural business specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. But that needs to change, Abby Verstraete told attendees[...]
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Farming. It’s more than a job
Human Resources: When a young employee left their farm to look for a job that could become a career, Kris Mayerle asked, ‘Why can’t that be here?’
Reading Time: 4 minutes At the edge of the boreal forest in northeast Saskatchewan, the Mayerle family hires 13 full and seasonal employees for their 21,000-acre farm, seed processing plant and custom harvesting business. One of their employees is in his 43rd year with the company, another is going on 18 years, and many others have been there more[...]
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Where are the workers needed on farms?
Nine per cent of on-farm jobs are unfilled. Employees are scarce, and it’s going to get worse
Reading Time: 2 minutes Traditionally, farms used family, friends and neighbours to supply labour. However, as family size and rural population has shrunk, and as the size of the average farm has increased, our reliance on hired employees has multiplied. Today, farms often employ and manage a handful of people, and it’s also not uncommon for those employees to[...]
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A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
