by Justin W. Waggoner, beef systems specialist
Most cattle operators view open cows, with some degree of disappointment. However, you might be surprised at the amount of revenue that can be realized from cull cow sales. Continue reading “Cull Cows; a disappointing failure or marketing opportunity”
“Sometimes It’s Not About the Money”
by Justin W. Waggoner, beef systems specialist
If you have an employee who seems to continually be bothering you about not being paid enough, there are usually two possibilities. 1) You are a tightwad and you are not paying them enough; or 2) the person is disgruntled about their role in the organization. To find out if the answer is number 1, make a few phone calls to managers you trust in your general geography and find out what your neighbors are paying for similar jobs in your industry. If you are within 50 cents or so per hour, then move on to answer number 2. Some people are just better employees than others. If this person is worth more than the ‘scale’, you had better pay more to keep them.
But “pay” can come in many forms. You can “buy” an employee’s loyalty and general job satisfaction with many perks other than another few cents or bucks per hour. Make sure your insurance, savings investment, and/or profit sharing plans are at least in line with the industry.
This is especially important if this person has a family to look after. Non-monetary benefits include things like flexible time off. Those early mornings and long days are a lot easier to take if a person knows they can take Thursday afternoons off for a child’s ballgame or whatever.
What about goals? Have you asked your employee what they want out of this position?
They may want to move up in the organization or have opportunities for a management role elsewhere. You can be selfish about this or you can take on the role of mentor and teacher. By taking care of your employee and training them for a leadership role they will most certainly be a better employee, and will have a harder time leaving for a different job. And even if they do leave for a different opportunity, they will give such a glowing report on your leadership and team approach, you can be certain to find a good, young person to replace them.
The question you need to ask yourself is “Do you really want this person around for the long haul?” If you DO, take some time to privately evaluate your plans, and then take some more time one-on-one with this employee to find out their long-term needs and goals. If you DON’T want this person to remain in the organization, you still need to get your plans in order because after you inform this person they are not what your organization needs, you had better have a pretty good plan set up to attract a quality person to replace them.
“What’s the Culture of Your Organization – Is it always Safety First?”
by Justin W. Waggoner, beef systems specialist
The data tells us that agriculture is a high risk industry, where “near misses,” accidents and even fatalities unfortunately occur. What is the culture of your organization or business? Is employee safety at the forefront? I certainly hope so.
However if it is not, how do we change that and create a culture of safety? Some say that the safety culture within an organization starts with the organization’s leaders and trickles down. Other sources indicate that training has to be a continual and ongoing process to create an organizational culture of safety. These are both correct. However with safety, it is very easy to find examples of “here is how we do it when the boss isn’t looking” and examples of great people who had the proper training and still made a bad decision. In both of these situations, the formal leaders of the organization were engaged in the process and the employees had the proper training, so how can we make progress?
Leadership is an essential component of creating a safety culture, but the formal leaders within the organization are not the leaders who are likely the greatest influencers. Safety is an everyday, in the minute issue on most operations.
Thus, the informal leaders within the organization or business are those that can have the greatest impact in creating a culture of safety. Leading by example, in those in the minute situations, is critical. Who are the informal leaders in your organization? Do they exemplify the core values of your safety culture? Identifying and engaging informal leaders is an essential and powerful component of initiating any change within an organization.
“Maslow’s Hierarchy and the Modern Workplace”
by Chris Reinhardt, Feedlot Specialist
At the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we strive to meet our physical and physiological needs, such as food, water, shelter, and safety and security. But very soon after these needs are met we have three levels which are very pertinent in the modern workplace.
3. Self-actualization.
“Continuing Ed”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
The day we choose to quit learning new things is the day we should ride off into the sunset, either literally or figuratively. We should want to be, and we should want to employ, eager lifelong learners. People who are eager to learn new skills and concepts are a near guarantee that the organization will continue to grow and improve in all areas of the business and even in its appreciation of its own culture.
If we’ve been successful in attracting this type of person into our organization, we probably don’t need to stimulate their desire to learn new things; instead, the challenge is to continually strive to provide meaningful learning opportunities for those individuals.
There are two general types of training to consider: professional development (job duty-specific training), and personal development (which may or may not be skills and ideas which are directly or even indirectly applicable to the individual’s specific job duties.)
Most organizations are willing to provide, and some are proactive in providing, professional development opportunities. However, it is more difficult for many organizations to justify personal development as a company-funded benefit.
One way to think about professional development, especially for the individual who is an eager student of new information, is as a type of “insurance”. Health insurance (personal and family health benefits, not workers’ compensation) really doesn’t have a direct benefit to the organization. Instead, health insurance benefits are a form of compensation not directly tied to salary and bonuses.
For the individual who is constantly seeking opportunities to improve, company sponsored opportunities for personal development can be a form of indirect compensation. But on another level, if the nature of the personal development training can be of benefit both at the personal level and the professional context as well, there is a chance for the company to benefit from the training two-fold: the individual feels cared for on a personal level by the organization; but the organization also in turn receives a more skilled person, whose skills can be perpetually improved over time through various training opportunities.
The end goal should be to keep valuable individuals engaged in their job and satisfied with their role in the organization. Personal and professional development may be very simple, inexpensive, and effective ways to both improve the value of the individual to the organization, and to increase the satisfaction of the individual within their role in the organization.
“Define Quality”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
What makes a quality employee and team mate? Work ethic, intelligence, and integrity would likely all come to mind for most of us. But what about how a person contributes to the workplace environment? Mentoring of newer or younger team mates? How about creative problem solving skills? Any others?
I was recently asked to serve as a work reference for a colleague and was forced to consider all the many ways this person contributes to our organization. This provided me with an opportunity to define, or re-define, what it means to be a “quality employee”.
This person in question has all the “tangibles”, but also all of the “intangibles” as well. This person is what my baseball-loving friend would call “a five-tool player: can run, can field, has a good arm, and can hit for both average and for power.”
Billionaire business tycoon Warren Buffet is quoted as saying something to the effect of, “When hiring we look for integrity, intelligence, and work ethic. But if they don’t have integrity, we hope they’re also stupid and lazy or else they’ll rob us blind!” I guess the point is, as much as we all want to have 5-tool players, integrity may be the single greatest asset for an employee to possess. If there’s integrity, a person who lacks experience can be taught, and even a person who may not be intelligent can be taught some useful skills.
People with a high level of integrity do their best to get their job done to the best of their ability, but they also look for additional ways to contribute. They go outside their job duties to look for ways to make the organization better. They intentionally strive to make those around them better at their job and happier in the workplace and in their personal life.
In short, the high-integrity person is worth more to the organization than we can probably afford to pay them. If we have one, we need to hold on tight; they just don’t come along every day.