FINDING and inducting staff for a farming operation is always a challenge but Yuna farmer Jasmyn Allen is hoping to make the process easier with the development of a human resources guide specifically designed for grain-growing farms.
Having come from a farming operation at Nhill in Victoria and stints on Queensland cattle stations, Jasmyn now farms 4600 hectares with husband Rodney and children Millicent, Isabella and Reginald.
The family is focused solely on cropping with a wheat, lupin and canola rotation and hires a small seasonal workforce during seeding and harvest.
As well as juggling her work on the farm, Jasmyn plays a large role in her local community.
She is vice-president of the Country Women’s Association’s Yuna branch, a member of the Yuna Farm Improvement Group, treasurer of the Yuna Playgroup and on the executive committee of Creating A Better Yuna.
“I also have a desire to represent our industry as a grower and bring a broader perspective to the industry groups,” Jasmyn said.
“There is lots of development available for young farmers straight out of school and board opportunities for older farmers who are transitioning off the farm, but for people in their 30s and early 40s, we are busy on the farm doing our own jobs, raising our families and we don’t have a lot of time to support everything else.”
A long-held interest in resource management and a self-professed “people person” concept led Jasmyn to applying – and successfully earning – a place as a 2017 GrainGrowers’ Australian Grain Farm Leaders Program participant.
The national program, which is run by GrainGrowers, is designed for young grain producers to help develop leadership skills, knowledge and potential.
As part of the year-long program participants research a variety of issues affecting grain growers, such as staffing, succession planning, technology and new farming practices.
For Jasmyn, this means looking at ways to fine tune staff recruitment, employment obligations, workplace procedures and safety within her family’s business.
After going through the induction process several times a year for new, and often inexperienced employees, she is working towards developing a manual for staff, covering all the requirements from working on the farm through to shift start times – all the questions that she and Rodney have been asked when inducting staff.
“I think we have been asked all the questions so we have it clearer in our minds what people need to know and that communication,” she said.
Having been an employee for many years on farming properties to managing staff, Jasmyn sees a clear need for a detailed, practical human resources guide for farm businesses.
She was also looking for involvement from other business who were undergoing the same issue and could offer advice and feedback.
“There is a lot of information out there about what to do with farm employees and fair work, but no-one at this point of time has a detailed manual for what to do with grain-farming employees, how to induct them, how to manage their wages and super and there is no one-stop shop to help with these things,” she said.
“You can spend a lot of time trawling through the internet to find the correct information and then you’ve got to try and make it work for your farm.
“My project is about getting the documentation right for us – our occupational health and safety, our induction polices and getting it right for our farm.”
Choosing the right staff was also critical.
Jasmyn said ideally they looked for “multi-dimensional people” and didn’t necessarily choose staff based on their skill set.
“Grain growing machinery is very technologically advanced and we need people with computer skills on top of that a good work ethic and the ability to just drive the machine,’’ she said.
“We could have you sitting on a tractor for six days straight doing 12 hours days and we want to you to be highly committed to that but the next day we might need you to take a fence down.
“A lot of time when we are looking for staff – a chaser bin driver at harvest time and then a couple of people for seeding who are usually backpackers and retirees – we look for the right person with that commitment, that willingness to take this on board.”
Past employees have included landscapers, petrochemical engineers and couples – all with little to no experience with farm machinery.
“It is sometimes easier to start someone off and teach them yourselves that someone who thinks they know what to do but doesn’t know your machinery and your systems,” she said.
“Always number one look for the people rather than the skill set – that personality type is so important to fit in with that system and how we make it work here.
“It is amazing when you get the right employee who can just think for themselves a little bit, plan ahead and have that kind of knowledge to bring to the job rather than having to think for them.”
