The Alberta government has announced it will be covering course fees for students enrolling in the province’s Green Certificate apprenticeship-style agricultural training program. Education Minister David Eggen and Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier were at the Whitemud Equine Learning Centre in Edmonton on Wednesday where they committed up to $400,000 annually to cover course fees. Around… Read more »
Category: Human Resources
Holy Crap I Married a Farmer! Jolene Brown Talks In-Laws, Leadership, and Popcorn for Supper
If you’ve never heard Jolene Brown, farm family advisor and total firecracker, speak, you’re missing out. Brown spoke recently at the Advancing Women in Agriculture conference in Calgary, and then found some time to sit down with our own Shaun Haney to talk about in-laws, tough decisions, work/life/farm balance, and what family really means. Brown… Read more »
Great Leadership Means Putting People First: General Rick Hillier
So these two Newfoundlanders end up at a farming conference… It may sound like the beginning of great joke, but it’s actually none other than RealAgriculture’s Bern Tobin meeting up with General Rick Hillier, former chief of defence staff for the Canadian Armed Forces, to talk about leadership and the importance of people. Speaking at… Read more »
Creativity is Free: Farm Management Lessons from Disney
“Budgets are always going to be tight, regulatory issues are always going to be confounding, but creativity is free.” Whether we’re talking about employees at Disney or on a North American farm, financial and regulatory constraints will always exist. How businesses perform within those limitations depends on creativity, stresses Doug Lipp, business consultant and author… Read more »
Owning Your Value: Call Yourself the Chief Financial Officer
Just as every farmer needs to move away from being “just a farmer” and recognize they are business owners and leaders, each individual within the farm business needs to own their true title — from operations manager, to human resource lead, and on to CEO. This probably holds the most true for the “farm wife.”… Read more »
Re-Thinking Finding Farm Labour in the Face of Expansion
How come we’ve accepted technology in most aspects of growing crops, but we still use job boards and local papers to find hired help? Chances are, the person you’re looking for doesn’t live in the surrounding area, or you’d have hired them by now. Kristjan Hebert, farmer at Moosomin, Sask. and chair of Global Ag… Read more »
“4-In, 4-Out” Rule Dropped from Temporary Foreign Worker Program
The federal government has announced it’s dropping the four-year cumulative duration requirement — also known as the “four-in, four-out” rule — from the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) effectively immediately. It’s welcome news for agricultural employers and farm groups. “The feedback we received from agricultural stakeholders is very supportive of these changes,” noted Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst, executive… Read more »
Networking is About Being Authentic and Making Connections – Marie-Helene Budworth
Are you good at networking? Or are you more likely to wonder why, as a farmer or rancher, you even need to? Perhaps you think networking is for salespeople, lawyers, and business big-wigs. According to our interview with Marie-Helene Budworth networking is for anyone engaged in business, and you’re probably much better at it than you… Read more »
Procrastinating on Purpose to Be More Productive — Rory Vaden
I have a fatal productivity flaw in my life. I procrastinate on many tasks in my daily agenda. I have no idea why. Personally I hate it. People around me tend to hate it as well and I constantly try to fix the tendency. It’s not an easy habit to drop. According to Rory Vaden,… Read more »
Happy for No Reason — Switching Our Brains to Think Positively
Are you regularly grumpy? Do you know someone that’s happy all the time and wonder, what is wrong with him? Is he/she just way too happy? To turn the tables: are you as happy as you could be? Sometimes in our busy lives we struggle to find happiness on a daily basis. Many times it’s… Read more »
MYFB — Ep 22: What’s Fair is Not Always What’s Equal
“One day, this will all be yours.” If this is the sum total of succession planning you’ve done as a farm owner, or if, as the son or daughter, you’ve heard this one too many times with nothing to show for it — the interview below is a must listen. On this episode of the… Read more »
New Report Lays out 21 Recommendations for the TFWP
Last week, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities (HUMA) released its report of and 21 recommendations for changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. While the program applies to any industry in Canada, it is largely used by the farming and agriculture processing industries…. Read more »
MYFB — Ep 20: Attracting and Retaining Employees
As Canadian farms continue to grow, so does the need for talented employees who can help farmers reach their business goals. But how do you find and attract these individuals? And once you have them in your employ, how do you keep them? Human resource consultant Lynn Perry joins us for episode 20 of the… Read more »
$1.9 Million Made Available for Hiring Youth for “Green” Ag Jobs
Farms and ag businesses could be eligible for federal funding if they hire young people to do work that benefits the environment. Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna visited AAFC’s Central Experiment Farm in Ottawa on Monday to announce up to $1.9 million in funding over the… Read more »
Please Forget These 7 Things Your Grandparents Taught You
A year ago we ran a post describing the grandparent wisdom you should never forget on the farm. This list of five things was very popular, even inspiring several additions to the list through reader emails, twitter and Facebook. All things are not golden though — it’s time to release the list of the things your grandparents… Read more »