Capital assets don’t buy groceries. If this statement makes you scratch your head a little, you’re likely the older generation on the farm. If you read it and think, “Don’t I know it” you might be the in-coming generation, and very likely frustrated by the lack of clarity on how the farm’s equity and income… Read more »
Category: Human Resources
Acquiring top farm talent through new-to-agriculture strategies
We recently posted a new episode of our Mind Your Farm Business podcast that focuses on human resource management. In conversation with four farmers across Canada we dug deep into topics like recruiting talent and methods to retaining the top performers. Not only were the farmers from a diverse geographic region, but their strategies for managing… Read more »
MYFB — Ep 31: Four elements of a human resource plan
Which questions do you ask potential new hires? Where to you find your next star farm employee? Is the employee handbook up to date? If you laughed and thought, we don’t even HAVE an employee handbook, this podcast episode is for you. In this Mind Your Farm Business episode, host Shaun Haney takes us on… Read more »
Working smart: How to cut through tech distractions
Forget the standard five and 10-year outlooks of strategic planning. Instead, have you figured out where to best put your time in in a day? Whether or not you and your spouse are collaborating to your full potential? Is technology helping or hindering your farm operation? These are the kinds of questions Nick Bontis, professor of… Read more »
Will $15 minimum wage impact agriculture as much as predicted?
This week the Ontario government passed Bill 148, the Fair Workplaces Better Jobs Act. Among other changes to workplace laws, it will mean an increase in the province’s minimum wage, from $11.60 to $14 on January 1, and $15 on the same day in 2019. With other provinces potentially following suit, the potential impacts are… Read more »
ATV safety — do you wear a helmet on the farm?
When people go trail riding or use their ATV for recreational use, wearing a helmet is something that most don’t blink an eye to. They do it with no questions asked. So why is it when we use them around the farm, we hop on the quad at the same speeds, helmet-less, without thinking twice?… Read more »
Alberta gov’t to cover ag training program course fees
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 »
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 »