Building Strong Staffs
December 4, 2009 The changing input market has prompted some CropLife 100 dealers to examine their personnel placement, particularly in top spots.
“This last year, we’ve tried to designate some specific individuals as the lead people in business areas,” says Tim McArdle, executive vice president and COO at Brandt Consolidated, Springfield, IL.
For instance, because seed sales have grown so much, he brought one of the company’s retail managers – who had worked at plants for many years had a lot of seed expertise – into the newly created seed manager position. In 2009, Brandt also hired a human resources director for the first time in its history.
For openings at the company, Brandt has drawn upon its significant summer internship program as well as its existing pool of experienced staff. Many employees are local and have come up through the retailer’s ranks. In any case, McArdle emphasizes: “We have a policy here, if the right person comes along, we’ll hire them whether or not we’ve got a job for them. We don’t want to lose that opportunity,” he says.
Roger Oliver, president of Van Horn Inc., Cerro Gordo, IL, admits the seasonal, sometimes grueling, nature of agriculture is a factor in hiring. He’s seen particular challenges in filling fertilizer management positions.
“Young guys at the fertilizer plant see what the manager does, and when they have the opportunity to take the job, they say, ‘I don’t want that job,’” Oliver says. “Our managers are probably the most fragile in the whole system because of the demands the farmers puts on them. This last season was particularly long and drawn out.”
Indeed, he says, over the past few years expanding seed companies have been “picking off” retail managers with promises of fewer, less demanding hours.
Extended hours are an employment issue in this industry, McArdle says, but “anyone in it has to accept that and their family has to accept that. If you can’t deal with long days and weekends during a busy springtime or a busy fall application time, you shouldn’t be in this business.”
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