The Ag Sector Is Not Exempt From Flexible Working
While other sectors have been able to change the way they operate to offer better work-life balance, conventional thinking dictates that ag has to be a 24/7 job — such is the nature of our $8 trillion global industry, writes Proagrica’s Bill Richardson at PrecisionAg. From a recruitment perspective, that’s anecdotally a problem. We have a recruitment and talent retention problem.
A 2019 survey by Talent Harvest reported that 71.43% of agribusinesses identified competition for talent and recruitment difficulties as their main headaches. And ag’s employee voluntary turnover rate is comparatively high against the national average (15%) with 56% of U.S. agribusinesses reporting turnover rates of 10% or greater.
Anything that can make our sector more attractive is welcomed, not least given that the best talent is increasingly college-educated. This means competition for technology or finance skills (for instance) are in hot demand. With that greater focus on graduate-level skills comes different expectations about how our industry must operate.
For all the ills and the hardships it’s brought for many, COVID-19 has blown 24/7 conventional thinking out of the window. The pandemic has shown us that digital-provisioned flexible working practices can be applied to almost any segment. That can only be a good thing that’ll help ag attract the sort of talent that’ll take our sector to the next generation.
We mustn’t lose sight of that. What attracts talent, will bring innovation with it.
We’re Becoming Hooked on Digital Communications
I am no longer a young farmer, and, in my twenties, I was never an early adopter of the “new and shiny tools and trinkets” in our industry. As times changed so did I, in fact so much so that I came to thrive from these changes and become enthusiastic about them.
Back in the 1980s, I distinctly remember a moment my wife purchased an IBM computer. Her words were, “this will revolutionize how we keep records and manage our business.” It did raise my eyebrows at the time, but I was too busy farming to give it much thought. Looking back now, we would be so far ahead if I would have just listened, but this time around I have not made these same mistakes.
Today, my working days have changed dramatically. Just this past Monday, I walked all of 15 meters to my new office in my home in rural Oklahoma and held multiple meetings using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, ON24, WebEx, and various other online meeting resources. All this is possible because of a 4G connection with farmers, growers, agronomists, crop consultants, and ag retailers strewn across Argentina, Brazil, the U.S., Europe, and South Africa.
This pandemic has forced an enormous change in our mindset around how we can communicate with one another in the ag industry. The younger tech-savvy generation has grown up with this technology and expect instant communications. Today, based upon my life-learning from the lessons of the past many years, I could give them a run for their money with my knowledge of these communications platforms.
‘Change communication’ is here to stay — and for the better.