The priorities of today’s new workforce—(not in any particular order).

	The workplace needs to provide a supportive social atmosphere.
	Family is important.
	The amount of time off is less important than the scheduling of time off.
	It is important that my employer care about me personally.
	My compensation needs to be comparable to what I feel I could get at another job.

Notice that these priorities don’t include things like the increase of net worth over time or accumulation of resources. Today’s new workforce is more concerned with salary than net worth, pay checks more than bank accounts. They are also more concerned with consistent, predictable time off that is planned in advance, rather than the total number of hours that are worked—so long as the basic schedule is compensated fairly.

In responding to the needs of the new workforce, we can have some significant advantages over our competitors both in the agricultural and in the non-agricultural sectors. We can promote and provide a work environment that is challenging, supportive, highly social, non-political, somewhat flexible, sensitive to the needs of their family and comparable in pay to the other jobs they may seek. We accomplish most of this by our attitude toward our staff, and the priorities we set in working with them.

How do we make the workplace more socially rewarding? Here’s some tips:

	Personally spend 15 to 30 minutes per week with each employee just talking about their family, their time off, what they will be doing next week, how their kids/spouse are doing, their hobbies, etc. Spend this time in their work area at a time when they are not busy or have time constraints.
	Encourage members of your current staff (that are naturally personable) to use their talents to promote teamwork and a positive social atmosphere.
	If an employee is having personal problems, be willing to talk to them. Show that you care about their situation, but don’t offer to be part of the solution. Encourage them to personally take actions to alleviate the situation.

Being an encourager is something that we may not be very good at, but look at these examples of people that excelled in spite of the nay-sayers in their lives: -- A football expert said of Vince Lombardi, "He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation."

-- Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

-- Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything.

-- Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams." He was expelled and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.

-- Isaac Newton did very poorly in grade school.

-- After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, "Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!" Astaire kept the memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

-- Fred Smith got a "C" on his graduate paper that described his process for moving small packages. That process is now the international corporation, Federal Express.

 

I don’t mention these examples to suggest that we have people of this potential working for us—but we might! These are just examples of how we need to look at our people not only by our own view of what we feel they have accomplished in the past, but more by what we feel their potential can be. If we focus on their potential, rather than their past events of poor performance, we will be more motivated to encourage them, than to criticize them. They will be more interested in working with us, simply because we show an interest in them.

To help us understand others, we need to realize that there are many elements that can have an affect on who we hire and why we hire particular individuals. The next page has a long list of several of these factors.

Factors that could have an affect on what we pay employees, and what a potential employee considers when determining how much pay is appropriate for a new position.
 

Factors that employers consider:

Factors that new employees consider:

The business’ current income level. The current production level.  What other operations pay.  What other comparable jobs pay.  What we think it will take to hire them.  How bad we need them.  The number of other applicants.  How bad we want them.  Their current pay level.  Their physical ability.  Their mental ability.  Their social ability. (i.e. "Job Fit")  Their advancement potential.  What we pay for similar education level.  What we pay for similar skill level.  What we pay ourselves.  What we pay our family members.  The availability of labor: Local unemployment rate. The local interest in your positions. Our competitiveness with local pay. The skill level of our current employees.  How much training they will need.  How much of our time it will take.  How much they will be inconvenienced.  How much we "like" them: Their mannerisms. Their appearance. Their attitude. How much we like their spouse/family.  Their references.  Their past accomplishments.  How regularly we give raises.  Our work hours.  Their certifications.  Their values and character.  Their outside interests.  Their environmental awareness.  Their knowledge of our business.  Our "gut instinct".

Their current pay.  Their general skill level.  What other operations pay.  Their specific abilities.  Pay of other jobs they are interested in.  How bad they need the job.  What their friends make.  What their spouse makes.  Pay level they need to make.  What benefits they need/would like to have.  Benefits available at other places.  The social environment at work.  The advancement potential.  Do they need to relocate.  What our neighborhood is like.  Availability of housing.  The distance to grandma’s house.  Quality of school system.  The size of our operation.  The level of structure at our operation.  The quality of our facilities.  Who they will be working with.  How much training is available.  How much family involvement.  How much they will be inconvenienced.  How much they "like" us. Our mannerisms. Our appearance. Our attitude. How much they like our spouse/family.  Our reputation.  Consistency and reliability of time off.  Regularity of raises.  Our work hours.  Job security.  Our values and character.  Our outside interests.  Our environmental awareness. Our knowledge of our business.  Their "gut instinct".

 

Additional thoughts on attracting, hiring, keeping and building loyalty in your staff:

	Be constantly prospecting. Always be looking for good people.
	Develop an employee management plan. Be consistent in the ways you hire, manage and train your staff.
	Hold your staff accountable for their actions.
	Know your weaknesses and strengths. Hire people that can compensate for your weaknesses.
	Keep yourself and your staff focused on the production goals and expect your staff to achieve those levels of production.
	Send your employees to educational meetings.
	Send your employees to their peers to recruit for you. Your own staff has more credibility with their peers than you do. Send them to their old High School Ag Class or their College alma mater to speak to classes and recruit.
	Compensate your current staff for good referrals. Pay them in cash at a meeting when other staff is present.
	Sponsoring a local little league team is good community relations, but having one of your employees coach the team is even better. It tells the community that your staff is not so busy that they can’t participate, that they care about their own families, and that you care enough to let your staff be involved.
	Know what you have that your competition doesn’t have.
	Keep machinery, equipment and buildings in good repair. (This is the most consistent complaint that I get when counseling with employees in livestock production.)
	Don’t play favorites.
	Keep yourself positive and promote a positive atmosphere in the workplace.

If we aren’t getting the results that we want, remember this simple phrase from Einstein,
 
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results!"