Effective Management of Farm Employees: Eastern NY Session

Get the best out of your farm employees in 2019! 

Effective Management of Farm Employees

Farm Management Master Class—2 Day Intensive Program

Managing people is a skill that can be learned, much like operating equipment, or growing crops. Do you expect yourself or your employees to learn those other skills on their own?  Most people are not born with people management skills and benefit from coaching.  Labor is one of your farm's biggest expenses - how well are you managing it?

The Effective Management of Farm Employees Master Class is for you if you are a new farm owner or farm manager or you want to improve your skills in HR management. This program will give you the skills you need to effectively hire, train and supervise your farm's employees.

This class is led by Dr. Richard Stup, Director of the Cornell University Ag Workforce Development Program. Dr. Stup focuses on human resource management, enhancing employee engagement, regulatory compliance, and leadership development at the farm level. Prior to joining Cornell University, Dr. Stup founded Ag Workforce Development, a firm focused on improving individual and team performance through organization development and technology solutions. Earlier in his career, Richard was an Extension specialist with Penn State University, where he led the Dairy Alliance team and developed award-winning educational programming in human resource management. He earned his doctorate from Penn State in the field of Workforce Education and Development, including innovative research into the effects of human resource management on farm employee organizational commitment.

Program Day 1

Moving From Individual Performer to Supervisor - "People don't leave bad companies, they leave bad managers" The skills that make someone a top performer on the farm do not necessarily translate to being a great manager of people but supervisors are often selected from the pool of high performers in an organization to reward them for their contribution to the organization, without consideration of their people management skills or aptitude. This session will help you identify the skills needed to be a great supervisor of people, and how you can develop and apply those skills on your farm.

Overview of Labor Laws Affecting Farm Managers - Every farm manager should have a basic understanding of farm labor laws and regulations. This brief session will cover the key programs and identify resources to help you stay in compliance.

Onboarding New Employees - Onboarding is a relatively new term that describes the process of brining new employees into the business.  The goal of onboarding is to have safe, productive, and engaged farm employees, from day one. Learn to create an employee onboarding program for your farm with clearly assigned responsibilities, designed training experiences, full regulatory compliance, and basic evaluation. You will also learn about the onboarding program being developed by a team of ag industry professionals and how your farm can participate.

Program Day 2: 

Day 1 program continued

Performance Management - This is where the rubber hits the road in management.  One of the hardest challenges of management is effectively communicating performance expectations to employees and ensuring that those expectations are carried out. This session will cover effective communication, developing training and assessment programs that get your employees off to a good start and providing timely and supportive feedback to get the best out of your staff. Tools we will discuss include using standard operating procedures, other communication strategies, training resources and feedback and incentives.

This class is $50 and spots are limited.  Free registration for Ready Labor Farmer Technical Assistance Grant recipients.  If you are working on management improvements on your farm and are interested in this grant program go to  https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/projects/labor-ready-farmer-2/ and look for Smart Farming Teams.

This work is supported by the USDA NIFA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grant no. 2017‐70017‐26837. Additional funding and support for this project comes from the NYS Office of New Americans, and the NYS Dept. of Agriculture & Markets.