What are your top 2020 priorities? If you’re like most farmers, its probably about profits and efficiency. As you examine various parts of your business for improvement, have you taken a look at your culture? While that might sound like “soft skills” to some of you, I assure you that it is not.
Remember, every family or business has a culture — one that is either created or allowed. Creating culture is not always easy. It takes constant maintenance, but the benefits of getting your work environment to a place where people get along, communicate clearly and stay for years is entirely worth the effort.
A positive, productive culture is not just about improving employee behavior (although some employees may have to make behavioral changes in order to remain in your organization and be successful). Actually, it’s about a conscious strategy a leader creates and adopts, which permeates everything. The most productive cultures are those where people are engaged because these teams know the cost of a disengaged employee is high.
Research varies on disengaged employees. But most put the number somewhere between 16% and 35% of all workers.
Think about that for a second. If one-third of your employees are working at a level far below their capacity, what is that costing you? How does it affect other employees that are doing well? Take some time this winter to evaluate your employee engagement and the impact it has on your bank account. Then, consider ways to improve engagement for the bottom line.
5 Ways An Engaged Team Improves Profit
- Trust: When employees are more engaged, trust is earned. This is especially important when jobs are spread out across miles and acres. A lack of trust is expensive because it leads to managers who are constantly checking up and even redoing an employee’s task.
- Communication: Engaged teams have mastered their own brand of effective communication. Good communicators save you money in the form of fewer errors or omissions and less damaged equipment or wasted inputs. Research says positive communication also results in fewer missed days – an unengaged employee doesn’t really care if they don’t show up.
- Retention: Searching for, hiring, and onboarding takes a ton of time and adds up in personnel cost. Save yourself some of this headache by ensuring employees are engaged. If they are and support your goals, they will stay.
- Knowledge and Capacity: Engaged team members like to get better and desire to continue to learn something everyday. This improves your systems, processes and output. Plus, they teach others around them.
- Productivity: Engaged employees simply do better work. They work harder, faster and with more dedication. This leads to results you care about, such as higher yields in crops or higher live births in livestock.
Culture is a focus for leaders at The Maschhoffs, which is the largest family-owned pork operation in North America. Learn how they created a collaborative culture at AgWeb.com/Maschhoffs
Sarah Beth Aubrey’s mission is to enhance success and profitability in agriculture by building capacity in people. She provides executive coaching as well as peer group and board facilitation. Learn more at SarahBethAubrey.com
