What is poultry farm labour?
Your poultry farm labour force is your staff of personnel responsible for carrying out the operational duties of your business.
It involves stockmanship, but also support staff which keep premises clean, the site orderly and administration tick over.
Why is poultry farm labour important?
Fulfilment.
What goes on paper (unless it is done) is completely worthless.
This is where your poultry farm labourers come in.
They are your specialist fulfilment team who mind after everything your business requires to produce profits.
Not only is it important who you hire but also how you manage them.
Because the day to day runnings of a poultry farm runs to routine and every element contributing to the bottom line…
…you’ll want to get the labour force right from day one.
Any poor performance amongst your staff will most certainly show up in the output quality of your farm.
And in poultry farming, every cycle of production counts towards your ROI.
So, you’ll want to have your farm in safe hands – quite literally.
Birds are sensitive creatures and also habitual.
The slightest change in environment or handling can knock their confidence and this can show in growth or laying.
Having a rock steady team of dependable stockmen will anchor your enterprise in good profit.
Best Practice
Experience
There’s no substitute for experience.
Knowing what to do and how to do it trumps every other type of quality – even education.
An invaluable resource for any business.
Accessing and successfully recruiting adequately experienced personnel can be hit and miss.
It very much depends on what’s available on the market – at the time of looking.
Writing up a good job description sets firm expectations on both sides.
Carefully consider:
- desirable qualities
- essential qualities
And set your stall out accordingly. Any compromises may damage your chances for future success.
Further reading: Write Job Descriptions To Attract The Best Talent (The Job Network)
SOPs
Standard operating procedures will help keep your critical operating processes in clear view of all involved.
Being explicit goes a long way in business.
How else can you expect your personnel to perform the tasks you set them without spot?
They must have a reference or a guide to which spells it out to them.
The very best organisations do this VERY well.
Why not your poultry business?
Further reading: Importance and benefits of standard operating procedures (QuickBooks)
CPD
Even the most experienced professionals need to keep their minds studying to promote improvement and stay sharp.
Being a professional means bet placed to give the best advice or solution.
As the means by which you can achieve these change,
Your need to brush up on skills and technology also grows.
Your poultry staff should have a desire to continually examine their performance.
There are always tips that can be picked up here or there to squeeze out even the smallest margin of improvement.
Even a little can make a lot of difference in business.
Further reading: The future looks bright for farmers who focus on continuing professional development (Business Wales Dot Gov)
Reviews
Performance reviews (appraisals) are great for so accountability.
No matter what the job is, setting firm targets for what is expected is critical to buttoning down success.
A role doesn’t have to be directly revenue-related to be performance targeted.
Poultry farmhands have a direct impact on flock performance.
What they do day to day therefore directly has a knock-on effect on your eventual profits…
…from kg of meat produced or eggs laid.
Set performance targets and review them periodically to keep clear expectations for staff.
Further reading: Effective Appraisals (AHDB)
Training
Good practice makes for effortless excellence.
Getting your staff training in the most profitable qualities will keep your investment ROI on track.
It pays, in the long run, to invest in people, as they say.
Your poultry farming personnel are arguably your most valuable assets,
Because without them even your birds cannot perform.
Further reading: How staff training is benefiting performance on pig unit (Farmer’s Weekly)
Incentivised
People perform best when there’s a tangible gain to be made – or something of value at stake.
It sharpens the senses and gives people a sense of being a shareholder.
Like their contribution will actually make an overall difference.
Present incentives that may drive a desire to perform amongst your poultry farming staff members.
Further reading: 5 ways to motivate farm employees (Farm Progress)
Ownership
The very best performing employees deal with your business as if it were theirs.
To nurture this type of attitude among your staff requires strategic internal communication.
Engaging them in a way which offers them a level of buy-in that credits them as owners of their portion of the overall team effort.
Further reading: 10 ways to encourage employees to take ownership in their work (Eric Chester)