Cultivating Best Human Resource Practices on Small and Mid-Scale Farms

National Farmers Union – Ontario Newsletter
The Rural Voice | January 2024

The NFU-O’s free online Human Resources training for farm operators is back by popular demand!

Are you looking for advice and support on how to train and manage your staff next growing season? 

Or maybe you have management tricks and tips for a healthy, fair, and energized work environment that you wish you knew before you hired your first employee? 

Whether this is your first year hiring staff or whether you have decades of management experience, by coming together we can collectively learn from our successes and our mistakes. By sharing our on-farm management insights we can improve our operations and help small and mid-sized farms across the province become more resilient and more attractive to job seekers.

“I learned so much from the panelists,” said one anonymous participant of the NFU-O’s 2023 HR offerings.  “And I used the resources and templates to successfully hire my first employees!”

“Even though I’ve hired and managed farm workers for over ten years,” said another 2023 participant, “these sessions gave me so many tips on how to foster a happy, communicative, and cooperative work environment.”

Join us for the 2nd year in our series of four 2-hour free online HR training modules, where our team of agricultural HR experts will provide a crash course on best management practices. The four sessions will cover:

• Hiring and Incentives (Wednesday, January 31, 2024, 7-9pm) – Find out how to hire effectively! This session will include a discussion on deciding what type of employees will work best for you, how to develop a job description and interview questions, job advertising options, and building an incentives package.
  
• HR Fundamentals (Wednesday, February 7, 2024, 7-9pm) – Scared of the paperwork? Not anymore! Learn about employment standards and legislation, health and safety and WSIB requirements; payroll and wages, grants and cost-share programs, and other general logistics. 
• Interpersonal Dynamics, Training, and Retention (Wednesday, February 21, 2024, 7-9pm) – Want to create a friendly and co-operative work environment? You’ve come to the right place! Experts will share employee handbook and orientation designs, training and development tips, equity and discrimination policies, stress and wellbeing measures, staff retention strategies, and more. 
• Planning, Task Management, and Delegation (Wednesday, February 28, 2024, 7-9pm) – Being a good manager means staying organized! Learn successful time-tracking, strategic management and planning tips. Explore a variety of staff management approaches and how to motivate and evaluate staff. Learn how you can you support employee routes to equity, co-ops, and/or other partnership. 

Join us for one session, or for all four.

In addition to hearing from our expert panelists, participants will receive a variety of HR materials, including: job advertising and recruitment method tips; how-to-write job descriptions, employee handbooks and orientation templates, payroll and wage templates, scheduling and time-tracking templates, grants and cost-sharing tips, and more!

These sessions will help your farm become more resilient and more attractive to job seekers.

If you have any questions and/or would like to participate in our HR programming, please contact David Thompson (david@nfuontario.ca) or call 705-738-3993 ext.102.

Click here to view the PDF version.

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