November 1999
Volume 2, Issue 8
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Training New Employees for Productivity and Longevity on Your Farm,
E. Oelker
Should I use BST or Genetically Engineered Crops, J. Skeeles
Dairy Excel Article: Corn Silage Feeding Management, T. Noyes
TRAINING NEW EMPLOYEES FOR PRODUCTIVITY AND LONGEVITY ON YOUR FARM
Ernie Oelker
The Ohio State University, Extension Agent
Trumbull County
Who ever heard of training a dairy farm employee? Don’t you just hire
people who already have the skills
and experience that you need? Perhaps not. It appears that candidates
for dairy farm jobs are increasingly
less likely to have valuable experience. Besides, every dairy farm
is different, so it is important that all new
employees have adequate training and orientation in order to get off
to a good start. Good training can
eliminate many mistakes. Well-trained employees have better morale
and improved performance compared
to those who are forced to learn from their mistakes. Many of the mistakes
dairy farm employees make are
due to inadequate training and unclear expectations of job performance.
Good managers provide training for
every employee, new as well as experienced ones.
Training
Loosely defined, training is any attempt to improve current or future
performance by increasing employee
ability. Training consists of planned programs designed to improve
performance at the individual, group,
and/or organizational levels. Improved performance, in turn, implies
measurable changes in knowledge,
skills, attitudes, and/or social behavior.
The purpose of training is to:
Orientation
Generally, dairy farm managers take time to show new recruits around
the operation, introduce them to
other employees and management team members. Sometimes it works
better to have a trusted employee do
the orientation of new hires. Orientation is extremely important to
the overall training program. Orientation
is the introduction of the new employee to the organization, the industry,
the requirements of the job, the
social situation in which he or she will be working, and the organization=s
culture. Therefore, orientation
must be much more than just Ashowing the new employee around.@
Orientation is the time to help the new
employee adapt to your operation and become assimilated into the social
structure of the workplace. The
overall goal is to help new employees learn about their new work environment.
1. Create a Favorable First Impression
A. Provide sufficient information about when and
where to report for work.
B. Get all relevant paperwork handled efficiently.
C. Have personable and efficient people to assist
with orientation.
2. Enhance interpersonal acceptance
A. Ease the employee=s entry into the work group.
B. Assure proper orientation to the management team
and procedures.
C. Consider a “buddy" or mentoring system to insure
interaction of newcomers and Ainsiders.
3. Increase individual and organizational performance.
A. Reduce adjustment problems by creating sense
of security, confidence and belonging.
B. Employees perform better because they learn faster.
C. Employees exhibit stronger loyalty through greater
commitment to values and goals.
D. Lower absenteeism.
E. Higher job satisfaction.
The following orientation check list may help you to do a more thorough
job of covering the important
things new employees need to know:
A. Organization and policies
B. Insurance benefits
C. Other benefits
D. First day schedule and duties
E. Location of important facilities
F. Working hours
G. Pay policy
H. Employees' second day activities and schedule
I. Employees' first two weeks activities and schedule
J. Other items
K. Opportunity for reorientation
Specific Job Training
The second type of training is specific job training. This is where
you or your manager train the new
employee to do his or her specific job. You need to decide on some
important issues before you structure the
training program for new employees:
A. What are the training needs for this person for this job? (What level
of skill does the applicant have
now, and what level is required to do the job?) Consult job descriptions
for each position.
B. How and where is the teaching to be done?
C. What methods or type of training will be used for each task?
D. What are the acceptable levels of performance for this person in
the position?
Now that you have decided what, how, and where training needs
to be done, it is time to prepare your
training plan. Dr. Bernie Erven, Ohio State University Extension Specialist
in Human Resource
Development, uses a simple approach to help trainers get their message
across effectively. He calls it
"Prepare, Tell, Show, Do, Review."
The following are the steps that Dr. Erven suggests:
1. Prepare or motivate the trainee to improve his or her performance.
2. Tell or clearly illustrate the desired skills you want the trainee
to learn.
3. Show the trainee what you want done by doing it for them.
4. Have the trainee DO the task and practice it until he or she is
comfortable with it. Encourage the trainee
to ask questions.
5. Review and provide timely feedback on the trainee=s performance
during the training and during the first
weeks of work.
6. Provide reinforcement while the trainee learns.
7. Structure the training from simple to complex
tasks.
8. Be adaptable to solve learner problems.
9. Make sure the trainee makes a positive transfer from the training
to the job.
Retraining
The third important type of training is retraining. Retraining is training
to overcome initial training
deficiencies or to prepare workers for job changes, new routines, or
new equipment. Every training program
should include provisions for retraining. In order to assess the need
for retraining, you must evaluate the
performance of your employees. Besides helping you to determine the
needs for retraining, evaluation of
employee performance is important in determining wage increases and
motivating them to continued high
performance. A good training program is important in developing and
retaining productive, happy
employees on your farm.¨
SHOULD I USE BST OR GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS? WHETHER
OR NOT I USE GENETIC ENGINEERING, HOW WILL IT AFFECT FARMING AND THE DAIRY
INDUSTRY?
Jim Skeeles
The Ohio State University Extension, Extension Agent
Lorain County
Genetically engineered products are not new. Firmer and longer keeping
tomatoes were one of the first
genetically engineered products. The controversial, genetically engineered
hormone called BST, which
induces dairy cows to give more milk, has been approved by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration and
has now been adopted my many American dairymen. It is not permitted
in Canada. Corn seeds genetically
modified to be resistant to a specific boring insect have been available
for several years. However, the most
dramatic adoption of genetic engineering has been by farmers using
the “Roundup Ready” soybeans
developed and marketed by Monsanto. More than one-third of the soybeans
planted in the United States and
in northeastern Ohio are Roundup Ready. This means that the soybeans
have been genetically engineered to
be resistant to Roundup, a chemical weed killer also developed and
marketed by Monsanto. More recently,
Monsanto has also developed Roundup Ready corn.
Many are concerned about genetic engineering because it is not “natural”.
One main concern is the
healthfulness of the genetically engineered food. There are also
concerns about how humane it is to inject
a genetically engineered hormone into dairy cattle so they will “unnaturally”
increase milk production.
Some are concerned that those “genetically engineered” traits
will be transferred to other plants in the
environment. Others are concerned about reduction in bio-diversity
as a result of genetic engineering.
The government, (Environmental Protection Agency, EPA), regulates unnatural
agricultural practices, such
as chemical fertilizers and weed and bug killers, and the government
will continue to regulate genetic
engineering. Chances are if you have been unhappy with the risks allowed
by EPA with chemicals in
agriculture, you will not be happy with the risks allowed by the government
with genetic engineering.
Those who favor genetic engineering contend that the United States
and individual farmers need to adopt
this new technology as quickly as possible in order to maintain their
competitive edge. Indeed, we in the
United States pride ourselves in our productivity. Yes, we essentially
“feed the world” and do it more
efficiently and at a lower cost than most of the rest of the world.
We do indeed enjoy a competitive edge in
agriculture. We enjoy that edge because of our willingness to develop
and adopt new technology, because
of our productive soils/climate, and because farmers fiercely compete
against each other. Economists call
our system “perfect competition”. Ironically, this perfect competition
forces out of business those farmers
who can’t or won’t adopt technology that lowers the cost of production
.
With every revolution in agriculture, the “less productive” farmers
have been forced out of business. The
industrial revolution started a long trend of fewer and fewer farmers,
with tractors replacing horses and
machines replacing the labor of farm family members. The introduction
of hybrid seed corn and plants bred
to yield more with chemical fertilizers further increased productivity,
so farmer numbers took another dive.
Herbicides allowed crop production with less or even no tilling of
the land, and insecticides assured
consistently higher crop yields. Thus, productivity continued to increase,
production costs decreased and
more farmers were forced to leave the farm.
So how will agriculture and the dairy industry change with the adoption
of genetic engineering? Farmers
will be forced to adopt the new technology to stay in business, and
those least successful with the new
technology will be forced out. Granted, some will find other ways to
stay in business, with or without
genetic engineering, such as segregating, marketing and/or retailing
their product. However, typical
farmers (who do not directly market to the consumer the commodity they
produce) will continue to fiercely
compete with each other, to produce at an inflation- adjusted lower
cost, to operate larger farms but own
less of them, and to adopt efficiency-enhancing technology.
CORN SILAGE FEEDING MANAGEMENT
Thomas E. Noyes
The Ohio State University Extension, Extension Agent
Wayne County
Corn silage is being fed at a higher percentage of the forage dry matter
today as compared to years ago.
There is good reason for this as today’s cows are capable of higher
levels of milk production and need a
much higher level of energy intake, including that coming from forage.
Corn silage furnishes this energy
along with its uniform quality and palatability.
Corn silage is also a relatively easy and economical crop to grow,
requiring less labor and management
compared to a hay crop. There has also been significant improvement
in varieties of corn grown for silage,
especially in the area of improved fiber digestibility. We now
have “whopper choppers” with kernel
processors that make harvesting fast and improve the quality of the
silage. The cracking and crushing of
kernels increase the starch availability (digestibility) of the corn
silage.
This year’s drought in many parts of Ohio has added another factor
to the corn silage that was harvested and
will be fed this winter. Due to the dry growing season, the total
dry matter yields per acre were lowered, due
mostly to a reduced forage portion of the silage. Surprisingly,
the grain yields in the silage were very good.
Thus, on many farms, we have corn silage with much higher grain content
than normal.
What does all this mean to managing corn silage in your feeding program?
For the high producing groups
of cows, there is additional potential for acidosis. Feeding
corn silage with a higher grain content, that was
kernel processed, and combined with the potential of less effective
fiber can put the cows in potential
problems. If you experience lower butterfat tests and suddenly
you have seen milk production jump two to
three pounds per cow per day, than you might want to review the rations
being fed with your nutritionist.
Also, check to be sure that the TMRs are not being over-mixed, which
also reduces the effective fiber in the
diets of the cows.
Feeding relatively high corn silage diets this winter will require
good management. You should use a Penn
State forage particle separator box if you have concerns about the
level of effective fiber in your forages
and rations. Contact your County Extension Office if you need
assistance.
All educational programs conducted by The Ohio State University
Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without
regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin,
gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status.
Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work,
Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Keith L. Smith, Director, The Ohio State University Extension.