February 23, 2023 - Noon Eastern Time

Presentation & Session Materials

In this interactive workshop, participants learned about a variety of approaches and tools that can help farmers build and maintain successful and productive working relationships with employees. Participants explored communication practices that can effectively share expectations and provide feedback to employees all season long.

The session introduced several interactive tools on the Farm Labor Dashboard that can help farm owners and managers develop written materials supporting human resource management, and featured "virtual farm visits" with farmers and farm employees who described how these practices play out in their operations.

Note: There is not a recording of the session, but you can review the presentation slide set from the session. The presentation includes links to interviews with farmers and farm workers, as well as pointers to related resources and materials.

View the Practical Tools for Optimizing Employee Performance presentation slide set.

Advance Materials

To get the most from the workshop, participants were asked to review the following information in advance of the session.

• Read Attracting & Retaining Employees on Organic Vegetable Farms (approx. 40 minutes), focusing on pages 3-19 which are summary results from author Sarah Jones Ugoretz’s interviews with farmers and farm workers. The rest of the pages are examples of tools that may be helpful, such as Position Description Examples, Pre-Season Onboarding Meeting Agenda Example, Employee Manual Example, Employee Evaluation Example, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) Examples.
• Watch or listen to this 18-minute TEDx video How great leaders inspire action by Simon Sinek. If time is short, prioritize minutes 8-11.

Facilitators

Here is some introductory information about Jesse Wright and Seth Wilner, who facilitated the session.