TEPAP – Day 5 Morning Session
The morning session of day 5 of the TEPAP conference was performed by Bernie Erven, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at Ohio State University (of THE Ohio State University as one farmer told me this week). His discussion was on Human Resources Management dealing with:
- Be a Better Boss
- Organizational Structure
- Dealing with Problem Employees
Highlights of each are as follows:
Being a better boss primarily requires us to communicate with our employees better than we are doing right now. There are many ways of achieving this, however, in all cases it requires us to communicate better, both verbal and in writing.
On your organizational structure, it is extremely important to know your span of control. If everyone of your employees report directly to you and you have more than 5 employees, you probably need to fix your span of control. In most organizations, about 5-6 people are all that should report to one person.
In disciplining problem employees, it needs to consistent and follows the same procedures or it will not be perceived correctly. If you have chronic under performers, there may be up to 14 possible reasons for this. Many of these reasons relate to you as the employer versus the employee. Make sure that you can correct these issues first and then see if the employee remains an under performer.
In dealing with under performers, make sure to DO SOMETHING about it. Refuse to allow the problem to fester. Stop the negative effects on the business, the worker’s happiness and the worker’s effectiveness.
As an employer, you want to be friendly and fair with all employees, but be a buddy of no employee.
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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