BUSINESS
Fiona Windle, Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence
Losing a worker and then having to find and train a new one can be costly and time-consuming. Keeping employees happy not only saves money but also boosts productivity and ensures smooth operations. The food and fibre sector (including apiculture) struggles more with retaining workers than other sectors. Because of this, work is under way to understand why and support employers with tangible solutions.
Research commissioned by Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence (Food and Fibre CoVE) found that finding good employees and retaining them can be challenging, especially retaining staff past the first 12 months. Many new employees don’t stay long in a role with contributing factors such as struggling with mental health, if their job isn’t what they expected, or not getting along with their managers.
We heard specifically from the apiculture industry that:
- working with bees is tough. It’s highly isolated work, requiring lots of driving and physical work. It is common to hear that new hires have left within a month of being hired, because they didn’t know what they were getting into
- some training is aimed at and completed with hobby beekeeping in mind. As a result, training can feel ineffective and not linked to requirements of a commercial business
- most employers in the apiculture industry have fewer than 10 people on the payroll. This makes it tricky to easily recruit, onboard, coach, mentor, and develop employees, particularly school leavers or those new to the industry.
With these factors in mind, Food and Fibre CoVE has commissioned a pilot to assess whether a free resource (the Food and Fibre Employer Toolkit) would support employers, managers, and supervisors in the food and fibre sector to improve factors related to attracting and retaining good staff.
Photo: Paul Sutherland, New Zealand Story.
Top workforce tips for apiculture
The Food and Fibre Toolkit has a wide range of helpful tips, steps, and ideas related to managing people in a food and fibre business. Sections that are likely of particular interest to beekeepers and the apiculture industry are:
- Ensuring that potential hires have a realistic understanding of the job’s demands can reduce the risk of no-shows or early quitters. This can be done through clear and simple language in job ads, and quick screening questions in phone calls, interviews, or applications
- onboarding with a buddy system. Following a simple onboarding process and making sure a new hire has a buddy on day one can help manage expectations, support learning the ropes, and set them up for success
- mentoring and coaching. Pairing employees with a mentor or coach (someone more senior) can help improve performance, encourage independence, and increase engagement with work. Coaches or mentors can help individuals with goal setting, conflict resolution, and career development.
What else is in the Toolkit?
The Toolkit is broken down into six sections that cover the key parts of attracting and retaining staff:
- attracting the right people: hiring and onboarding effective new employees so they stay
- workplace wellbeing and culture: creating a positive environment that boosts job satisfaction
- mentorship and coaching: supporting employees in their growth journey
- your obligations as an employer: fulfilling your obligations as an employer
- training and development: improving productivity and skills
- Māori cultural confidence: growing an understanding of Māori culture in the workplace.
Access the Toolkit for more advice
To access the pilot Toolkit online and download a copy or listen to it in podcast format, please visit https://www.employertoolkitnz.org/apiculture-beekeeping. As this is a pilot version, you will be asked to provide some basic information and will be followed up within several weeks to complete a feedback survey. This feedback will help Food and Fibre CoVE to improve the Toolkit for the sector. We welcome any and all feedback. Please explore this free tool and share it with other employers, managers and supervisors.