 Today, managing a dairy means managing people. Dairies
are increasing in size and the number of employees. A large degree
of the dairy's business success depends on the productivity and
efficiency of these employees. For many dairymen this role as
an employee manager is new, or at least growing in size and scope.
Where it may have been fairly simple to manage two to four extra
people, now many dairymen are finding themselves in the position
of needing to manage up to ten or more employees. Some days this
can be a difficult and frustrating task. There are entire books
written on employee management as well as people who devote their
entire careers to training others on how to improve their management
techniques. Employee management is not simple or easy. However,
there are some steps that you can take to make yourself a better
manager and improve the productivity of your employees. The following
three basic thoughts have been touched on by a number of different
management specialists as key concepts to improving employee output
and motivation, and should provide you with a foundation for improving
your employee management skills:
- Setting clear, concise goals and expectations
- Making people accountable to meet outlined goals
- Providing feedback on progress towards goals
Setting Clear, Concise Goals and Expectations
Employees need to be able to identify the goals and expectations of their job. They need to understand what is expected of them in order to attempt to do a "good" job. If employees are confused about what is expected of them, they may do what a manager considers a good job by random chance, however, more often than not their idea of how the job should be done will differ from the manager's. It is up to the dairymen to be extremely clear on exactly what their job entails and how they are expected to accomplish tasks. Dairymen need to create written job descriptions that include goals and expectations for each position on the dairy. This becomes extremely critical when more than one employee is employed to complete the same task. A good example for the need of a job description and outline of tasks and procedures can be found in the milking parlor. Typically dairies employ more than one milker. An outlined job position clearly indicates procedures and goals so that every cow on every shift is milked the same way no matter which milker is milking that shift. Without a clear procedure, many different procedures can be used to milk cows. By setting clear, concise goals management has increased the likelihood that the job will be done consistently by all employees. Management has also created a reference which can be used for future feedback and clarification.
Making People Accountable to Meet Outlined Goals
Once goals and expectations have been set it is critical that management has some way of monitoring whether employees are reaching these goals or not. Employees should be trained on how to complete tasks so that they have every opportunity to reach the outlined goals. They also need to be held accountable if they are not completing tasks properly or if the end goals are not being met.
It is critical that employees know who is responsible. If it is their responsibility, then tell them directly. This gives employees a sense of worth and lets them know that you are counting on them to accomplish this particular task. If you do not designate responsibility, then no one will assume responsibility. Natural instinct is to assume that it must be someone else's duty. Once responsibility has been assigned then most employees will step up to complete tasks.
As employees become more accountable for their actions, managers need to give them increased freedom to make decisions and input on how tasks should be accomplished. This does not mean that they can do the job any way they want to or that they can loose sight of the desired expectations and goals. It simply means they need to know that you value them and their ideas. If they are responsible to see that a certain goal is met, then they need to have confidence and buy-in that the tasks they are completing are helping them meet their intended goal. Management may find that the employees often have the best ideas on how to accomplish certain goals most effectively.
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