In 2019, our first full year of operation we got lucky! There's simply no other way of saying it. We got lucky that our first 60 staff were so good, dedicated and capable. Among our first 10 hires were David our lead mechanic (he of the broken foot), Jennifer who started as a gofer and joined the picking crew as soon as our high tunnels started producing (and is now our farm manager), three of our four foremen, and our first forewomen (the pig lady) were all hired in the first year. But also our Biologist and ecologist, our first two hires (directly out of university) who are still with us.
Since then we have added (we have apparently now 178 people on the employment roll) about 110 people (mostly part-timers) who work on the farm. As I said, 24 want to increase their hours, and become full-time employees (there is a difference here in the UK when you guarantee a minimum of 40 hours a week. It's a thing). In fact, all our employees are guaranteed a specific number of monthly hours (this is mostly to accommodate what Jennifer calls the Gray Brigade, which is the core of our warehousing operations).
Even with all the technology, farming remains an arduous job. Cleaning pens is done mostly with skid steers as it is the food preparation, but there's still a lot of manual labour. Lifting moving crates of fruits and vegetables has become more automated but it remains physical labour.
Picking is a young person's job (trust me I know), we have introduced some mechanization, but still, it's hard work. The only segment that is less physical is the warehousing segment because it is shipment prep, and that is mostly done with shop forklifts (hence the older workers...but they have tremendous hour flexibility).
Jennifer and my wife are spending a considerable amount of time and resources in finding the appropriate job for those of our employees who want to become full-time. We have two options, multiple jobs, or entirely new full-time activities. As an example, two of our youngest pickers already have the mechanics license (level 1), both are leaving the farm in early March to attend a 10-week training course to get their level 2 license and will then shift fill time to our maintenance crew. That means that there will be four full-time mechanics on the farm. Five of our current mechanics (older) want to move to the new warehousing and processing facilities. These are the challenges (BTW the courses are fully paid by the UK government as well as their full-time salary while they are away).
For us, Jennifer is thinking of hiring another 20 to 30 pickers starting in June of this year (when our high tunnels start producing. More discussion for when we return. David is also in discussion with our lead pickers to improve the flow in the high tunnels to reduce manhandling as much as possible.
Note: A sad day today, it was Lorie's last day. Monday she starts her new job (full-time higher pay). She promised to come back when we process the chickens. She was working half-time in two jobs (us and a chemist) and was looking for another 20 hours a week (with two young daughters). A loss for the farm and we promised to contact her if we had any management job available (she's that good), but Jennifer is confident that she will do very well in her new job.
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