Onboarding processes critical with influx of workers in the cattle industry

As the cattle industry is starting to see an influx of workers who are newer to the field, taking the time to make sure good onboarding processes are in place is critical, according to Ashley Nicholls of REACH Agriculture Strategies.

Nicholls’ program, dubbed “low-stress people handling,” mirrors concepts in Temple Grandin’s “low-stress cattle handling.”

“Using this term was comfortable for people who are familiar with the idea,” Nichols explained. “In agriculture, we have relied on family and values, but things have changed, so now we have to develop some systems to align ourselves with the outside world.”

Nicholls notes that how cattle are worked has changed over the last five years, and as being a cowboy has become “cool” again through the influence of shows like Yellowstone, having good training systems in place is valuable.

“We want to consider employee satisfaction, not just in terms of pay, but also in our facilities,” Nicholls explained. “Are our facilities places that are usable and places that people want to be in?”

Turnover of employees has become a bigger concern in recent years, as well.

“In the past, we had a bigger base of skilled hands, but now we need to keep the people that we have,” he said.

Bringing in new people is not just about training and job satisfaction, but it’s also recognizing most people won’t stay if you “dead end the chute.”

“People are the same as cattle. If you dead end the chute and there doesn’t appear to be a way forward in continuing education or job advancement, they won’t stay,” he said.

When Nicholls works with an operation, he said he likes to work with everyone involved from the top down.

“When we do it this way, people are happier, the employees are more relaxed, and there is a baseline to fall back to,” he said.

One of the challenges of having operations improve their onboarding has to do with perception.

“The attitude in our industry is that this is the fluffy stuff and it’s uncomfortable to hear that you need to treat your employees better,” he said. “It’s a challenge to show that this has value and to let people know what needs to happen.”