Growing great

farm teams & How the Capability Matrix can help

The Problem

A little easier…

Practical application

Cost of staff turnover

Wages $35k

• Productivity losses

• Loss in knowledge and skills

• Manager’s time

• Errors

• Time spent re-doing tasks

Role

Staff Planning

Job Description

Advertise

Interview Process

Orientation Training

Team Building

?

Standard Terminology

Farm Assistant

Herd Manager

Assistant Manager

Farm Manager

Business/ Operations Manager

Up to 2 yrs.

2 yrs. +

3-4 yrs.

min 5 yrs. 5 yrs. +

Farm Assistant – Milking Skills • Setup the farm Dairy (supervised)

• Setup gates at dairy

• Correct use of backing/top gate

• Use voice and body to best effect

• Observe udder and report changes from normal

• Observe other physical signs of illness

• Able to maintain high level of alertness

• Doesn’t bend teats over

• Knows when all ¼ milked

• Effective milking (dairy flow, farm policy)

• Drafting (supervised)

• Plant workings

• Plant cleaning to correct level

• Yard/plant wash (supervised)

Herd Manager – Milking Skills • Responsible to carry out day to day milking routine (milking process, checking farm dairy

setup, cleaning plant/silo or vat)

• Good understanding of ‘normal’ for milking, routine, animal health and other farm systems

therefore has an awareness of standard abnormalities e.g. milk pump not working,

refrigeration fault, vacuum level in plant)

• Supervise Farm assistant during milking

• Carry out under supervision farm dairy maintenance e.g. change rubberware

• Fill out Dairy Diary or other company documentation

• Fill up dosetron according to guidelines

• Understanding of the different herds

• Detect mastitis and draft out cows

• Treat mastitis under supervision including aseptic teat preparation

• Draft out suspected sick cows for later examination

• Treat sick cows under supervision

• Record on whiteboard and animal health register

• Basic problem identification and problem solving of minor or common issues

• Use a mastitis detection device

• Drying Off - assist with treatments e.g. putting tubes in

Asst Manager – Milking Skills • Overall responsibility for all milking activities

• Able to trouble shoot & rectify problems and know when further advice or help is required

• Training new staff on

• milking procedures and mastitis control procedures

• Monitor tanker docket – for quality and production targets

• understands KPI’s for operational activities on farm

• Milk production targets

• Regional averages, top 10% for benchmarking

• Monitor stocks & supplies of farm dairy and report

• Correctly trains heifers for milking

• Correctly implements treatment with dry cow therapy/teat sealant at drying off

• Job allocation

• Dry cow therapy or teatseal

• Knowledge and discussion with farm manager around decisions regarding drying off

• Monitoring condition of cows and dry off as to farm policy (small numbers)

• Can access information e.g. Information on Milk Company website

Farm Manager – Milking Skills

• Organise Herd Tests as per farm policy

• Responsible for organising farm dairy for check and effluent

• Responsible for problem solving – coming up with plan to be

approved by business manager etc (i.e. increase in-calf rate,

reduction of SCC)

• All MINDA records or responsible for the quality of information

going to business manager and used for decision making

• Keeps records or delegates Dairy Diary

• Aware of and plan to meet KPI’s – productivity targets

• Responsible for accessing information e.g. milk production on

the Dairy Company website

Ops/Bus Manager – Milking Skills

• Formulating and communicating the milking

production policy for the farm

• Monitoring and analysing results

• Set KPI and productivity targets

Standard Terminology

Farm Assistant

Herd Manager

Assistant Manager

Farm Manager

Business/ Operations Manager

Doesn’t bend

teats over

Good

understanding

of ‘normal’ for milking,

routine

Overall

responsibility for

all milking

activities

Aware of and

plan to meet

production

targets

Set production

targets

Farm Training

Workplace Training Plan

Thanks for coming any

questions?