Friday, March 29, 2024

Building a lean team

Avatar photo
Creating a pleasant working environment where staff want to be every day is a priority for Waikato farmers Ian and Pamela Storey. They told Sheryl Brown how the lean management philosophy has altered their approach to staff and the role they play in their farm business.
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Creating a team culture where staff feel comfortable to call the boss out for not putting a tool back where it belongs is at the heart of the lean management philosophy.

Waikato farmers Ian and Pamela Storey are on a journey to create a new team culture onfarm and ultimately a better work environment by adopting lean management principles.

Lean management is a concept focused on reducing waste in a system, with the goal to become more efficient. Making the work more predictable with less chaos through better systems and processes in place means there will be less frustration in the workplace.

That equates to happier staff who are more engaged and motivated in their work.

One of the biggest benefits is making the job more pleasant, Ian says.

“Having good morale and efficiency are a by-product of getting the processes right.”

And if you have a good workplace, saving money will come as a result of a well-functioning business, he says.

Ian and Pamela have been farming at Te Hoe since 2001. In that time they have bought neighbouring blocks to grow their milking platform from 75ha to 165ha. While Ian grew up in the next-door valley, Pamela emigrated from the United States after meeting Ian on a blind date. She has a degree in electrical engineering and has held several roles working in energy, renewable generation and environmental organisations. She now has several governance roles, including as a trustee for the Dairy Women’s Network.

They employ three full-time staff – new farm manager Tom Wrigley and assistant herd managers Alan Brandish and Melissa Worboys, who are both in their second season.

They invest a significant amount of money and time into staff training, including Primary ITO and industry workshops, as well as taking staff to discussion groups.

When they heard about the Farm Tune programme they saw an opportunity to build a better team culture, create a more efficient work environment and gain more control over their business in the dairy downturn.

“A lot of the angst I was feeling was due to fixating on things outside of my control,” Pamela says.

“I can’t control the milk price, I can’t control the global dairy commodity markets. If you spend too much time thinking about those it can be a significant downward spiral.

“Farm Tune was an opportunity to look at the way we do things inside our business, the way we do things that are in our control and how we can do that better. It was also about how we come together as a team.”

The size of their business means a lot of the daily jobs are one-person jobs. There isn’t a lot of opportunity to work together and get to know one another beyond the day-to-day interaction.

Farm Tune was a 12-week programme where the entire team travelled in a car together once a fortnight and sat around a table discussing the farm processes.

Spending that time together in itself was good team bonding, Pamela says.

It was a huge time commitment and in the beginning there was a bit of resistance, but everybody made the effort to participate and the further they got into the programme, the more they started to see the chance to make improvements.

“We had tremendous buy-in. It brought us together and we started thinking like a team.”

An important part of the process is each staff member becomes confident to speak their mind and share their thoughts about how to improve things onfarm. The Farm Tune process also developed skills in Ian and Pamela and taught them to be more open to those suggestions, Pamela says.

“I like to think we were always open, but it’s a change in mindset. You get into that habit of asking if people have a different way of doing things. It’s opened the dialogue a lot more constructively.”

Going through the lean process helps people to respect that everybody has a role to play onfarm and each person has an impact on the success of the business. It’s easy to look from the outside and question how other people do a task or why it takes someone so long to do a job, Pamela says. But when people get an insight into the process they can see what the challenges are and how they can help.

“I’m a firm believer that people want to do a good job. If that’s not happening, sometimes it is less about the individual and more about the processes in place. So let’s focus on that.

“This isn’t about people being lazy or difficult. If something isn’t happening, someone may not have the right tool or may not be properly trained. It’s about getting away from blaming people and instead thinking how we can improve the process so it works better the next time.”

Part of the philosophy is empowering people to make their own decisions. If you have robust processes in place, staff can problem-solve on their own. It makes the work more satisfying for staff if they can make decisions on their own, but also makes them more accountable, Ian says.

“Part of this is making me less operational. If you have a problem, use the processes in place to come up with the answer, rather than just pass it up the ladder.”

The point of lean management is continuous improvement. For Ian and Pamela it’s about maintaining those principles in their business and continuing to bring their staff along with them on their journey.

By nature Ian is not a structured person, and keeping a tidy toolshed, for example, is a work in progress, he admits.

“This is a challenge for me, but if the lead person is not doing it how can you expect other people to do it.

“I recognise the challenge is to keep it going until it becomes the culture. We are going into this to make it succeed.”

Part of that ongoing culture is the recruitment process. When they interviewed Tom for the farm manager position they talked about the lean management journey they are on and that it was imperative their new manager was passionate about it.

It has been easier than expected to integrate Tom into their lean management team culture, Pamela says. His military background and experience managing large-scale operations means he is naturally focused on efficiency.

Bringing him into their business has brought a fresh set of eyes that can see new opportunities for improvement.

“I feel grateful someone of that experience is coming to work here. We are really lucky to have him.”

It’s easy to see the benefits of lean management going forward, Tom says.

“You can see where improvements can be made, part of my role is to foster that and encourage that culture.”

Melissa and Alan have seen how they can make constant improvement in everyday practices.

Something as simple as putting up a break fence is something that can be made more efficient, Alan says.

He’s always looking to improve or reduce the time it takes to do a task and that in itself is self-motivating, he says. Melissa admits she has even transferred the lean principles to her home life.

One process the team is working to improve is pasture walks. They are currently mapping the farm with markers and putting stiles and insulation on fences so the walk is an easier, faster and more consistent process. The theory is to get the same results every time, regardless of who does the pasture walk, Ian says.

The walk used to be delegated to one person, but now everybody takes turns. It’s an opportunity for everybody to develop in the team, in what is a really important skill in dairy farming, Pamela says.

Ian and Pamela have made a big change to how they approach pasture in the past 18 months.

After doing some modelling they realised they were overstocked and not utilising the pasture they had.

“We were feeding too many supplements and there was too much feed going into maintaining liveweight rather than into the vat,” Ian says.

They reduced cow numbers from 540 to 470 this season and are targeting the same production.

“We think we can do the same with fewer cows per hectare.”

They are considering dropping to 440 cows next season, which will be highly dependent on how well they manage their pastures this season.

They want to ensure excellent pasture utilisation, which comes back to doing regular and accurate pasture walks. Building their staff’s capability around measuring grass and understanding the feed wedge is a big part of that, Ian says.

“If someone is away, everyone is capable of making the right decisions.”

Top team culture tips
• Role model the culture – the boss has to be tidy too
• Better processes make work less chaotic = happier, more engaged staff
• Getting away from a blame culture to looking at improving processes
• Send staff away to train as a group = good team bonding
• Consistent processes = repeatability across all team members.

Farm facts:
Owners: Ian and Pamela Storey
Location: Te Hoe, Waikato
Area: 165ha
Farm dairy: 54-bail rotary
Cows: 470 crossbred
Production: 2016-17 target 190,000kg MS
BW/PW: 123/181
Supplements: 300t palm kernel
Pasture harvested: 12.7t DM/ha

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading