In this episode, and building upon our last Profitable Farmer conversation on ‘people wrangling’ with FOA General Manager Sam Johnsson, I have the privilege of interviewing the Managing Director and Head Recruiter at DroverAg Recruitment, John Boote.

John arrives into HR Management & Ag Recruitment with over 20 years’ experience in farm management on the Cattle Stations across the Northern Territory & Western Australia. Sitting at the helm of this specialist Agricultural Recruitment agency, John and his team deliver employment solutions to primary producers, property owners and farmers all over Australia.

The thing I like about John is that he is pragmatic and a straight talker. He calls it as he sees it. Like me, he has observed a number of issues at play in our industry all around what it takes to find and keep good talent on our farms and in our communities, especially at this time.

In the spirit of speaking plainly, as farm business owners, we often suck at recruiting, building up and keeping good people.

John and I seem to agree that: we need to pay them well, treat them fairly, recruit average people and build them up from where they are (rather than make them wrong). In addition, we need to learn how to communicate better; how to include; how to manage; how to develop; and how to create the strategies, structures and systems that support attracting and retaining good people, so we can succeed in the process of building high-performing farm teams long term.

Good people ARE out there, even at this time. They are just not working for you… YET!

There are farms in your community that do not have challenges with finding good people – what are they doing that you might learn from?

This is a topic I feel very passionate about, so thank you for listening. I hope this is of value to you.

Whether you agree or feel challenged by how we navigate this very real issue – I’d love to hear your feedback!