northland chamber

ADVOCATE COLUMN 3rd WEEK JUNE 2011
Over the last 18 months or so, the Northland Chamber of Commerce has managed a Department of Labour funded project relating to workplace productivity. The study examined the importance of people and processes in a business’s performance. It involved Venture Group consultant Jill Hartles working with six different farming enterprises in Northland, ranging from a ‘new entrant’ to farming, to a large multi-farm business. Five of the farms, including an organic farm, were dairying enterprises and one was a Maori trust-owned farm.

Jill had one-on-one sessions with the farmers every six weeks helped to demystify things like strategic plans and staff performance reviews and gave the farmers an opportunity to talk about their businesses with someone who was independent. The difference in scale and experience of the various enterprises meant each business was at a different stage in its development. This was not to say that there were not similarities in the lessons they took from the project or from the processes they went through to achieve their outcomes.

While the businesses found it difficult to measure the value of this project in dollar terms, they all experienced an improvement in the day-to-day efficiencies of their farms. To initiate change required committed and innovative leadership from the business owners. They needed to be able to communicate a shared vision with their workforce and to create an environment which encouraged everyone in the workplace to identify opportunities to do things better.

The key lesson was not so much what was learnt but the process that lead to the implementation of the learning. Although all the businesses were willing participants, they also had some reservation in regards to the amount of time they would have to commit to the project. They noted that having an outside consultant driving them in the initial stages was essential to maintaining their motivation to change. They also said that at some stage during the process they all underwent an epiphany where it suddenly became clear what they needed to do and why.

It was not so much a case of delivering knowledge and information to these owners as they were experienced farmers with access to most of the information they needed to instigate change, but rather tailoring a response to their individual business that would lead to that moment where the switch is flicked and the answer is obvious and this is where the outside assistance was of most value.