To make coaching a routine, put a talk with each worker on the calendar at a fixed time, every week or every month. After each talk, write one line in a notebook: the date, what you agreed, and the date you will check it, which is usually the next talk. With the calendar and the notebook, you can look back and see what you agreed with each person and whether it got done.
Coaching here means the talks where you tell a worker how the job is going and agree with him on what comes next. When those talks happen only after something goes wrong, they depend on what you remember and how you feel that day. Nothing gets written down, and the same problem comes back the next month.
You probably know the pattern. Something goes wrong, and you correct it on the spot or take the job over yourself. In the good months nobody says anything, so the milker or the tractor driver hears from you only when he gets something wrong. What you agreed last time was never written down, so each of you comes to the next talk with his own memory of it. If the worker later says you never told him, you have nothing written to point to.
Why does a worker need to hear how he is doing before something breaks?
Whenever you tell a worker what you expect of him, such as the fence finished by Friday or the milking parlor hosed down at the end of every shift, you are setting him a goal. Edwin Locke and Gary Latham are two psychologists who pulled together decades of research on goals in an article for the journal American Psychologist. They wrote that for goals to be effective, people need summary feedback that reveals progress in relation to their goals. Summary feedback here means being told, every so often, how far along the work is. Without that, a person cannot tell whether to push harder or try a different way of working.
Their example is felling trees. If the goal is to cut down 30 trees in a day, a person has no way to tell if they are on target unless they know how many trees have been cut. A fence due on Friday works the same way. The fencer needs to know on Wednesday how much of the fence is up, while there is still time to catch up, instead of getting yelled at on Saturday for what is missing.
Locke and Latham also found that the combination of goals plus feedback is more effective than goals alone. If you tell a worker what you expect and never bring it up again, he has the goal but no word on how he is doing. That is only half of what makes a goal work.
What changes when the talk is on the calendar?
A talk you only plan in your head tends to happen on the day something goes wrong. A talk on the calendar happens on an ordinary day, when there is good news to give as well as bad. Gregorio Billikopf, who wrote the farm labor textbook Labor Management in Agriculture for the University of California, says people need to hear good things about their work on a regular basis. His advice is to look for what the worker really does well, such as how well and how promptly the shop mechanic does the repairs, and to say it in a sincere, non-manipulative way.
Talking to people about their work is something you can learn. The farm workforce program at Cornell University, in New York State, treats it as a habit, not a talent someone is born with, and runs its training to help supervisors develop the feedback habit.
Teagasc, Ireland’s state agency for farm research and advice, publishes a manual for farmers who employ staff. With someone just hired, it suggests a standing meeting each morning for 10 minutes. With the whole crew, it suggests a longer structured meeting at the start of the week, where the farmer hands out the week’s tasks and tells people how the work went. Once a worker knows the job, his own talk can come less often: a short one every week, or a longer one every month.
Pick a rhythm you can keep. A talk that is on the calendar but keeps getting moved ends up happening only when something goes wrong, which is where you started.
What goes on the line in the notebook, and why write it down?
One line per talk, about the work, not about what the person is like: the date, what you agreed, and the date you will check it. For example: “March 4. Fix the gap in the north fence and move the heifers on Friday. Check March 11.” At the next talk, start by reading that line aloud to the worker. That way the talk starts from what you both agreed, not from memory, and the same problem does not come back as if it were new.
What is said in a talk and never written down stays only in two memories, yours and his, and a month later the two no longer match. The line does not need to be long. It needs the date, what you agreed, and the date you will check it.
When the same issue comes up again, open the notebook to that person’s page. If a worker says it was never mentioned and you say it was, it is your memory against his. With the line, you have the date and what was agreed, written on the day. And because you read it aloud to him at the next talk, he heard it too.
What can go wrong with the notebook, and what is it not for?
It goes wrong when you write about the person instead of the work. With a line like “lazy” or “careless”, the worker learns nothing about what to do differently next week, and he hears it as a verdict on him. A line like that is worse than no line. Write about the work instead: wash the milking units right after milking, starting Monday.
The notebook holds only what the two of you agreed. It is not for keeping watch on the worker: you do not write where he was or what he did hour by hour, only what the two of you decided to do next.
It does not replace a formal review either. If you also review your people once or twice a year, that is a separate job, with its own guide on how to write down beforehand what you will judge each person on and hand it to them. The notebook covers the weeks between reviews, and you can start it even if you never hold a formal review.
If you already have each worker sign a written description of his job, keep doing it, but it covers something else. With that signed copy of each person’s job description you can show he received the description. You cannot show that anyone talked with him about how the work was going, and that is what the notebook line is for.
If a manager coaches the crew for you, he can use the same calendar and notebook. In a separate guide, what your manager decides alone, you can settle with him which calls he makes without asking you, including the ones that come up in these talks. More guides on managing the people who work for you are in the people section of this library.
Where to start
To set it up you need a calendar, a notebook and one afternoon, and you can start this week.
How does the written line help when a worker says you never told him?
When a worker remembers a talk differently, “we already went over this” is your word against his, and you cannot show which of you is right. With a dated line, a talk from months ago is still in the notebook, written on the day and read aloud to him at the next talk. Whether a line like that counts as evidence in a labor dispute depends on your country’s law, so ask your lawyer. Day to day, with the line in front of you, the two of you start the next talk from the same place.
A talk on a set date also means you follow up on the job while the worker keeps doing it, instead of taking it over yourself the moment something goes wrong. Getting the work done through the people on your farm, rather than doing it for them, is a large part of managing a farm.