Communication key to bettering agri working relationships
NAU president highlights current failures
Gouws urged agricultural employers to continue to motivate workers, adding that this will aid their business' success.
Agriculture is but one generation away from extinction. Piet Gouws, president of the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU), said this as he opened the 35th annual congress of the Agricultural Employers' Association (AEA).
“We are struggling on farms every day to build a relationship with our labour force, to try and build a success story to deal effectively with people relationships and to manage our value.”
Gouws added that as agricultural employers, they fall short in their negotiating skills and their communication with workers.
He stressed that employers should never give up on motivating their workers.
“Any business will tell you that its investment in its labour force is non-negotiable. Because this is the success for the business. In a successful business, workers are happy, successful and inspired.
“And this is where we are failing. We do not acknowledge the uniqueness of the individual; we do not acknowledge each one’s character. We give an assignment without taking into account the person and his capacity, his ability and his comprehension.”
Give more to get more
According to Gouws, employers must start learning how to better communicate with workers to make sure they understand what is expected of them, and what the assignment is.
He said labour is about 20% of agricultural production costs.
“That 20% represents the wages. It does not represent the lost time on poor production; it does not represent our loss on resources, things that disappear and the totals that have to be repeated and redone because of miscommunication. Then the 20% is far more than that.
“So why don’t we - with this valuable resource without which we cannot do - give additional, extra support to achieve success?”
Gouws pointed out that while this is 20% of their costs, producers spend 80% of their conversations and time talking about labour, but they are not motivating their employees correctly.
“We are complaining about how to manage that 20% of our costs. Producers can manage their inset costs, definitiveness and increase production.”
Extinction
He further stressed that agriculture as we know it is one generation from extinction.
“The entire world is anti-agriculture. The focus is on the rights of people and animals, anti-farming, anti-cattle.”
Gouws said the AEA therefore has a very big role to play.
“Because if we can tell our story to the world with a successful story of people relationships, successful labour relationships, successful, effective farming management, [then we can] sell our product and place it on the market.
“If that is the story we can tell, why on earth we are not doing much more with our labour relationships?”
He added that the AEA should start gathering these success stories and selling them to the world, “so that we are writing our story and not someone else”.