Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In other words, the mechanics of managing people and the fi ner points of motivating people
are highly interdependent. If the person and the job are not carefully matched, no amount of
motivation is likely to make much difference. In
Chapter 16
we explored the important areas
of organizational design, leadership, and motivation. The emphasis in this chapter will be on
the functions of human resource management.
Key issues
Three major issues affect the management of human resources in most organizations:
the size of the fi rm, knowledge of the human resource functions, and top management's
philosophy toward human resources.
Sometimes, particularly in small fi rms, the human resource (or personnel, as it may be
called in smaller fi rms) function is carried out more by accident than by design. Regardless of
the size of the agribusiness, jobs must be defi ned, people hired, legal requirements met, employ-
ees trained, wages set, and customers served. Because a small agribusiness usually cannot
afford to hire qualifi ed full-time people to handle HR management, this task is often left to the
general manager. In these cases, people may only get attention when a crisis occurs. Examples
of such crises include a key employee leaving the company, a lawsuit fi led by an employee, or
customer service slipping dramatically. Unfortunately, in some agribusiness fi rms, human
resource management is almost completely ignored until such problems reach crisis stage.
There is no absolute size of fi rm, in terms of number of employees or sales volume, which
dictates when a full-time person (or persons) should be designated to handle human resource
management. The kind of agribusiness, its complexity, the diversity of its jobs, and its degree
of seasonality are all factors. A rough rule of thumb is that once an agribusiness has reached
75 to 100 full-time employees, management should examine its need for a full-time human
resource manager. Another helpful guide is that a full-time HR department can be profi table
when 1 to 2 percent or less of total wages will support that department's budget.
The size of an HR department also varies greatly by what they may outsource. For exam-
ple, if a fi rm does payroll, benefi ts administration, and recruiting in-house, they may need
additional staff to manage these functions. Many smaller companies will either have the
accounting department help with payroll, or it may be worthwhile to outsource this function
to specialized payroll fi rms such as ADP™ (Automatic Data Processing, which calls them-
selves “The Business Behind the Business”) or Paychex™.
Examining a growing midsize cooperative, the Culpen County Farmers' Co-op, illus-
trates some of the key issues involved in managing human resources. The general manager,
Kevin Staton, has been with the fi rm about fi ve years. The fi rm primarily focuses on crop
inputs and fuel and has annual sales averaging approximately $7.5 million. The cooperative
sells and services a complete line of agronomic inputs including fertilizer, crop protection
chemicals, and seed. In addition, Culpen sells gasoline, diesel fuel, and LP gas to farmers,
small businesses, and homeowners in their four-county area. The cooperative has 35 full-
time employees, plus another eight to ten part-time employees during the busy season. While
the business has grown somewhat, the number of employees has remained relatively con-
stant over the last couple of years because new equipment and technology has allowed the
fi rm to increase productivity.
Until recently, the labor force had been stable, and Kevin felt that the organization really
had no personnel problems. Yet in the last year, a number of events have occurred that have
radically changed his perspective: the co-op's workers' compensation rate had increased
substantially; the fi rm was cited for six violations of safety laws; a new plant which
