HR metrics for agriculture



As known, methods and approaches to evaluation of HR performance in different businesses somewhat differ.  No wonder!  Every business is individual and thus requires individual approaches to personnel.  It wouldn’t be  reasonable to measure human resource performance at an industrial enterprise and a web designing company with the same indicators since they have different goals, different success factors and different requirements to employees.  That’s why it is imperative to take into account all those subtle differences and nuances when measuring HR performance with Balanced Scorecard system (BSC). Balanced scorecard revolutionized evaluation of business performance since it added non-financial indicators and started measurement of intangible assets, including human resource performance.

Current economic situation and recent financial meltdown have vividly demonstrated that intangible assets and intellectual potential/capital are those drivers that enable businesses overcoming crisis.  Of people who work for the company are the primary value.

As already said above, different business areas have different approaches and indicators in measurement of HR performance.  In agriculture and farming, methods and indicators of human resource management are dictated by specific nature of work in this area.  It is not easy to be a farmer and sometimes this is a very hard work especially at the height of the season.  The following indicators can be successfully used in HR measurement in agriculture:

  1. Job offer acceptance rate.  This indicator related to recruitment group demonstrates whether or not jobs with a company working in agriculture area are popular.  Very often, people who want to take jobs in agriculture then change their minds and reject job offers because of tough working conditions, over time work, dependence on weather conditions etc.  If job acceptance rate is low it means that something is wrong with the company attitude towards potential employees.  It means that something needs to be done to change the situation.  For example, HR managers may ask those who reject a job offers about reasons for such decisions.  Step by step, working conditions will be improved and job offered acceptance rate will go up which will in its turn lower recruitment costs.
  2. Very often people take part time jobs in agriculture sphere which is both good and bad.  Agriculture company needs extra personnel during harvest season.  But at the same time the number of part time employees should not be too high since if something goes wrong these people will be unavailable.  A fulltime employee is the person trusted by company management while part-time workers to consider their employment with agriculture company as a temporary job which is not good for the company.  A well balanced rate of full and part time employees must be kept.
  3. Satisfaction with bonus system.  Usually, people working in agriculture receive special bonuses after to the harvest season depending on the total revenue of a company.  That’s why, it is important that employees are satisfied with existing bonus and compensation system which motivates them to work better or faster.

To sum it up, it needs saying that HR managers and agriculture companies should make sure the employed people who love working on the land and who are well motivated to achieve the greatest performance.