With many Scottish dairy farmers increasingly struggling to find skilled labour, AHDB and the Scottish Dairy Hub have organised an event with the aim of providing potential solutions.
Held in Lanarkshire on 19 December the ‘Leadership through a Different Lens’ workshop will focus on how to become a more engaging employer and retain much needed skilled staff.
AHDB dairy knowledge exchange manager Becki Leach explains: “Recruiting and retaining the right people is becoming increasingly challenging even for the very best businesses and their leaders. There is no simple solution to this complex problem but our three expert speakers will share tried and tested methods that can assist farmers in retaining and developing skilled staff.”
Peter Russian is chief executive at Re:Markable and a passionate advocate of intent-based leadership, which promotes giving control to employees and empowering them to use it. His session will explain the benefits and process of instilling business values into staff and ensuring employees are motivated by business goals.
The next two speakers will cover employee engagement and mentoring, two areas absolutely vital to developing staff within a business.
Sue Mitchell, director of Aeona; a coaching and leadership development consultancy, will focus on engagement, sharing insights and practical tips to engage staff in a way that makes a difference to the business.
As Business Mentoring Executive for Scotland at the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, Carol Anne Morris’s role is to facilitate mentoring relationships. She will discuss the benefits of both external mentoring, i.e. being mentored by a highly successful person from another sector, as well as how dairy farmers can mentor staff within their own businesses.
Stuart Martin, who runs the Scottish Dairy Hub, says: “This workshop has arisen from a genuine need in the industry to attract more skilled staff. At the Hub we take calls on a huge range of issues, but we have seen a marked rise in the number of calls related to lack of labour, something this event tackles head on.”
Leadership through a Different Lens will be held at Radstone Hotel, Ayr Road, Larkhall, Lanarkshire ML9 2TZ from 10am to 4pm with lunch and refreshments provided. The event is free to attend but booking is essential and places at the meeting are strictly limited and so will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
