The Language Matters: Personnel Management for Spanish-Speaking Employees

Around 50% of the farm personnel working in dairy operations in the U.S. are foreign-born, and Spanish is the native language for 81% of them. This large population of workers has been growing, and it will keep growing in the future, which emphasizes the need for dairy educators and managers who are capable of effectively communicating in Spanish.

The main issue faced by dairy professionals working with Spanish-speaking personnel is the lack of understanding of main operational procedures, affecting not only personnel performance and farm profitability, but also the work environment in the operation. Maintaining an appropriate work environment is crucial to decreasing personnel attitude issues, which can generate conflicts among employees and managers, increasing personnel turnover.

Losing reliable and knowledgeable employees can be greatly detrimental to dairy producers. It has been suggested that the cost of losing and re-hiring employees could be around 150% of an employee's annual wage and as high as 250% for managerial positions (Bliss, 2004). According to Bliss (2004), the main costs involved in this process are: 1) compensation for lost performance, 2) loss in productivity, 3) manager time investment, 4) cost of the company to cover employee recruitment process (e.g., promoting the position, interviewing candidates), and 5) loss of knowledge (training). In a recent study, Schuenemann et al. (2014) compared losses between two different turnover rate scenarios (5% vs 30%), reporting a $27,920 loss (milk losses) for a 2,000 milking-cow herd. All of this highlights the critical importance of providing proper personnel management programs focused on employee retention.

The reasons that a Spanish-speaking employee would leave the farm are varied. Billikopf and Gonzalez (2012) reported that the main causes for leaving dairy employment were "compensation and benefits" (29%), followed closely by "personal, family reasons" (11%) and "relations with the management" (8%). The latter reasons often can be related to lack of communication and/or interest/understanding of an employee's personal life, which might be influenced by the cultural and language breach between Spanish-speaking personnel and English-speaking farm owners and managers.

The Spanish-speaking farm worker population looks for specific job conditions and benefits. Producers and herd managers who can provide these conditions may be able to successfully attract and retain these employees. Data reported by USDA (2012) showed that Spanish-speaking employees prefer a job opportunity that provides housing and numerous hours of employment. Many of these workers have large families in foreign countries that they need to support financially. Furthermore, USDA reported that this population of workers was most often (64% of the population) employed for more than 10 years, suggesting that this population prefers a stable and reliable source of employment. By covering these basic employee needs, producers can be one step ahead of the game in retaining reliable and knowledgeable Spanish-speaking employees, saving thousands of dollars annually. However, without being able to effectively communicate with their employees, farmers will not succeed in decreasing personnel turnover.

Penn State Extension started to address this important issue by providing 100% Spanish educational materials and programs and hiring bilingual Extension educators. These resources can be utilized by producers on a regular basis (e.g., monthly) to provide proper personnel training and communicate important information to their employees. Furthermore, these meetings can be used as social events where producers and managers can interact and learn about the personal lives and needs of their personnel, providing an opportunity to identify and address employee personal issues that may be affecting work performance. Some of the main benefits of these programs may be increased personnel knowledge (30% average gain in knowledge), improved cow production (e.g., increase in milk yield [2 lbs/cow/day]), and enhanced animal well-being (decrease in incidence of diseases [e.g., 30% relative percentage decrease in stillborn calves]).

The first step in setting up a proper Spanish-speaking personnel management program is to overcome the language barrier between employee and manager. Once a bilingual employee or educator has been found to help with this issue, producers should focus their programs on providing regular trainings/re-trainings (e.g., every 3 to 6 months) and social meetings (e.g., once a month). This approach not only will contribute to improve farm profitability, but also the work environment. Furthermore, farmers and managers will have an opportunity to interact and get involved in employees' lives. Another important practice is to involve employees in the farm decision-making process according to their areas of expertise. By doing this, employees will feel more valued and included (feeling of "belonging"), which in turn will develop long-lasting professional relationships, and even friendships, with farmers and managers.

The Spanish-speaking farm personnel population is increasing in the U.S., and without proper personnel management programs, producers will not succeed in retaining well-qualified and reliable employees. Offering housing and longer work shifts might increase the chances of finding and hiring more of these employees, but to successfully retain them, producers need to look at developing closer and stronger bonds with their Spanish-speaking employees.

References

• Bliss, W. G. 2004. The cost of employee turnover. The Advisor.
• Billikopf, G., and G. Gonzalez. 2012. Turnover rates are decreasing in California dairies. California Agriculture, 66:153-157.
• Schuenemann, G. M., S. Bas, A. A. Barragan, and J.D. Workman. 2014. Management and Training of Dairy Personnel with Emphasis on Team Work and Performance. Proceedings 50th Florida Dairy Production Conference, Gainesville, April 9, 2014.