Human Resources on the Farm
Human Resources on the farm. Here are some useful links to help making Human Resources on the farm easier for you.
Compliance
The Employment standards act sets out the minimum standards for employees in Ontario and explains the rights and responsibilities of employees and employers. This helps employees and employers comply with their obligations. There are provisions for agricultural employees which you will find in the link below.
Employment Standards act – Agriculture Employees
Workplace safety and Prevention Services is a non-profit organization that works to keep workers safe. They support several industries, one of which is Agriculture. The link below has commonly asked questions and answers. This website also has many resources for farm operations. Once you are on the WSPS website, see the menu on the left for further resources.
Q&A about Occupational Health & Safety Act
The Employment Standards act, Occupational health and Safety Act and WSIB require employers to post information for their employees. The link below is a list of Required Workplace Posting from the Regulatory Compliance Checklist from OFA.
Health and Safety
Workplace Safety and Prevention Services – WSPS serves the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. As the largest health and safety association in Ontario, we support over 167,000 member firms and 4.1 million workers. WSPS offers unparalleled health and safety expertise, consulting, training and resources. Our mandate includes helping businesses understand their risks and legal obligations to stay in compliance and build safer workplaces.
Canadian Agriculture Safety Association – As a national, non-profit organization, CASA promotes farm safety in the agricultural sector. CASA works with partners in government, business, and farming organizations across the country to support initiatives that equip producers, their families and their workers with the information and tools needed to make farms a safe place to live, work and play
Guide to rights and responsibilities under OHSA – Farm operation
Government of Ontario Health and Safety – Farming Operation
Guide to vehicle weights – MTO’s unofficial guide to vehicle weights: Safe, Productive, and Infrastructure-Friendly (SPIF). This unofficial version is provided for convenience only. For authoritative legal information, refer directly to the relevant statutes and regulations (up-to-date versions may be accessed through Ontario.ca).
Create a farm safe plan for your farm
Grain Farmers of Ontario is helping to promote farm safety to our farmer-members and the general public through educational days and public service announcements and have produced a number of webinars and podcasts highlighting farm safety topics.
Training courses
Required Workplace Posting from the Regulatory Compliance Checklist
Workplace safety and prevention Services
Recruitment, Selection and Retention
Here are 3 articles from the government of Manitoba
Motivating, Engaging & Retaining Farm Employees – Motivating, engaging and retaining skilled employees are important to most businesses because high employee turnover results in a loss of knowledge and skills that can be expensive and difficult to replace. The government of Manitoba have written this article to help farmers navigate this difficult area.
You’ve Decided to Hire an Employee – What do you need to know? – Your operation is expanding and you need to take on staff. This requires a new skill set and introduces a new set of challenges. Recruitment, orientation, training, communication, motivation, and conflict management are all areas where a new employer will need to gain knowledge and confidence. The information in this article lists the first steps you need to takee
New Employee Orientation – As you hire employees for your busy seasons, ensure your farm has an orientation program in place for both new and returning employees.
Job Boards
Students – recent grad, summer help, Co Op
Succession Planning
- Components of a Farm Succession Plan Factsheet
- Farm Succession Do’s and Don’ts Factsheet
- Farm Succession Planning Steps and Checklist Factsheet
- Taxation on the Transfer of Farm Business Assets to Family Members Factsheet
- The “Farm Succession Planning
Guide” (Publication 70) is a practical guide to the succession planning
process. It is designed around the steps of the succession process, and
follows a path from discussion through to implementation and monitoring of
progress. There is also a series of tools and resources available to
facilitate the process for farm transfer.
- Further information about Publication 70 can be found at http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/busdev/succession.html
- This publication is currently under review with a revised edition being released in the near future
- Current editions of the guide are available free of charge (limited inventory)
For more information on succession planning visit Ontario Grain Farmer for more.
Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council
Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) is a national, non-profit organization focused on addressing human resource issues facing agricultural businesses across Canada. They offer the AgriHR Toolkit which is designed to address the unique needs of the agriculture industry. Based on years of research and field testing conducted in Canada and internationally, this toolkit offers everything you need to improve your people-management skills and develop key resources to help you find, retain, and support your employees. Contact hr@gfo.ca for promo code to access this resource.
Webinars
Farm Management Canada (FMC) has created a website dedicated to hosting and archiving farm management webinars called Agriwebinar®.
Agriwebinar® provides farmers and agriculture professionals with access to topical and timely farm business management information (Including HR management) from anywhere at any time.
You must be registered to the Agriwebinar program to view webinars. Registration is quick, simple and free! Once you register, you can access all recorded Agriwebinars. You only need to register once.