Having a good group of employees is one of the best blessings we have received here at Hillcrest Farms. Yes, we occasionally have the hard-to-fill position. Currently, this is our second night milker position. But when you have a group of people that can easily problem solve and work together, things tend to run so much smoother.
Right now, we have 12 full time employees and three part time employees. The majority of our employees are all from one family. Before the grandfather of that family retired, we had him, his kids and their wives and husbands, and a few of his grandkids working for us. A couple of other employees that aren’t in his family or ours have been around the farm for years and years, so we just consider them family anyways.
Yes, there will always be the occasional gossip or feud that we deal with, but when it is all said and done, we care about each other and work it all out. We think of our employees like a second family. A lot of times after a long hard hot work week, a bunch of us will get together and head straight for the lake on the weekend.
Having this type of relationship within our Hillcrest Farm Family really helps out when scheduling people around someone’s vacation days or if someone is sick. People are more willing to help each other out and volunteer to take someone else’s shift. We as owners of the farm could not ask for a better team!
Mark and Caitlin Rodgers are dairy farmers in Dearing, Georgia. Their “Father and Daughter Dairy Together” column appears every other Thursday on HD Notebook. The Rodgers have a 400-cow dairy that averages 32,000 pounds of milk. Follow their family farm on Facebook at Hillcrest Farms Inc.
Join us for our next webinar on May 8, 2017:
