"We have an industry strategy that says we want talented people and a world-class environment and we need to show how we're going to attain both ... "
The accord would enable 12,000 dairy-farm businesses to be co-ordinated and make it easier for farmers who wanted better results from recruitment and retention of talented and professional staff.
DairyNZ's People Benchmark Survey from November 2013 indicates more than 90 per cent of dairy farmers feel competent at staff management, although fewer than half enjoy it.
"This raises the challenge of how we lift performance when most of our farmers aren't really happily engaged in that part of their businesses. If you're not enjoying the people-management side, then you are probably less likely to want to spend more of your time on doing it better. This is going to be challenging for the industry."
Federated Farmers Bay of Plenty chairman Steve Bailey said the longevity of the industry was dependant on training and educating the people who came through.
"You are only as good as the team around you. You can have all the best equipment and machinery in the world but unless those people are operating and managing the equipment and operations, it means nothing," Mr Bailey said.
However, he hoped the accord would consist only of guidelines and not become law.
"We need to make sure these good guidelines stay as guidelines to help assist farmers that need help. There are a whole lot of really good farmers out there that are good employers, just like there are other good employers in other industries.
"I don't think we necessarily need to single out farmers as being bad employers, they are just people that are running businesses," Mr Bailey said.
Federated Farmers dairy industry-group chairman Andrew Hoggard said improving workplaces was crucial.
"We recognise there's a labour shortage. There's a need to upskill people currently working in the industry, as well as making dairy farming an attractive career prospect," he said.
"There are some really great employers and workplaces out there, but as an industry we need to improve. There's no point in running a big campaign attracting people to dairying until we're confident we've got a world-class work environment to back it up."
With increased scrutiny of the dairy industry, he said it was also important to take the initiative to set targets and make improvements, to remove the need for increased regulation and surveillance.
Federated Farmers has already started its Employment Compliance seminars, which will be held around the country, focusing on what the regulations will mean for farmers.
"Focus areas include employee contracts, minimum wage requirements, time keeping, staff accommodation and health and safety," Mr Hoggard said.
The final Quality Workplace Accord will be available to dairy farmers on the DairyNZ website in May.
