Waikato DairyNZ Farmwatch for week ending October 27

COMMENT

By DairyNZ

Strong pasture growth has seen silage coming off and crops getting planted on the fine days.

On top of mating, this means everyone is busy, but now is an important time to prepare for Christmas and the summer holidays.

Planning with your team is crucial to co-ordinate relief staff and manage workloads.

Diverse rosters complicate annual leave entitlements, but the DairyNZ Annual Leave Calculator is a useful tool.

It is crucial that farm owners, sharemilkers and contract milkers arrange for time for themselves as well.

This can be challenging for smaller farms, and often the focus can be on staff requirements, but recovering from workload, well-being, and being in a good mental space to support good decision making it is crucial that decision-makers get a break as well.

For Christmas, if team members are rostered off on the 25th and 26th then their public holiday is moved to the 27th and 28th.

Farmwatch graphic / DairyNZ

This “Mondayisation” only happens if the employee doesn’t normally work on the calendar date of the holiday.

Visit www.employment.govt.nz for a more in-depth description of public holidays