Membership has its Benefits

"The relationship between a farm worker and a farmer is a very unique relationship."  This is the opening line spoken by American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall in a recent video.  He goes on to discuss the unique situations presented to farmers and farm workers.  At the end of the day, farming isn't just a way to make a living - it's a lifestyle.

Farm labor is unique

A lot of industries have simple labor needs — people show up at a set time, they leave at a set time, they get paid a single hourly rate, …simple. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter if a particular employee is even productive — the business just needs a warm body to fill a position.

Farming isn’t like that! Not by a long shot.

If you’re a farmer, you already understand this.  You're acquiring land, maintaining equipment, nurturing crops or livestock, sourcing labor -- and this is all months before you're going to sell the fruits of that labor, and perhaps still months more before you're going to find out what returns you're getting on that sale.  Bad weather isn't something that might make employees late, it's something that could make or break your season; and a bad employee isn't going to get you a bad Yelp review, they're potentially going to damage your equipment or your crops.

Farmers depend on good labor, and farm workers depend on good employers.  Having a healthy relationship between the farmer and farm workers is a minimum requirement to keep the farm in business.

Farm labor management is unique

Maintaining healthy relationships with your employees is especially complicated for farms.  The work is hard and involves long hours and stressful situations.  Sometimes you're responding to emergencies in the middle of the night and it feels like the whole business is on the line. 

I know a hops farmer who harvests 24 hours a day for 40 days straight.  That's hard! 

Throw in the fact that many members of the workforce may be coming from different cultures or countries, or speaking different languages.  That's hard!   

On top of all that, consider the complex pay options.  Salaried, hourly, piece rate, hourly with piece rate incentive, pay by weight just to get started.  Then add in minimum wage guarantees, piece rate breaks, overtime, travel time, training time, three-fourths guarantees... that's hard!

As with anything related to employer-employee relationships, you have to get things right.  And it's not enough to get things right, you need to be able to prove that you got things right. This isn't limited to your employees:

• Employees need to be able to see what they're getting paid for.
• Your state government needs to know that you calculated pay correctly.
• H-2A brings a whole bunch of additional things you need to document.
• OSHA needs to know that you followed heat safety (and many other) rules.
• Department of Labor investigators need accurate records during routine site visits.
• Lawyers need accurate documentation if you get sued.

It's all about data, transparency and communication.

A unique industry needs a unique tool

Farmers and farm workers need data, plain and simple.

Sometimes the need real-time data to make strategic decisions — an idle crew standing around with nothing to do is not good for the farm or the workers.

Sometimes they need historical data. Was that block profitable? Did that experimental application lower my harvest costs? Why are the south 40 more expensive to farm than the rest of my fields?

Farm workers also benefit from data transparency. What are they getting paid for? Were there any mistakes or discrepancies? Usually, they can get this from a pay stub, but getting this information before payroll is issued benefits the worker and the farm. Correcting mistakes is much more expensive and complicated after a paycheck has been issued.

Let’s pause for a moment and consider all of this:

1. Farming is unlike pretty much any other industry
2. Farm pay is difficult to get right and expensive to get wrong
3. Access to data would help reduce waste and improve profitability
4. Real-time communication would help avoid costly corrections

How on Earth can a farmer solve those problems with a generic off-the-shelf tool that isn't built for farming?

Think about that. If you are using pen and paper, maybe with Excel, and a generic payroll like QuickBooks — you can’t effectively solve any of those problems.

But here’s the good news — you’re not alone. There are nearly a million active farms in the US, and FieldClock is here for each and every one of you.

By farmers, for farmers

FieldClock is built by farmers and we haven’t strayed from our roots. Farmers are on our management team, our sales team, and our customer success team.

Being led by farmers allowed us to build an awesome platform uniquely designed for farmers:

• Our mobile apps are easy to use, even in far-flung fields with inexperienced staff.
• Our Kiosk app allows you to use the same system for unattended employees
• Our web-based Admin Site provides a configurable pay engine and powerful reporting for the needs of any farm.
• Our patented Employee Portal provides real-time information for your workforce.
• Our farm payroll service is built in partnership with ADP®, one of the biggest payroll companies in the world.

Having farmers on our team isn’t enough — and having a powerful and flexible platform just means we have a high bar to meet with each new farm we add. All farms are unique, and it would take an enormous network of people in each state and county to really know what’s going on for every farm. To solve this problem we teamed up with an organization that already has people on the ground who know what your farm is dealing with, and other people going to bat for the needs of your farm.

I am pleased to announce that FieldClock is now part of the Farm Bureau Member Benefits program.  FieldClock is uniquely positioned to serve all farms and this program will enable us to help more farms than ever before. The Farm Bureau is a pillar of the farming community and Farm Bureau members in participating states will get a discount on their FieldClock invoices to show our appreciation for the community.

You can’t do this on your own, and we can’t either. Let’s farm together!

-josh