When there’s conflict at work, the manner in which it is handled and resolved affects both the individuals involved and the organization itself. Whether the tension is between co-workers, managerial staff and laborers, or owners and employees, improperly managed conflict can cause disagreements, disputes and even litigation.

I often refer to the incredible changes in dairy farms from my time growing up on the family farm in the thumb of Michigan to today. Let’s think about what has happened with feeding cows. When I was growing up, we fed bales of hay – pretty poor-quality by today’s standards – and grain, depending on production.

“We are just going to hang on and hope for better days ahead.” How many times have you heard fellow dairy producers proclaim those words – or even uttered them yourself?

A statement often made by professional athletes is: They stayed in the game beyond the years of their peak performance. Of course, the couple of million dollars they made for their time helped ease the transition.

Dairy farms are similar to the aggregate industry in that they spend a significant amount of time handling materials, from feed and manure to sand and livestock. Ross Veltema and Allen Bonthuis took their farming backgrounds and dovetailed them into their aggregate businesses.

If you look up the word resilience in a dictionary, you’ll find one definition says it’s “the capability of a strained body to return to its original shape after being put under stress.” Another defines it as “the ability to adapt or adjust to misfortune or change.”

Dairy farmers struggling to remain profitable face a dilemma: What’s good for an individual operation may not be beneficial for the industry as a whole.

The past 18 months have been tough on many dairy operators. Throughout this time, we have participated in many interesting conversations where operators are more focused on their future rather than the current environment.

Employee onboarding is the go-to method for attracting, training and retaining employees. It enhances performance, increases farm safety and reduces turnover. But what is it, and how can it be incorporated into your farm’s hiring process? 

For decades, our accounting firm has produced quarterly dairy farm cost studies for our clients and others to use for benchmarking and profitability improvement. The following is our preliminary report called the 2018 National Dairy Advanced Index.