A study involving 55 Irish dairy farms has found that attention to how work is organised can significantly reduce work hours on-farm.

The study, carried out by researchers from Teagasc and University College Dublin (UCD), and published by Dutch academic publication Elsevier, found that a focus on work organisation on-farm could help mitigate against the negative consequences of large workloads.

The study is titled: The impact of work organisation on the work life of people on pasture-based dairy farms.

Teagasc said that a declining workforce combined with the recent expansion in the dairy sector has exasperated work demands, which is made more difficult by an intensified workload coinciding with calving and breeding.

There is an increasing awareness of the negative consequences of this, which may include stress, mental health issues, and difficulties in maintaining a good quality of life.

One of the outcomes of this, Teagasc said, is that young people may be put off farming as a career.

The researchers said that work organisation is “well recognised” as a key element for any business, which has positive outcomes for productivity, innovation, working conditions, and worker well-being.

“It was considered that a focus on work organisation on-farm could assist in mitigating against the negative consequences of the relatively large workload during the spring/summer period,” they said.

Study

The study looked at 55 spring-calving dairy farms in Ireland that had labour input data.

The data from this survey was examined on three measures of work organisation: Efficiency and productivity; flexibility; and standardisation.

In terms of efficiency and productivity, the study noted that it can be difficult to manage time on farms when a range of tasks need to be carried out, particularly as these tasks (apart from routine ones such as milking) often arise in a non-structured way.

Flexibility is cited as an important factor in terms of achieving a good balance between work and personal life, which is challenging on farms due to the repetitive nature of the work. As a result, farmers effectively work seven days a week.

Standardisation, meanwhile, refers to the sequence and structure of tasks to ensure high standards of work quality.

When each of these three measures was interpreted in the study, the efficiency and productivity standard was associated with farm hours worked per cow and farmer hours per day; flexibility was determined by the length of a farmer’s working day and number of days off between calving and breeding; and standardisation was expressed as the number of different tasks completed per day and daily finishing time.

All 55 farms were ranked for work organisation effectiveness. The table below outlines the average differences between the top 25% and the bottom 25%.

FactorTop 25%Bottom 25%
Herd size112114
Hours per cow (Feb-June)17.420.9
Hours per week51.270
Total length of working day (in hours)11.413.2
Total length of non-farming activity during day (in hours)4.23.4
Days off between calving and breeding21
Number of tasks completed per day9.612.5
Daily start time 7:00a.m6:47a.m
Daily finishing time6:25p.m7:58p.m
Data source: ScienceDirect

The researchers said that some of the savings in hours worked are likely due to those farms having labour-saving facilities, technologies, and work practices.

The study allowed certain characteristics of an ‘ideal working day’ to be identified.

These characteristics include:

  • Later start times and earlier finishing times;
  • More free evening time;
  • Fewer different tasks completed during the day;
  • Longer non-farm activity time during the working day.

“Improvements in work organisation can have positive outcomes for job satisfaction and optimise business performance, particularly through improved labour productivity and efficiency which was observed here,” Teagasc said.

The study also indicated that the best or most effective farms in terms of work organisation had higher profitability than the least effective farms.