Over the winter months, farmers should review their standard operating procedures (SOPs), especially if they are considering hiring labour for spring calving.

SOPs are guidelines put in place on the farm to promote consistency on farm tasks such as rinsing out the milking parlour or feeding calves.

The best practice to ensure your SOP is efficient and consistent is to write a document consisting of step-by-step instructions.

SOPs are quite useful for any day-to-day operations on the farm, as it allows for dairy farmers and people employed on the to work towards a common goal and minimise miscommunication.

Managing staff

Following the abolishment of milk quotas, the average herd size quickly grew, and with uncertainty around derogation throughout the year, many farmers have expanded even further in an effort to 'future proof' the farm.

This has led to many farmers who are used to working on their own hiring additional staff and taking on students.

However, finding good reliable staff has being proven to be a challenge over the last number of years.

Farmers who do find staff often then face the problem of keeping those staff through irregular hours among the other difficulties of dairy farming.

Keeping the farm system simple through the use of SOPs will go a long way in helping to attract and keep staff.

There is no doubt that the start of 2025 is going to be a stressful period for farmers with the continuously dropping milk prices, therefore SOPs may help reduce tensions building.

Standard operating procedures

Drawing up the farm's SOPs should be an inclusive process and everyone should be able to have a say if they are involved.

Each new employee hired after the SOP document is created should then be given an induction course where each procedure is fully explained,

Videos and signs can be a handy tool when training new staff.

Remember, farmers who hear out what their employees have to say will get a better response to the SOP when it is in put in place.

A well-designed SOP should do the following:

Improve consistency;
Improve communication;
Provide direction;
Reduce training time;
Allow somebody to help out in the case of an emergency;

The SOP should then be displayed in an appropriate location, so that all employees or part-time/temporary staff like relief milkers can clearly see it.