It is important to recognise that individuals have different needs, capabilities and personalities and treat each person according to their needs.
Understanding different personalities and work styles
Employers and employees who make an effort to understand personality and working style differences will have more effective communication and work satisfaction.
The Working Styles Questionnaire below is a tool that can be used to help understand working styles.
This site contains interactive Flash elements.
In order to experience this site fully, please download and install the latest version of flash player.
There are also many different tools available for understanding personality. Useful personality tools can be found in books and by searching the internet.
Tools are a guide only
The most important thing to remember when using these tools is that nobody fits completely into one box. They are a guide only and in reality all people use a combination of all styles depending on the circumstances. However, people usually tend more towards one style than the others.
All styles can suit dairy farming
All personalities and working styles can add value to a farming business. There is no personality or style that is most suited to dairy farming.
Getting roles and responsibilities right
The Roles and Responsibilites tab in the People Analysis tool can be used to review the roles people have in the daily farm operations on a dairy farm. and to determine who is responsible for each of these areas.
This example shows how this tool can be used to look at the roles and responsibilities on a dairy farm.
The farm duties are separated into six major categories: milk harvesting; animal husbandry and young stock; feed management and delivery; pasture production and cropping; plant equipment and infrastructure maintenance; and administration.
It is a useful tool when conducting performance appraisals where there may be an opportunity to review and reallocate roles and responsibilities. Within each of these areas, there will be segregation of tasks. These can be defined in the position description for each person.
