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LISTENING FIRST AID


Interpersonal Relations

Cultural Differences?
People everywhere have much in common. Stereotypes are often based on our own weaknesses and fears.
Listening First Aid
The role of the listener is to allow individuals who own the problem to begin to hear themselves and become equipped to solve their own challenges.
Talking with Employees
We can reduce stress, and resolve challenges through effective dialogue. Such a conversation entails as much listening as talking.
Communicating with Workers in Spanish: Learning another language
Although it is not an easy task, there are benefits from learning another language. Here are some tips on learning in a fun but effective way. Language Learning Apps - Learn Spanish
Smartphone Apps make learning Spanish (or English) easier than ever.
Helping Colleagues Cope With Grief, Billikopf, Pelzer
Answers to difficult questions surrounding how we treat the death of an employee's family member, and assumptions we ought to avoid.
Suicide Prevention, Geraldine Warner
Learning how to recognize symptoms of depression and knowing what to say to a person who is threatening suicide.
Funerals: A Consumer Guide, Federal Trade Commission
A guide to make important decisions about funerals that may save you or your employees much money and grief.

Conflict & Mediation

Handling Differences Productively
Misunderstanding and dissent grow their ugly heads when our solution is not the same as theirs, but there are positive ways to resolve differences.
Sexual Harassment Complaints, Hamilton, Edwards, Thompson, Mlynek, Lopez, Wright
Different perspectives on how to deal with sexual harassment complaints when the victim wants to keep matters private.
Defuse Impending Violence!, Larry Chavez
Dealing with impending cases of workplace violence or escalation. The importance of treating individuals with dignity and listening carefully.
Domestic Violence & the Workplace
What should be done with domestic violence begins to affect the work environment?
Creative Negotiation
Finding ways to go behond the common ways of dealing with differences in opinion, and instead attempting to find the elegant solution.
New tool available to resolve labor disputes, Melissa Hansen
Washington State labor mediation program.
Agricultural Labor Disputes Mediation, Brent Searle
Oregon State labor mediation program.
Mandatory mediation in collective bargaining, Martin, Mason
Agricultural Labor Relations Act and the role of mediation in moving forward with cases that have not been resolved.
Pre-caucusing and premediation
The pre-caucus (or premediation) as a mediation tool for interpersonal conflict.
Values & Divisiveness, Billikopf, Gary Lear
How often do we censor our own speech when perhaps we should speak out? Has the politically correct thought become ethical absolutism?
Employee Selection & Discipline

Can you trust the selection interview?
Case study brings to light the effectiveness of the selection interview in contrast to the practical test or job sample.
Good Discrimination in Hiring at a Dairy
The hiring of individuals based on skills, talents and abilities.
Productivity, Excellence, and Giftedness

Inherent tallent vs. practice, effort and attitude.
Classy Ads: Creative Recruitment Practices Meg Gaige
Creative ads can increase interest in the jobs you offer.
Firing with Dignity
The role dignity plays in terminating an employee.
Sample Termination Agreement
Termination agreements, where legal, can result in win-win outcomes in contrast to traditional termination approaches.

Supervision, Delegation & Empowerment

The Accommodating Syndrome
When youth grow up in subcultures where succeeding is simply not fashionable, they brind these negative traits to the workplace.
Make Meetings Matter, Kim Watson
Conducting meetings where positive things happen.
Scout Clout, B. J. Burnham / Rene Featherstone
Growers can train field workers to monitor for pests while engaged in other duties.
Abuse of authority
Stanley Milgram's research on obedience and abuse of authority teaches us important management lessons.

 

Compensation

Effective Piece-Rate Design
Details on how to design a piece-rate pay system using sustainable labor management practices. This paper summarizes many of the articles below related to piece rate.
Egg on your face: Object lesson on improving quality control
Moving from hourly to piece rate and maintaining quality. Object lesson to improve quality. Paid piece rate break period.
Hourly Pay plus Piece-Rate Bonus
Workers who earn an hourly rate plus a piece-rate bonus end up earning less per effort as productivity increases.
Creative compensation, Sarah L. Fogleman
It's important to give a lot of consideration to your business's compensation structure because it ultimately reflects how employees are valued.
Do financial incentives for dairy workers pay off?, Eric McMullin
Somatic cell count (SCC) incentives can increase worker pay and dairy profitability: a case study.
Computer technology takes to the field, Ray Sotero
Electronic documentation of employee performance.

Family Relations

Planning for Family Harmony, Verlyn De Wit
Wills and the importance on not burrying your head in the sand. Avoiding dealing with issues today will spell dissaster for your children tomorrow.
Succession on Farms, M.R. Hastings
Factors that affect the successful transfer of farms to the next genearation.
Three Types Of Founders—And Their Dark Sides, Peter Davis
Positive and negative traits of greatly successful founders.
Grooming Your Successors: Notes On Handing Over The Farm, Lorne Owen
Keeping the farm in the family for several generations requires good planning, management skills, communication, and some luck.
Keeping The Family Farm Healthy, Amy Lyman
Family and business interactions at the farm can be made easier and more effective.

Technological Transfer

Technological Transfer Groups: The Chilean Model, Carlos Altmann Moran
Farm enterprises that share technical and other types of information can become stronger producers.

Farm Safety

Why and How to Read a Bull or Cow, Jack Albright
Farm safety related to handling bulls and bovines in general.

Presented Papers

Best practices conference: Employment Practices that Combat Exploitation of Migrants.
For labor management policies to be effective and sustainable, they must benefit both the farm enterprise and employees in the long run.

International Issues

The World of Ideas, Daniel A. Sumner
Even more than agricultural goods, ideas flow readily, if not freely, across international boundaries.


Agricultural Labor Management

E-mail: gebillikopf@ucdavis.edu

Gregorio Billikopf Encina
University of California
(209) 525-6800

18 February 2014