Employment tips for Farmers to stop stress and worry

Warren Moores is a Senior Associate in the employment team at SAS Daniels LLP which specialises in the agricultural sector. Here he explains some of the common mistakes made by farmers taking on diversification projects and shares his top employment tips.

Farmers in my experience are often excellent at building trusting relationships with their staff. They have tight-knit teams and a solid hard-working culture with employees who can turn their hands to more than one task, a skill which is often needed on diversified farms. We get very few calls from farming clients concerning employment matters, however, when they do contact us, the calls can be spectacularly troublesome and fraught with emotion. The reason for this often comes back to overreliance on those trusting relationships and a lack of general awareness around employment law and procedures.

Failure to maintain employment documents

Firstly, those trusting relationships can result in farmers neglecting employment documentation, such as the contract of employment and employee handbook. One of the key benefits of properly drawn up employment documentation is that both parties are fully aware of what the position is in many of the key aspects that underpin the employment relationship.

For example, a contract will cover areas like remuneration, overtime, contractual hours, holiday allowance and sickness pay; all areas which can lead to disputes when they are not correctly noted. An employee handbook will traditionally cover processes including disciplinary, grievance and sickness procedures. If an employer has their contracts and handbook professionally drawn up, they should be designed to comply with law which means they are a good reference point for both sides should any issue arise within the relationship.

Variety of roles on diversified farms

Since 6 April 2020, an employer must legally provide an employee with certain “written particulars of employment” on day one of their employment; these are most commonly issued in a document called a contract of employment. The variety of individuals working on a farm can range enormously on diversified farms. They can include not only employees on differing terms such as seasonal staff and those with tied-accommodation but ad-hoc workers who are not guaranteed hours but used from time to time. We often find clients concerned that the task of pulling together employment documents will be hard work and costly to get into place. The reality is it should only take one or two meetings over the telephone and then contracts and an employee handbook can be produced very quickly.

Addressing minor conduct issues

We would encourage farmers to build a basic understanding of the key areas of employment law. We often come across situations where there has been a failure to address minor employee conduct issues, such as lateness or failing to report sickness absence. These issues then continue to build-up until breaking point at which stage the employer dismisses the employee without any prior warnings or process. Prior warnings are a key part of fair dismissals.

If in doubt we would always advise seeking advice at an early stage. Even where an employee has committed an act of gross misconduct, a failure to investigate it properly can lead to a finding of unfair dismissal. This can be frustrating for a client where they feel the employee is clearly in the wrong, yet they are facing proceedings which cost time and money. We understand this and most of the time we can solve the issue but prevention is better than cure. An employment dispute or tribunal claim is not necessarily a sign an employer has done anything wrong. However, some of the above steps may help mitigate the risk of ending up on the receiving side of one.  

There are just some of the issues we have come across in our experiences with our agricultural clients. No one farm or employer is the same and a general chat with an employment specialist is always worthwhile to get some tailored advice.