After renovating our parlor and updating its equipment, we invested time with each milking shift to retrain workers on proper milking protocols. Our goal, of course, is better milk quality. We already have quality bonuses, but shortly after the training, we also instituted a “Milker of the Month” award.

That went well for several months, but we noticed that it began to cause friction between some employees. We’ve now switched it to a “Shift of the Month” award.

But with only three shifts to split the award between, the award seems to be less of an achievement now. And what if one shift is always more deserving than another shift?

I don’t want to have to rotate who receives it just to make it seem like I’m not playing favorites. I’ve debated dropping the award altogether, but I don’t want to give the perception to employees that milk quality is any less important. What should I do?

Expert 1
Gregorio Billikopf
University of California

Milk quality is vital and incentives can do much to help. As you have already found out, however, the employee of the month approach is a poor strategy for motivating employees.

Normally, the contest for employee of the month will take place merely among the top 15 percent of your workforce.

These top employees will be the only ones motivated to compete for the award.

The rest will either ignore the incentive or hold a grudge toward the company and the award recipients.

As a result, most organizations with employee of the month awards soon create rules limiting the frequency that personnel may earn the award – to avoid having the same few individuals always win.

In the end, the honor is little more than taking turns to celebrate different employees.

For example, an employee shared with me recently that she needed some extra cash in October so she was “going to go” for her farm’s award that month.

She reported back that indeed she earned the employee of the month award – and then went back to her normal performance level after that, until she was eligible for the award again.

The reason the incentive is flawed is that it is competitive in the worst sense of the word. When one employee or team gets it, it means others do not – no matter how hard they worked. It is not surprising that it increases conflict and lack of cooperation, or even sabotage.

What is a better option? Milk quality bonuses. Every employee or team who surpasses a certain performance level may earn the award. I am a huge fan of incentive pay, but these have to be carefully thought out and implemented in order to avoid pitfalls.

- Download Chapter 1 and 5 of Dairy Incentive Pay .

Expert 2
Marko Sosa
Vi-Cor’s Milk to the Max

First, we have to make a few things very clear: There is no cultural barrier. There is no language barrier. These are perfect excuses for poor management skills. What there is in most management cases is a communication barrier.

As managers or dairy operators, we fail to clearly communicate our goals and direction. The solution is never simple, and it seems that no matter how hard we try to create a cohesive dairy team we can’t move forward as one toward one common goal.

It seems your goals are not as clear as you might think. The quick obvious solution for attempted improvement is to create a hanging carrot up for grabs.

This might sound like a good idea, but the goal becomes the carrot, not milk quality. When creating a solid team to work toward one unified and clear goal, you must set aside all the carrots and focus on your team.

To reach milk quality goals, good training, information and education will create focused employees. Focused employees become engaged employees. Now that you have engaged employees, your team is ready to reach the goals you set for your operations.

Recognition is great to create some sense of pride for an individual employee, but when recognition comes from within and from his or her peers, you will have created a leader. There is no system more efficient to make a team reach a goal than this.

Expert 3
Tom Wall
Dairy Coach
Dairy Interactive, LLC

Although it hasn’t worked out exactly how you had hoped, I think you’re on the right track. Your goal from the start was to get people engaged and care about milk quality and the health of your cows.

In theory, a little “friendly competition” and some positive recognition seemed like a good way to get people excited about doing quality work, right?

Unfortunately “friendly competition” isn’t always friendly, and not everyone who “loses” is happy for the person who “wins.” It turns out that some strategies seem like a good idea on paper, but they often have unintended outcomes when they actually get implemented.

Here’s what I’d recommend …

- Avoid creating an award that singles out one person or shift as the “best.” The reality is that managers don’t see everything that’s really going on. However, your employees do. They know who’s not following routines and who’s cutting corners.

If you pick the “wrong person,” you’ll appear out-of-touch and lose credibility with your team. And even if you reward the “right person,” you’re left with just one happy “winner” and a bunch of potentially resentful “losers.”

- Create and implement a pay scale and evaluation schedule that rewards each person’s individual performance.

Before putting together a bonus program at your dairy, I strongly recommend that you make sure everyone knows that their individual performance matters, and that you notice the difference between good work and bad work.

- Go back to where you started. Your primary goal was to improve the numbers that your dairy’s bottom line depends on. Create a recognition program that rewards the entire team for achieving your milk quality and udder health goals, so that everyone wins … together.

In the end, the detail to remember is and always will be … When the dairy wins, everyone wins. PD

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Illustration by Fredric Ridenour.