Good Fruit Grower

December 2016

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16 DECEMBER 2016 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com Cornell Spanish program could be model for others. by Mario Miranda Sazo E ven as growers plant high-density orchards that require significant labor to maintain, many still lack a reliable, skilled and committed horticultural team to fuel the growth they could see in the next decade. It's a competitive challenge. Finding, attracting and retaining the right people is key to growing and remaining a player in an increasingly global marketplace. Assembling a team of people who will support development of new business opportunities may not be easy, but assembling the wrong people can be costly and catastrophic. Innovative fruit com- panies understand that it is much cheaper to develop a highly skilled and motivated team than it is to go out and bring in new people year after year. Empowered employees and orchard managers will perform at their best level, make independent decisions and fi nd ways to improve orchard operations, including planting, pruning, hand thinning and harvest. Building a team Creating a high-functioning horticultural team is challenging under any circumstances, but when the team you are trying to build crosses different cultures, you must meld talents and cultural expectations while alleviating commu- nication barriers. Complicating your communication is the probability that you will incorporate the use of some type of new technology and won't be fully able to explain the benefi ts of the technology to your Spanish-speaking employees. In this complicated and rapidly evolving labor situation for fruit growing, you have to take action to capitalize on new opportu- nities and execute them effi ciently. But it is also essential for you and your teams to learn quickly, to keep up with developing events and to stay ahead of the competition. That will happen only if you foster strong working relationships with your most talented Spanish- speaking employees and assemble skilled hor- ticultural teams inside your farm. While there is no single secret to success when building the perfect horticultural team, there is one common trait I recognize in the most successful fruit growers who employ Spanish-speaking employees at their oper- ations: communication. One of the single greatest changes you can make is to build basic Spanish-speaking relations in the orchard. No matter how good or how poor your Spanish pronunciation is, you must learn to say "Buenos dias" (Good morning), "Como está hoy?" (How are you doing today?). You can also say a few words in Spanish and smile – and mean it! When you or I smile sincerely, the warmth becomes self-reinforcing. When I am asked to serve as a translator for a meeting between a grower and the Spanish- speaking orchard workers, frequently the fi rst question that the employees will ask their "patrón" (boss, in Spanish) is, "How am I doing in my job?" Though the grower may have just fi nished going through a list of things that have been done well and some that need improve- ment, Spanish-speaking employees crave one-on-one contact, horticultural coaching and constructive feedback — positive or neg- ative — from their boss or orchard manager. Some growers do a good job of addressing this question, if not on a daily basis, then at least when they have a translator available. You, the grower, must show real interest in the well-being of your orchard workers and regularly ask some of the questions mentioned above. This sort of attention to Spanish-speaking communication creates a relationship between you and your orchard worker, with the result that the labor task receives maximum attention. Your workers' commitment to the fruit farm is also increased. If you work hard at this aspect of communica- tion with your Spanish-speaking employees, you will create better, trusted, longer-lasting relationships and avoid having to look for and train new people every year. Most successful Spanish-speaking orchard managers are smart, have good people skills, can build confi dence and generate enthusi- asm, enjoy interacting with other growers, know the horticultural details of pruning, hand thinning, and harvest, and reliably make their budgets and deliver results. But in addition to all this, the best Spanish-speaking orchard managers have something more — they are GOOD TO KNOW Recruiting – and keeping – workers Mario Miranda Sazo COURTESY MARIO MIRANDA SAZO Some of the skilled Hispanic employees currently working on New York apple farms. Spanish-speaking employees crave one-on- one contact, horticultural coaching and constructive feedback — positive or negative — from their boss or orchard manager. ONLINE A Spanish version of this essay can be found at our new Spanish website: goodfruit.com/es

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