Challenges And Solutions In Recruitment Of Workforce In The Australian Food And Agribusiness Industry

Select an organisation or industry as the case study for your report. Identify some of the key challenges for recruiting the workforce for this organisation/industry, and recommend strategies to address these challenges. Your report should make reference to factors such as labour supply/demand, organisational image, demographic issues (such as an ageing workforce, generations, diversity etc), as well as recruitment strategies such as employer branding and types of advertising.

Shortage of skilled labor

The Food and Agribusiness segment is a significant portion of the economy of Australia and makes a substantial input through business, employment, and service prospects. In 2015, the sector employed about 522,000 individuals, and in June 2015, roughly 178,500 businesses were operating in the sector. The government aims at creating the ideal conditions for the growth of the industry (Industry.gov.au, 2017). This is evident when the productivity and competitiveness of the sector are lifted. Moreover, tax incentives are provided to inspire investment and assist the businesses in advancing the required workplace abilities.

However, through this report, it is evident that the Australian Food and Agribusiness Industries faces many challenges in the recruitment of their workforce. This is apparent in areas pertaining the supply of labor, the image of the organization, issues with demography like aging workforce, and diversity (Ross, Nell, and Richard, 2012). Also, the industry’s recruitment strategies like the type of advertisement and employer’s branding portray a challenge in the industry’s recruitment process. To avert this menace, some strategies in education and mindset change are needed (Rama, 2013). This report purposes to discuss the challenges and solutions in the recruitment of workforce in the Australian Food and Agribusiness Industry using a broad literature research.

The Australian Food and Agribusiness Industries faces the challenge of recruiting their workforce due to a deficiency in skilled labor. Since 2007, agricultural scientists have persistently been in shortage. From Australian Bureau of Statistics, the agricultural degree attainment trends are low in comparison to other workforce sectors (Sam, 2014). Hence, this impact of low labor supply will be persistent. Of the total workforce in the Food and Agribusiness Industry, only 12% of the people have a university degree. This is a low portion as 28% of the general Australian workforce is deemed to possess a degree. Moreover, more than half of the workers in this industry lack the post-school qualifications, whereas only 34% of the general labor force in Australia lack these credentials. The job market receives less than twenty percent of its labor requirements from the Australian universities. As such, the Australian Dairy Industry Council (ADIC) indicates that five-thousand positions for agricultural scientists exist annually, but only eight-hundred graduates are obtained (Fulton, 2017). This is alleged to the fault of the universities, which give more chances to the nutritional studies, as compared to those in agricultural and food sciences. Hence, most students move from the food science engineering courses to become nutritionists. Consequently, the labor supply ends up being low.

Image problems

The image of the Australian Food and Agribusiness Industry makes it have a challenge in recruiting its workforce. For instance, the returns are uncertain due to price volatility and rainfall variations making many graduates lack confidence in working there. Also, Generation Y is gaining ground in being the largest workforce section. As such, attracting them becomes hard as they view this industry as out of touch and old-fashioned. Moreover, about 84% of them live in urban areas, and cannot sacrifice their liking to venture into the industry, which mostly takes place in rural areas. Furthermore, the workforce has the belief that the industry mainly operates in remote areas. Hence, they believe their lives would have restricted social interaction and isolation. Similarly, unawareness of the career opportunities present in the industry makes its image to be tarnished. They believe that the work done is hot and sweaty; rewarding but not glamorous. Therefore, they rarely opt to work there (Roberts, Kossek and Ozeki, 2014). The industry’s perceived bad image lead to high levels of employee turnover. This, coupled with the new trend of looking for better opportunities, and not job security leads to low workforce retention.

Demographic issues like diversity and aging workforce pose a problem for the Australian Food and Agribusiness Industries in the recruitment of its workforce. The aging demographic of farm industries and Australian farmers has made it tough to entice younger workers into the industry. From 1981 to 2013, the Australian farmers’ median age increased from forty-four to fifty-three years (Sohal and Perry, 2017). In other occupations, the median age is forty years. Also, the industry can select a person deemed to be the best for a certain position, but they might end up not being the right individual for the post due to insufficient experience. Also, due to diversity cases, the workforce can be talented in matters concerning the industry, but fail to fit in the culture of the industry. The recruitment tools focus on the experiences and skills of a candidate, and not their interpersonal skills, friendliness, and communication skills (Fagan, 2017). As such, the industry’s recruitment is hindered by the fear of hiring a talented individual who can negatively affect the organization’s culture through poor personal qualities and attitude. Since the industry is dominated by an aging workforce, the chances are high that they will employ outdated strategies of recruitment. Consequently, the process ends up being fruitless. The old are not conversant with the competition in job markets to yield superior results.

Demographic issues like diversity and aging workforce

Further, the recruitment strategies employed by the industry regarding advertising and employer branding make it have problems in recruiting its workforce. For instance, the industry requires its workforce to be coupled with technological knowledge. Hence, the lot that lacks the expertise might end up not going for the job opportunities available (Coelli, 2017). Uplifting the technological requisite makes the industry to recruit unqualified technicians, butchers, and bakers leading to substandard production (Kent and Mike, 2013). Moreover, the industry may not guarantee high wages to its workforce like other industries making it compete unfavorably. With the branding of being located in the semi-rural environments, it becomes difficult for it to sell the benefits of staying away from the city to the potential employees. Hence, they miss out on the most lucrative workers. Also, the strategy for recruitment must be in the company’s interest. For example, the recruitment, orientation, and training costs must be analyzed by the industry, and if giving employee benefits lead to high amounts of labor costs for the industry. The industry also incurs high costs of advertising the vacancies, yet only a few people turn up. Additionally, the industry faces the problem of improper job analysis implying that the job opening would lack a precise description of the tasks and functions to be conducted. Since the roles of a job keep evolving, the industry must keep updating the requisites for the positions (Standish et al., 2015). As such, failure to conduct a job analysis makes the industry to have poor candidate assessment tools, missing out on the needed traits and skills.

The challenge of insufficient labor supply in the industry can be solved by conducting more international recruitments. Recently, most of the skilled labor force was sourced from South Africa, Germany, Thailand, New Zealand, China, and Ireland. The graduates are to be well versed in training and technology. Consequently, Australia will get access to the procedures that were rarely found within. Also, the government has eased the entrance of international technology and food science students, especially the postgraduate ones. After their education, most of them stay and work in Australia eliminating the challenge of insufficient labor supply. Currently, most of the entry level positions are held by immigrants who are well qualified (Peter, 2015). Hence, the labor supply will increase by employing more of the international population.

To solve the problem of workforce recruitment due to a poor image, the industry should be promoted as a lucrative career path for students. Perception of the students must be dealt with by making the industry’ outlook more contemporary, that is, an area to not only work, but also to grow. For some time, the careers advisors, policy makers, and academicians have stereotyped the industry to be offering poor career and job options and lesser skilled (Ziguras and Law, 2012). The students must be informed that the industry has many highly sophisticated and technical job opportunities in vibrant, world-class corporations. By giving agriculture a better name like agribusiness, and informing students that it does not entail hard work and farms, but also food processing, a better image of the industry will be attained as their interest will be aroused (Lindorff, 2014). At the primary and secondary school levels, the students should be informed that laboratory work is also done in the study of agriculture. Moreover, the local businesses must partner with the education sector by engaging the students to ensure their interest becomes a vocation coupled with a good image.

Flawed recruitment strategies

The demographic issues that hinder the effective flow of the industry’s recruitment strategies can be solved. This is through holding seminars and workshops to educate the young individuals on the significance of opting for careers in agriculture. Hence, the age of the employees will be seen to drop from those mainly in their 50s to include the youths. Due to diversity, an individual’s talent in agribusiness without high interest can be solved by ensuring their training and education create a culture that adores the industry (Leibold and Voelpel, 2014). Hence, the employees will work passionately due to the inbuilt desire to belong to the industry. Since the recruitment tools are deemed to be outdated due to a high number of the elderly workforce, a training of the current job market requirement must be conducted to ensure it is up to date.

The recruitment strategies can be changed to attain a better recruitment process. For instance, the industry can opt to go for the outsourcing, or temporary workers as opposed to the full-time staff (Mayhew, Quintan, and Ferris, 2014). This will relieve the liability of employee benefits and payroll taxes. Also, the industry should make its salary attractive to avoid losing potential workforce to other sectors of the economy. Moreover, the industry must clearly state the skills required for its workforce to ensure they capture the correct group to work. As such, they can inform the institutions of higher learning the skills and knowledge they should impart on their students. The rural location branding that scares a good workforce can be solved by assuring the recruits that the work schedules would be flexible to give them a chance to visit the urban areas.

Conclusion and recommendations

To sum up, the Food and Agribusiness sector is important in driving Australia’s economy. Conversely, this segment faces many challenges to have its employees recruited. Key areas of concern are the supply of labor, which has been in shortage since 2007. This is due to a low number of university graduates who pursue courses pertaining the industry. Also, the industry has a bad image emanating from price volatility, rainfall variations, unclear career opportunities, and an increase in number of generation Y graduates. Additionally, the demographic issues like a dominant aged workforce make the industry to lag behind in the current job market requisites. Finally, the recruitment strategies are poor regarding meager industrial branding and advertising techniques.

Therefore, much is needed to solve the drawbacks in the recruitment process in the food and agribusiness industry. For instance, increasing labor supply by inviting international students. Also, the industry can work to improve its image by portraying lucrative career path for university students. The poor perception must be eliminated by making agriculture more contemporary by offering many chances for growth. The demographic issues must also be dealt with by educating the young adults of the significance of having career choices in agriculture. Also, the recruitment strategies can be altered to go for outsourcing and temporary workers to lower the costs of recruitment. Moreover, the strategy of creating attractive salary should be implemented to avoid high levels of employee turnover.

International recruitments as a solution

References

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