One Canterbury dairy farmer was baffled by local university students not taking up the endless job opportunities around them, and shouted a group of them a beer to find out why.
The result was ‘Tinder for farming’ Ag Assist, a platform built for Lincoln University students that is now attracting stay-at-home parents to highschool students with flexible part-time work at the click of a button.
If Covid lockdowns taught us anything, it is that the way we work will never be the same again. It was the closure of our country’s border that had local dairy farmer Tony Dodunski struggling to find casual staff over their busy calving season on their 650-cow dairy farm just a few kilometres from Lincoln University.
Front-footing the longer-term problem of university graduates becoming dairy farmers after a career’s day at Lincoln University in August 2021, Tony became a part of a steering group of local dairy farmers who created a 10-month on-farm graduate programme to compete with students leaving for rural professional careers instead of going straight on farm. The Grassroots Dairy Management Graduate Programme is a formalised pathway that can fast-track young graduates into leadership-level roles on dairy farms.
But as that didn’t solve the real burning question he wondered, ‘Why do university students not apply for casual jobs on farm during the study year?’ He workshopped the problem how he knew best, inviting university students to the Famous Grouse (pub), shouting them a beer and picking their brains. ‘They told me that if they moved to Lincoln from around the country they had no connections to farmers. And they couldn’t commit to a job, even permanent part-time, as their studies come first,’ he recalls.
From this, Ag Assist was born to provide an on-demand workforce for farmers in their busy period and people who want flexible employment who can choose to work when and where they want daily. Connecting via a mobile friendly website, the service has grown in popularity beyond the dairy shed to include workplaces such as vegetable growing, tractor driving and native plantings.
‘We have a young Chinese girl who came to Lincoln as an international exchange student who this week harvested cabbages, milked cows and sprayed around native trees. She came to New Zealand never having been on a farm before,’ explains Tony.
If an agribusiness wants a last-minute or ongoing hand to help through their busy period, Ag Assist has a roster of ‘partners’ (Ag Assist employees) that have had their skillsets competency assessed. They are on and above living wage, are provided with a uniform, and Ag Assist holds the employment agreement and therefore deals with the payroll, ACC levies, holiday pay and farms don’t have to house this labour supply. The business simply gets an invoice at the end of the month.
The agribusiness loads the available shift in the online portal and selects what level of skills and experience are required for the job. Partners put in their availability to work and Ag Assist presents that availability to the business. They either select their partner of choice or put it out to tender on a surge model similar to Uber, to entice work with a higher price.
Tony is proud of the track record they have built with reliability and agribusiness satisfaction – over 5,000 hours were logged with workplaces before someone turned up late. With 50 new approved partners on-boarding to Ag Assist a month, the border closures have seen more than a labour shortage but the emergence of a new trend labour recruitment.
‘We are essentially mobilising a subset of our community in a Tinder-like model with people who want to work but with variety and flexibility, that’s not hard to find or intimidating,’ enthuses Tony.
Parents that have been at home with their children and want to slowly re-enter the workforce are the next trend of Ag Assist partners jumping onboard. ‘I had a couple of years off having children and wanted to get back into work,’ explains Peta Florence. ‘It’s quite intimidating not knowing where to start as you have lost your confidence.
‘What I love about this is that I can enter in my availability so it works around picking the kids up. I love the variety of work as well as that I am armed with the skills training before starting the job.’
Ag Assist has gone on to support partners to gain their Primary ITO qualifications whilst working and then to move into full-time employment, and have offered two tertiary scholarships for 2023. They are now pairing up university students with land-based jobs in Australia and Ireland.
‘The ultimate goal is smoothing out the supply and demand curves,’ concludes Tony, ‘while providing flexibility for the partner and reliability for the agribusiness. All while connecting people to land differently.’
Recent stories
