This document summarizes findings from a survey of 174 dairy farm employees, including 97 Spanish-speaking and 77 English-speaking workers, across 14 farms in 4 states. The survey aimed to better understand employee experiences and identify ways to improve labor management. Key findings included Spanish-speaking employees having worked on farms for shorter periods on average than English-speaking employees. While satisfaction levels were similar, Spanish-speaking employees expressed less interest in remaining at farms long-term. The results also suggested Spanish-speaking employees felt less engaged and were less likely to share ideas to improve the business, which the researchers believed correlated more with management practices rather than cultural differences. Good employee management was identified as critical for fostering engagement, including keeping all workers informed

1. Latino Labor Challenges in the
Dairy Industry:
What dairy employees tell us
Phil Durst
Stan Moore
MSU Extension Sr. Educators

2. Dairy farm employees
• Increase in Latino numbers on farm is seen
even in the northern Lower Peninsula and even
on farms that have < 200 cows.
• Farm work is hard, demanding work and can be
long hours and repetitive work. Conditions can
be less than ideal.
• That is true for all workers, whether English or
Latino.

3. • Many dairy owners think that Latino employees
solve their labor problems,
but many industry professionals say that the
availability of Latino labor often masks and
magnifies problems in labor management.

4. Dairy Employee Management Project
• 2012 initiated a project aimed at improving
employee management using what we can learn
from employee feedback.
• 14 dairy farms enrolled to date in 4 states
• Employees receive a paper copy (English or
Spanish) of the survey (29 Q’s) and instructed to
call a bilingual interviewer.
• Owners and managers surveyed also about
what they think their employees will answer.

5. Dairy Employee Management Project
• 174/230 employees have called for interview
(76% response rate)
• Although differences by ethnicity was not the
primary focus of our project, we had our
interviewer collect that information.
Spanish-speaking: (97) 56%
English-speaking: (77) 44%

6. Dairy Employee Management Project
• When we sort by
ethnicity, our survey
of employees
revealed some
differences between
Spanish-speaking
and English-speaking
employees, and
many similarities.

7. Tenure on farm
How long have you worked on this farm?
(we could only enter whole numbers)
Spanish-speaking: 3.68 yrs.
English-speaking: 5.64 yrs.

8. Tenure on farm
How long would you like to remain working at this
farm?
(1 = , 1 yr., 2 = 2-3 yrs., 3 = 4-5 yrs., 4 = until
retirement)
Spanish-speaking: 2.84 rating
English-speaking: 3.12 rating

9. Satisfaction
How satisfied are you working on this farm?
(Scale 1 – 5, where 1 = not at all satisfied, 5 =
most satisfied)
Spanish-speaking: 4.16
English-speaking: 4.04

10. Equal treatment
We did not detect any significant difference by
ethnicity, but . . .
• That doesn’t mean that there were not cases of
employees who felt they were not treated the
same as English employees on some farms, and
• Equal treatment doesn’t mean good treatment.

11. Training
• Essential for being able to meet standards while
working with animals
• Rate the frequency of training
(1 = never, 2 = only when started, 3 = 1x/yr., 4 =
every 3 mos., 5 = 1x/month)
Spanish-speaking: 2.94
English-speaking: 2.86

12. Training
• Was it because they have little interest in
learning?
• Employees were asked to rate their interest in
learning on a scale of 1 – 5 where 1 = “already
know enough to do my job”, and 5 = “I am
interested in dairy and I want to learn more”
Employees: 4.73

13. Training:
• Employers were asked what their employees
would respond to that question:
Employers: 3.27

14. • Quote from a Spanish-speaking employee in
response to a question about their familiarity
with the farm goals:
“All the companies usually put (up) charts (with
the company goals), but here there is nothing.
We come here like donkeys to do what we are
told to do.”

15. We believe that in order for
employees to be full team members
that they need to know both the goals
and their performance against them.

16. Communication
• The language barrier is a big barrier on most
dairies. Therefore, Spanish-speaking employees
tend to be isolated from their employer and from
English-speaking employees.
“The owner sometimes comes near me and
starts talking; I don’t know if he is talking to me
or to himself. I don’t understand English.”

17. Engagement
Engaged employees: “a connection between an
employee and employer which results in that
employee giving voluntary effort.” Charles Contreras,
Zoetis PeopleFirst
That can be difficult to assess. But one question
we asked helped us to get at that:
“How frequently do you come up with ideas on
how to improve the business, whether or not you
share them?”

18. Engagement
Frequent ideas
• “Always and I share them”
• Yes, I come up with a lot of suggestions and
actually we do proceed with them; is quite often”
• Always thinking of things”
• We come up with ideas to make things easy. We
share the with the supervisor and then he let us
know if we can do them”
• Weekly because we have lots of discussions on
what we are going to do.”

19. Engagement
Occasional ideas:
• “Sometimes I have ideas and I share them with
the supervisor”
• Try to contribute with my ideas as much as
possible, but there is not much consideration.”
• “Sometimes I have some ideas. The supervisor
sets me free if the ideas are good for the farm.”

20. Engagement
“Disengaged”
• “I have some ideas and share them but they
never consider them”
• “Gave up on sharing them; they never do
anything with my ideas.”
• I have some ideas, but they always say they are
not good ones, so I don’t share them anymore.”
• I have a lot of good ideas. I don’t share them
because he thinks we are stupid. He is not open
to hear new ideas.

21. Engagement
Frequency of ideas to improve the business:
Spanish English
Frequent 17.5% 40.3%
Occasional 43.2 45.5
“Disengaged” 39.2 14.3

22. Engagement
• Is it cultural or is is management related?
• Individual farm data where they had Spanish-speaking
employees
A B C D E F
N=6 n=13 n=13 n=13 n=10 n=6
• Frequent 0 23 39 8 0 50
• Occasional 17 54 31 62 50 17
• “Disengaged” 83 23 31 23 50 33

23. Engagement
Therefore, we believe that good employee
management is the primary factor determining
whether employees on a farm are engaged or
disengaged.

24. We believe that good employee management:
• Involves all employees as team members
• Values the minds of employees
• Communicates goals and performance
standards
• Provides meaningful and positive feedback
• Treats employees with respect and fairness.

25. Thank you!
Questions?
Phil Durst Stan Moore
MSU Extension MSU Extension
durstp@msu.edu moorest@msu.edu
989-387-5346 231-350-0400