THE HORTICULTURE WORKFORCE IN A POST-COVID LANDSCAPE

The horticulture workforce in a post-COVID landscape

Introducing the NGIV’s new partner, Sidekicker

Backed by SEEK, Sidekicker is the leading innovator in labour hire across Australia and New Zealand – using technology to dramatically improve how businesses source, hire and manage casual and temporary workers across a growing number of industries.

With the horticulture industry booming due to COVID-19 lockdowns sparking massive consumer interest in home gardens, Sidekicker has provided workforce solutions that have enabled nurseries such as Mansfield’s, Ball Australia, Oasis Horticulture, JD Propagation, and Tesselaar to respond quickly and capitalise.

We are excited to be sharing with you how in this month’s Groundswell Magazine –exploring the impact COVID-19 has had on the workforce, and the opportunities for horticulture businesses in a post-COVID landscape.

What we learnt about the horticulture workforce during COVID-19

Sidekicker employs 10,000 workers and provides millions of hours of work each year across several industries, uniquely positioning us with workforce data and insights.

At the outbreak of COVID-19, the impact on the workforce ranged from a reduction in casual hours to large scale standing down of employees across sectors. Conversely, some sectors saw unprecedented demand for workers.

As the charts below show, in a matter of days during March as lockdowns were announced, we saw hospitality and events hours decrease by 560%, contrasted sharply with businesses in essential services like supermarkets, as well as at-home meal delivery services and customer service teams, who scaled their workforces by as much as 5X in a single week to support unprecedented and rapid increases in order volumes.

Specifically in horticulture, nurseries hiring on Sidekicker experienced increases in orders as much as 3X on normal volumes due to consumers’ heightened interest in at-home gardens, plants and veggie patches.

Whilst the industry boomed, this increased demand exacerbated the existing limitations of the horticulture frontline workforce –that being, businesses being unable to find staff with the required skills and experience fast enough to react to production upflow in real-time, and risk leaving orders unfilled or waiting months to replant and replenish stocks.

COVID-19 has highlighted the need for a better solution that allows flexibility and enables horticulture businesses to thrive and not be constrained by labour limitations.

What's next as the industry moves into peak season?

Horticulture has traditionally struggled to source casual labour caused largely by skills for many roles taking time to cultivate and learn, yet staff churning quickly due to the high levels of seasonality and fluctuating demands in individual nurseries.

As the industry moves into the peak season –with data showing demand and order volumes typically ramp between 50%-80% from June to December –businesses are now not only faced with these existing challenges of seasonality, but are further constrained by the elimination of backpackers and international students in Australia due to the closure of international borders.

To answer this call, we have been working closely with the NGIV, nurseries, and TAFES and Universities, to build a growing pool of skilled, experienced and work-ready casual horticulture staff with experience across the entire supply chain.

Coupled with our technology –which makes it fast and simple for businesses to hire casual and temporary staff –this pool of workers can work across production nurseries with different ramp periods, allowing them to stay employed within the industry.

The following case studies demonstrate how two of the industry’s leading nurseries hire casual labour on Sidekicker.

Case study: Mansfield’s Propagation Nursery

Many of you would know Mansfield’s Propagation Nursery, one of the largest commercial nurseries in Australia, growing millions of plants across 60 acres on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

Mansfield’s typically have 50 staff working in their production room each day, a number that doubles during spring and summer.

When COVID-19 hit, increased order volumes meant that Mansfield’s needed to take out 22% more plants than budgeted for the month, and they needed to do it quickly.

However, it would usually take weeks and a high level of admin to recruit staff with the relevant skills, experience and attitude to get the job done, and when the labour would only be required for a short period to fix the months’ upsell, this time investment would be a poor use of resources.

Using Sidekicker, Mansfield’s was able to react immediately and hire pre-vetted, trained and experienced casual horticulture staff within hours, including several who had worked at Mansfield’s previously and remained active in Sidekicker’s labour pool.

Matt Mansfield describes:

Sidekicker enables us to react in real-time to fluctuations in demand, and gives us so much flexibility to change our labour requirements quickly depending on production levels and effectively hire staff on a short term basis.

It means we don’t have to go through all the admin of posting jobs, interviewing etc, because Sidekicker’s team have already done it all and we can post a request instantly to their pre-screened and experienced pool of staff.

The attitude of staff is super positive and their ability to pick up tasks quickly and respond to instruction helps us maintain high productivity. We also control who works for us and can easily rehire the same staff over and over.

If we as an industry can retain a trained casual labour pool with Sidekicker – with staff working across multiple nurseries all with different peaks and troughs - we have a great opportunity to get further ahead as an industry.

Case study: Faceys Nursery

Faceys is one of the most well known family-owned businesses in the industry. Established in 1959 in Devon Meadows, Faceys is a wholesale nursery and supply to garden centres and trade customers across Australia. Faceys Director Raelene Trimble states:

Sidekicker is an amazingly innovative staffing solution that brings the latest technology to nurseries big and small.

Sidekicker is incredibly easy to use –it’s simple and ingenious –giving you access to reliable and experienced team members who are on call even at the last minute. This is a great opportunity for our industry to have access to a pool of shared nursery labour hire.

Less time spent on recruitment gives you more time to spend on your business.

Request and hire pre-vetted, qualified and experienced staff online in minutes

Our workforce is ready to support you during the upcoming peak season

We have built Australia’s best pool of horticulture workers, and use technology to deliver the following advantages when hiring casual labour:

» Keep good people within the industry: our labour marketplace is working to keep quality labour within the horticulture industry.

» The fastest way to hire experienced casuals: use our simple platform to connect instantly with experienced, vetted and work-ready staff.

» Lower fees: because we automate repetitive tasks, we provide consistently lower fees–typically delivering savings of 20-50% on traditional agencies.

» Time savings: Sidekicker’s simple platform dramatically reduces your time spent on admin so you can focus on what matters.

We are providing exclusive rates for members of the NGIV. If you want to learn more about Sidekicker and how we can support your businesses during the upcoming months, please call Penny on 0488 601 421, visit www.sidekicker.com, or email us on sales@sidekicker.com.au.