by Jenny Mills, Chair Communication Committee
These past three months have been interesting, to say the least. While we’ve had our fair share of challenges, such as disruptions in the supply chain that impacts our ability to get products and services to our customers, we are blessed to be involved in agriculture that continues to provide feed, supplies, support and knowledge to our producers. As I reflect on the past ninety days, I am amazed at how communication technology continues to play an increasing role to ensure we get our business done.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am an extrovert. I get my energy from interacting with people, or as my kids say, “traveling and talking.” For the first time in fifteen years, I have been home for more than three months, greater than either maternity leave I was blessed with. The thought of not interacting with people has flat out driven me crazy, although I am completely aligned to the “why” behind all the decisions that have been made to protect our family, friends and customers. However, it didn’t take long for many of the organizations and employers we work with to embrace technology to reach customers and stakeholders, giving us a new “normal” to get our business done and stay connected. My hat is off to our NEAFA members, many of whom that I have spoken to are juggling the new “normal” of keeping our essential employees working in the mill, on the farm and providing support for many working from home for an extended period.
So, from a communication standpoint, what has changed in the last ninety plus days?
How we communicate within the industry – Microsoft Teams, Skype for business, Zoom and Go To Meeting have dominated our days. What platform do you like? I don’t recall a time that I have used these platforms as much as we do now. I never knew I could change the background on Teams or Zoom (now you cannot see my son coming in to ask me algebra questions every 5 minutes!). We have had several opportunities to raise our technical and soft skills training – NEAFA embraced this trend. Our Herd Health conference attendance reached an all-time high of 424 attendees, with twenty-nine different sponsors. Thank you to our partner, PRO-DAIRY, for facilitating the technology change, and organizing the online format. Next year, the conference will be held April 5-6, 2021 at the Doubletree Hotel in East Syracuse, NY with a virtual hybrid being considered. In addition, NEAFA co-hosted a Stress Management webinar with NY FarmNet, that was also very well attended. Please reach out if you have ideas for our conference and webinars this upcoming year – we are excited to provide the information to our members and have quite an attendance record to break!
Although these new platforms cannot replace a face to face conversation, they have helped our industry keep informed, communicate new ideas and policies and yes, have been used to do virtual farm walk throughs. There is a chance that we are relying on these technologies again to help run our businesses – we have learned so much in the past three months that will certainly help us!
Balancing a family and work from home schedule – We have all said how our industry is like family. It felt so good to catch glimpses of all the kids – babies through teens – on the many conference calls we have all had. While it was fun to meet so many families virtually, I also felt pain for the many grandparents and relatives who could not visit their families and hold their grandchildren, nieces, nephews and relatives. Facetime just isn’t the same! While I joke about the juggling act of tutoring two middle school students in-between calls, my husband and I were thankful every night because we could do activities as a family – play cards, cook together, plant a larger garden. While I miss the crazy schedule that we all had (the extrovert again!), somewhere in the chaos, we found a cadence of communicating more at dinner and taking time for the little things as an immediate family. The result of this was usually a return to the home office to finish emails and projects after the kids were in bed. Worth every late night.
What hasn’t changed in the past 90 days?
The need for concise, transparent, and empathetic messages – Our employees, customers, and industry partners are more reliant on written communication in between all those conference calls. The messages in my email inbox almost doubled; how about yours? The need for shorter messages with a clear “why” is more important than ever as the number of communications increases. In addition, building trust through written communication has been more important as we cannot read body language and tone with all those emails. Touching base via phone in a one on one conversation has helped me connect better after I send an email or participate in a larger group conference call.
The need to reach out and understand the range of emotions – Different people interpret messages and react to crisis differently. I try to take a second or even a third look at emails and talking points, especially when I have an ask, to ensure I have worded messages clearly and empathetically. This is a work in progress for me!
At the end of the day, we must still conduct business, as we are essential to feeding the world! – Let’s face it; some of us enjoy talking on the phone while others are text-only. I have some colleagues that will only call into a video conference. Adapting and learning how our customers wish to communicate when an “in-person” visit isn’t possible can certainly help keep our messages and business needs attended to.
I believe that the new “norm” we are navigating will continue to use more virtual tools to complement how we communicate within our industry. Although virtual meetings cannot completely take the place of in-person meetings, the platforms have evolved to be more user friendly, and have helped each of us send and receive information. Until we can all safely gather again, I look forward to relying on our technology to touch base and “meet!”