4.1.Seasonal workforce

Where possible, the company tries to keep a flow of work going for seasonal workers. Once the picking season has finished, people can move on to other seasonal work in the orchard.

4.1.Recruitment process

Applicants complete a job application form and are interviewed by administration staff or by the orchard manager.

4.1.Training process

All Johnny Appleseed seasonal and permanent staff start work with an induction briefing from the orchard manager or another management representative. The briefing covers the pay system, EurepGAP,^[1] facts about the company and basic health and safety information. Seasonal workers need to understand the pay system as it is tied to targets. In apple picking, for example, pickers are paid on the numbers of bins and the quality of the apples they pick. A picker must pick a certain number of bins per hour to earn more than the minimum wage. The more bins of apples of acceptable quality they pick, the higher their pay.

The company trains seasonal workers using oral instruction, demonstration and coaching. All training is provided on-job in the orchard environment. Generally, training begins with the supervisor explaining what has to happen and how to do it. Workers observe a demonstration of the skills required and are then required to practise the skill on demonstration trees. After the initial training phase, supervisors coach seasonal workers on the job until they are performing at the level required.

The company does everything it can to make the training process efficient. The key emphasis is to get people up to speed and doing the work as quickly as possible. The training focuses on making sure people get the information they need to know to do the job - no more and no less.

4.1.What issues concern Johnny Appleseed?

The company tries not to use contractors because of concerns around the training workers receive, the extent to which contractors comply with the law (including paying the minimum wage) and the immigration status of some contract workers.

The company is concerned with continuity of labour supply and recognises this as an issue that affects the whole pipfruit industry.

The company reported that some seasonal workers have ESOL issues and they are unable to understand verbal instructions given to them in English. To mitigate this, the company employs supervisors from the same ethnic group as their employees wherever possible.

Some staff also lack motivation and have poor "life skills". The company had experienced absenteeism, with staff not sending messages or calling in to advise the company when they would not be at work. When given an instruction, some staff failed to follow it through, because they were not motivated to do so, or had no experience of carrying out a task from beginning to end.

Other issues raised by the company:

• How are we as growers/employers changing to meet the changing face of our workforce (referring to increasing numbers of Pasifika and Maori employees)?
• How can we ensure that there are training pathways that help people move through from seasonal to permanent work?

The company recognises that the pipfruit industry workforce is increasingly diverse and people entering the industry may not have the skills to enter training pathways that were established some years ago. The company wants to engage with industry and training providers to ensure that training programmes are accessible to this new group of employees, either by establishing different training pathways, or by rethinking and restructuring existing training programmes.

4.1.Work demands

Apples are picked when they are at the correct stage of ripeness. The picking crew goes back to the same tree several times during the season to harvest apples. This means that pickers must have decision-making skills to select fruit of the correct colour and size. It is critical that this task is performed correctly. Growers spend a whole year growing fruit. If a picker makes the wrong decision and picks an unripe apple, all that work is wasted.

The company has learned that training needs to mirror the actual activity that the seasonal worker is about to carry out. Training is provided exactly when it is needed and focuses only on the level of detail seasonal workers need to do the upcoming work.

Pruners need to understand the effect of auxin^[2] on plant growth (and therefore what branches to prune). Company representatives identified this as one of the few pieces of scientific knowledge that seasonal workers need.

The urgency of seasonal growth phases and the harvest drives everything. Fruit must be picked when it is ready. Tree maintenance tasks must be done at the appropriate time. The timeframes within which activities must be completed are often short.

4.1.Foundation skill gaps

Some workers, especially those from NESB backgrounds, do not have the English language skills to understand oral instructions and explanations in English.

Some workers do not have good critical thinking skills. Often this is because they do not have a good technical understanding of what they are doing and make poor decisions about which apples to pick, or how to prune or thin a tree.

In addition, concerns were expressed that some workers seem unable to self manage, for example, to follow an instruction through to completion. Others make poor choices about what clothing to wear or forget to advise the company when they will not be available for work.

4.2.Seasonal roles

There are three main areas of seasonal work in pipfruit orchards.

Picking

Picking is the most critical task for the pipfruit industry. It requires precision. Workers can easily pick the wrong fruit or damage fruit when they transfer it into their buckets and bins.

Pickers must selectively hand pick fruit to size, colour and/or maturity specifications, which change depending on variety. Pickers should turn the fruit to detach it when picking, rather than pulling it off, so that they so do not damage spurs. Pickers must manage their own hydration and nutrition, and monitor their body for signs of occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) and body strain.

To pick fruit, pickers climb ladders wearing picking buckets. When they have filled the picking bucket they carefully empty the fruit into a bin to ensure no damage to the fruit. Pickers are taught how to pick and how to empty the bucket through demonstration and coaching. They are taught about colour using "apple line-ups". Pickers are also taught to use a range of gauges as reference points to help them estimate the percentage of red (colour) on an apple.

Thinning

Using shears and their hands, thinners selectively remove flowers and fruitlets to maximise crop-loading on spurs, so trees bear optimal crop. They therefore need technical knowledge about crop loading of trees. This helps them decide whether to leave singles or pairs of fruitlets and flowers on particular spurs, and on which parts of the tree.

Pruning

As pruning is the most technical activity in pipfruit, pruners must have and recall the most technical information. Pruners selectively remove dead and weak wood and inappropriate growth from trees to encourage optimal growth for crop bearing in the future. Pruners use and take care of their own gear, which includes loppers, shears and saws.

4.2.Foundation skills required

Each skill has been annotated to show if it is used frequently (at least hourly), critical to the company, and complex in terms of the amount of technical information.