How Often Are You Training and Monitoring Procedural Drift?

Often the first focus of a dairy isn’t on human resources, but more importantly on the day-to-day tasks that are crucial for caring for livestock. Jorge Delgado, an on-farm specialist with Alltech, strongly encourages producers to start dedicating time and effort to this area.

“To create a positive culture on a dairy, the organizational basics must be in place,” Delgado states. “And there should also be a reset in the way employees are managed.”

Dr. Lisa Holden with Penn State Extension recently spoke about training and monitoring procedural drift that often occurs on farms. She explains that procedural drift is the difference between what's written in standard operating procedures and what actually happens in real life on a day-to-day basis.

“Basically, if one was to look at the written SOPs and then walk into the parlor and see what is actually happening, that difference is what is called procedural draft,” Dr. Holden says.

Examples include:

• Shortening the time cloth towels are dried. This results in less desirable cloth towels, damper than what the SOP’s state and can result in more clinical cases of mastitis.
• Giving GnRH shots late, not as scheduled to the SOPs. This can lead to ineffective shots that can negatively impact the herd’s repro.
• Letting a feed mixer run longer than the SOP says. This can result in some smaller particle sizes and could impact butterfat content.

“All of those things are examples of drifting away from that standard procedure not being compliant,” Dr. Holden shares. “Procedural drift is one of those things that kind of creeps in like a fog and bad habits really take root like weeds.”

The idea of using SOPs is that they are standardized and it doesn’t matter who the worker is.

“The reason why we have these procedures in place is so that everyone does things the same. That consistency that cows crave so much is gained through those standard operating procedures,” Dr. Holden says.

SOPS are best when they include simple steps. Dr. Holden recommends 10 or fewer steps. She also shares that employees may have worked at another operation and done things a little differently, so SOPs are vital.

“Having SOPs in place is wonderful, but people have to adhere to that,” she says. “So, there must be compliance and there must be monitoring.”

According to Delgado the best way to train new employees is by explaining the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ behind any procedure.

“Employees value information,” he says.

Photos can be especially useful when using standard operating procedures.

Even when you have SOPs in place, it is essential to follow and review them with employees. Sometimes experienced employees have done the same task millions of times, but then they slowly drift. Also, sometimes poor-performing employees need to better understand what needs to be done but may not have the motivation or the willingness to get that job done the way it's supposed to be.

Dr. Holden says that could result in a lack of training or a lack of employees buying into the SOPs.

Concurring with Delgado, Holden says that not everyone understands why SOPs are crucial and why they are important.

Strategies to help reduce that procedural drift:

1. Review your SOPs. Make sure they can be used consistently across all employees.
2. Train and retrain. The second part here must not be forgotten. Retraining with SOPs is probably the most important.
3. Monitor employees. Most people do a great job onboarding new employees and getting people trained. However, we forget that training wears off over time, and we need to go back and retrain.
4. Creating that culture of compliance. “It's easier to write an SOP and train than it is to create that culture of compliance,” Dr. Holden says. “So, making sure that people understand why it's important to do that.”

Finally, keeping your SOPs in front of your employees is critical. If a producer stops and calculates all the small drifts and the corners employees are taking, they will quickly realize it all adds up to real dollars.

“Those little things do make a big difference in the end,” Dr. Holden says