Business | Summer 2010
Take your farm office off the kitchen table.
By Joy Gregory
Some farmers need to organize office space separate from their living quarters. Others just need to get organized
As farms get bigger and the technology to run them becomes more complex, management pressures increase too. Maybe that’s when it’s time to move the office out of the farm kitchen and into a separate space.
It’s something Gerald and Bradley Schiltroth are glad they did. The brothers farm about 18,000 acres near Ridgedale, SK. "I barely remember when the business was run out of the kitchen of the old house," recalls Gerald, 35. "I’d wake up in the morning and because Dad and Mom ran an independent farm supply business, there were always people at Mom’s table. Breakfast, lunch, supper, it didn’t matter. Everyone knew if there was a lineup in the yard they could go in the house and Mom would have coffee ready.".
The farm supply business downsized a few years ago and with Gerald and Bradley, 33, now in charge, the focus is on growing crops and running a custom farming operation that seeds, trucks and harvests for area producers. (About 10,000 acres of their total operation are custom farmed for their father, Mark.).
Including the three Schiltroths, the business has nine full-time employees, plus six others who come aboard from spring through to harvest. Two are full-time secretaries and there’s no question an operation of this size needs separate office space. More specifically, a dedicated office area improves document access and security, creates a more professional environment for customer and supplier discussions, and separates business visitors from the families who live nearby, says Gerald..
The Schiltroths all have different roles in the family business so the office includes separate work spaces for each of them and each of the two secretaries. A former accountant who also worked as a teacher before becoming the farm’s financial go-to guy, Gerald figures he often spends more than 10 hours a day in his office. He appreciates the separate space and likes not having to share computers, but admits the location, in a remodeled quonset, leaves much to be desired. As someone who spends part of each day telling his brother and dad why now is not a good time for the business to spend money to upgrade equipment, however, Gerald also knows it’s not a good time to remodel their inside working space..
But that doesn’t keep him from thinking about it. And what’s high on his list? More windows (his office doesn’t have any), less wallboard and even a little design assistance from an interior decorator. "I think all of us have a list of the things we’d like to see, but we haven’t sat down yet and made a formal plan.".
Make your space work
A formal plan is important — and not merely because of aesthetics, says Cheryl Joseph,
an accountant who also runs an office-organizing service in St. Albert, AB. A home-based
worker herself, Joseph says many people "are capable of setting up a home office
and much of the organization is common sense." .
But when an office is not working because papers go missing or information is often difficult to find, it may be time to call in a professional. The real issues likely revolve around filing and storage, Joseph explains, adding that people can learn easy ways to tame the paper tiger. .
If sharing computer access is an issue, Joseph recommends wireless high-speed Internet access, which allows other family members Internet access from relatively cheaper laptops they can use in other parts of the house. .
That’s a problem in some parts of rural Canada, including where the Schiltroths farm. Gerald says they have high-speed access in the office, but it’s not possible in their homes without putting up another tower. Once that happens, he suspects he’ll be doing more farm office work from his house. .
While most farm operators don’t have the kind of office space the Schiltroths have developed, more are developing dedicated computer work stations in their home offices, says Rick Slusar, of Ricsan Enterprises, an independent computer sales and service company located in Nipawin, SK..
His advice on the organizational side of adding new computer equipment is to hire someone to set it up and network it with other systems versus the DIY route. While "help" is built into new computers, "it assumes a certain level of prior knowledge and the user doesn’t necessarily have that." FF.
