Chapter 4.5 Balanced, safe and happy life and work
Background information
Farm families who live and work on the farm face a particular challenge when it comes to finding and maintaining a comfortable balance between work, family and leisure time. Changing behaviour and trying to split work from family or personal time is one of the challenges.
The different roles in life and the feeling of being pulled in multiple directions at once can build tension and create stress. This stress can harm your health, your relationships and impair your ability to make decisions. It is valuable to examine these roles and the causes of any stress and to plan to make some changes.
Achieving a satisfactory work-life balance is challenging, but an achievable goal. This chapter is about helping the people in your business and finding a satisfactory work-life balance for yourself. This will reduce stress and combat mental strain that can result from long-term and continuous hard work.
At a glance
- Work towards a work-life balance that suits your business and family interests and goals for the future.
- Make your farm a safe place to live and work for your whole team.
- Utilise the various resources out there to support you, your family and team.
Guidelines for a more balanced lifestyle
Most of us have five key areas in our lives that need balancing:
- Work: meaningful work (paid or unpaid) is important to quality of life. It is how we sustain ourselves and our families and how many of us express ourselves.
- Self: your physical, emotional, spiritual and mental wellbeing are key factors in maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
- Family: important for lot of people and often a source of personal happiness.
- Time: when stretched for time, it is our priorities and what we do (or don’t do) each day that determine our quality of life.
- Money: money is integral to almost every issue involving the relationship between work, self, family, and time. Does your business have the capacity to create the income you need to live a more balanced lifestyle?
Source: Adapted from Life Matters by Roger and Rebecca Merrill, 2003.
Complete the exercise on work-life balance in Tool 4.5 to identify what is going well and areas for improvement and action. Record some notes for future reference, either on your own or in conjunction with other members of your business team.
A safer farm environment
Sheep and wool enterprises are largely family businesses. It is common for these family businesses to employ their own family members as well as non-family members. There is also the responsibility of safely engaging contractors for shearing and other operations.
An important part of managing your farm is to ensure the health and safety of your ‘workers’. Workers include employees, contractors, sub-contractors, apprentice or trainee, work experience student, or volunteer. The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 states that you are required to ensure the, so far as is reasonably practicable:
- Provision and maintenance of a safe work environment without risks to health and safety;
- Provision and maintenance of safe plant and structures;
- Provision and maintenance of safe systems of work;
- Safe use, handling and storage of plant, structures and substances;
- Provision of adequate facilities for the welfare at work of workers;
- Provision of any information, training, instruction or supervision that is necessary to protect all persons from risks to their health and safety; and
- Health of workers and the conditions at the workplace are monitored.
In this Act, reasonably practicable, in relation to a duty to ensure health and safety, means that which is, or was at a particular time, reasonably able to be done in relation to ensuring health and safety, taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:
- the likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring;
- the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk;
- what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about:
- the hazard or the risk; and
- ways of eliminating or minimising the risk;
- the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk; and
- after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.
Utilise Tool 1.11 in MMFS Module 1 Plan for Success to review the risks in your business, understand their likelihood and impact, and remove or mitigate them wherever possible.
To ensure you fulfil your obligation for a safe workplace, you need to become aware of what can cause harm and then take action to ensure no one is at risk while they are in your workplace. The ‘15-minute farm safety check’ (signposts) will help you evaluate how well you are currently managing safety on your farm. Other key information sources are listed in the signposts section of this module.
The key responsibility for farm safety rests the business owners but is also a shared responsibility. All people in the workplace (employees, contractors, etc.) have a responsibility to take care of their own health and safety, take reasonable care that they do not affect others’ health and safety, and to report any safety issues they notice.
Safety is strongly connected to culture (Chapter 4.1). Leading by example and having a safety-focused culture is vital to maintaining a safe workplace.
SIGNPOSTS
Being successful in business requires a mix of skills, and that’s exactly what you’ll hear as you listen. It’s a collection of the latest information, talks and motivation for you and your business.
Propagate tells the stories of NSW’s best and brightest young farmers and fishers.
Focusing on farm culture, leading to a safer working, living, and playing environment.
Is it possible to be really successful at work and have a great home life, too? The authors affirm that it is, and the key is to apply principles of effectiveness.
Good health underpins many of our personal and business aspirations. This library contains articles and links to more specific websites.
Good health underpins many of our personal and business aspirations. This library contains articles and links to more specific websites.
We all know change is hard – it’s unsettling, it's time-consuming, and all too often we give up at the first sign of a setback. But why do we insist on seeing the obstacles rather than the goal? We need only understand how our minds function to unlock shortcuts to switches in behaviour.
Sets the foundation for professional effectiveness – increasing productivity, restoring balance, and developing greater maturity and responsibility.
Work health & safety (WHS) standards, codes of practice, related guidelines and resources.
Resources specific to NSW.
Resources specific to Victoria.
Resources specific to SA.
Resources specific to Queensland.
Resources specific to Tasmania.
Resources specific to WA.
Provides information about shed design so sheep producers and shed builders can make informed decisions about building or renovating a shed. The guidelines include information about design elements, dimensions, technology and key issues such as productivity and occupational health and safety.
Provides agricultural and veterinary chemical users with a recycling pathway for eligible chemical containers.
Resources to improve the health, wellbeing and safety of farm men and women, farm workers, their families and communities across Australia.
This guide and assessment is not a compulsory standard, it has been developed to provide an understanding of shearing shed risks and options to control risks wherever possible. By planning and noting the improvements and steps to control risk, you will be able to provide direct evidence of your efforts in managing safety as required by Workplace Health & Safety Legislation in your state.
Numerous on-farm resources, including hazard checklists and action plans, induction forms, injury register, training register, guidelines and practical videos.
Provides tools, templates, induction training and information specific to agriculture.
A range of videos, factsheets and customisable templates to assist you in getting started or finetuning WHS management in your business.
For most people working on the land, your workplace is also your home, and sometimes the lines can blur. However, you are running a business and as such you have a key responsibility to ensure that your own and nobody else’s safety is put at risk by what you do, what your workers do or the work done at your workplace.
Connecting producers to agricultural businesses and services across Australia.
Provides information and support to help everyone in Australia achieve their best possible mental health, whatever their age and wherever they live.
Mental health resources and support tools.
Free, easy-to-use smartphone app that guides you through a 30–day mental fitness challenge designed to build resilience and wellbeing and prevent things like depression and anxiety.
Free, easy-to-use smartphone app that guides you through a 30–day mental fitness challenge designed to build resilience and wellbeing and prevent things like depression and anxiety.
Designed to help with the health, wellbeing, and safety of farming and regional communities.
A free, online toolkit to help farmers cope effectively with life's challenges and get the most out of every day.
Free financial counselling to farmers, and small, related businesses experiencing, or at risk of, financial hardship. Rural financial counsellors do not give advice relating to agribusiness, law, family issues, mental health or financial advice, but can refer you to other professional services as part of their holistic approach/service.
Leadership programs and services to support people in all stages of their leadership journey. Participants will be exposed to local leadership activities in the community and relevant businesses and industries to highlight networking and relationship building and how challenges have been met with solutions.
A national program for young people in all facets of the wool industry which develops their leadership and professional skills.
Participants develop a better understanding of themselves and their teams, while learning more effective ways of creating a positive team culture through planning, goal setting and communication.
