Welcome to your Autumn issue of Grow IT. We hope your harvests are fruitful and that you can take a few minutes out to catch-up on the news…
We’ve got a fully-packed newsletter for you – enjoy!
Sharon and the ABC team
Minimum Wage Ruling
Minimum Fuss with ABC
It’s not long until April 28th which is when the new ruling in Australia for paying horticultural pieceworkers a minimum wage comes into effect. We appreciate that for many this will mean more time spent on payroll and less time on the produce. You also may be considering dropping piece rate payment altogether. Help is at hand.
ABC delivers an easy-to-use solution which manages the minimum wage guarantee already – ABCgrower gives visibility to piece rate costs and the top up costs where the piece rate payments fall short of the required hourly rate. The solution provides multiple ways to record worker time, now required for pieceworkers as a consequence of the new legislation. The ABCgrower Mobile App works offline to record information on the farm or in the shed without an internet connection.
Get in touch here or call Sharon on +64 21 223 6991 if you have any questions – we’re happy to help you.
Fertigation in ABCspray
Fertigation is the third type of electronic diary entry in ABCspray, joining Spray Instructions and Dry Applications.
ABCspray accommodates the differences between the three agrichemical application methods. Your block/valve configurations are held in ABC for easy selection, and fertigation over multiple days is supported. You have visibility to the amount of nutrients that have been applied to your blocks season to date as you build your instructions, and the volumes contribute to the Nutrient Analysis table which gives visibility to nutrient application on your farm.
Read more here and if you have questions, get in touch here.
New Brand and Website for ABC
While you’ve been busy harvesting, we’ve launched a new website. It was time for a refresh so we’re excited to have a great new logo to go with the rebranded website. Check it out here and let is know what you think.
Productivity Bonus Calculation Tool
There’s a really useful Productivity Bonus calculation tool as part of ABCgrower which can be used to encourage and reward your top performers!
Collect by piece for valuable productivity information, use the Convert to Hourly tool to change the piece rate information to an hourly pay rate, and use the Productivity Bonus calculation tool to apply an additional payment to reward your best workers.
The Productivity Bonus calculator includes a weighting function to account for differences between blocks, for example higher numbers of trees pruned would be expected in a block with young trees compared to a block with older denser trees pruned on the same day. With visibility to individual’s productivity it is easy to identify top performers and you set the productivity threshold required to earn a bonus payment.
Together, these tools provide an alternative to piece rate while retaining a motivator for high productivity. It is particularly useful where your workers have disparate skills and it is difficult to set an appropriate piece rate.
If you have questions, get in touch here.
ABC News Cuttings
Citrus Technical Conference
We were delighted that Wim van Niekerk was invited to speak at the Citrus Technical Forum 2022 about ABC. Wim uses ABCgrower’s top-up function to ensure pieceworkers are paid minimum wage, and the productivity information grower provides has meant big savings on the bottom line. We are very appreciative of Wim and his team!
Look out Australia!
Our founder Sharon is heading to Australia in April! Sharon will be on the road in Australia and if it’s possible, would be happy to swing by for a chat about how to gain time and cost savings and productivity increases in your business. Get in touch with Sharon here.
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