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On-farm coaching brings positive shift toward workplace success

On-farm coaching brings positive shift toward workplace success

Places filled quickly for the inaugural SHIFT on-farm coaching program held at Goondiwindi (Bigambul country) in February, and the participants were not disappointed.

Supervisors and team leaders from six cotton farms met at Chantal and Simon Corish’s property, “Mundine”, to learn new skills in coaching and staff development in a one-day workshop, to be followed by a 10-week remote coaching program.

The on-farm initiative is a result of the three-year, CRDC-funded project SHIFT: Delivering best practice to manage future skills, which was developed specifically for the cotton industry to address growers’ needs in attracting, developing and retaining staff.

Grower evaluation of the SHIFT project suggested that there was a need for further information on how to develop employees’ non-technical skills.

“Consequently, CRDC has supported this 12-month project developing this ‘coach-the-coach’ program, which also involves looking at options for an ongoing SHIFT program, and how the program can support the framework used to demonstrate workplace sustainability across the industry,” said Dr Nicole McDonald, a cotton industry workforce researcher with Central Queensland University (CQU) and the SHIFT project lead.

Dr Nicole McDonald, Colorada Cotton’s Matt Anning, Sam Heagney, South Bunarba Agriculture, Jo Eady and Clarke Farming’s Charlie Clarke from Goondiwindi at the Corish family property “Mundine”.

Bringing the program to the growers

The on-farm coaching program is being delivered by Jo Eady of RuralScope (who delivers the Australian Future Cotton Leaders Program), with Nicole and Goondiwindi cotton grower, psychologist and CRDC-supported PhD candidate Chantal Corish, who hosted the event. Dr Amy Cosby of CQU is also part of the SHIFT team. Chantal has been exploring psychological safety as part of her PhD study. Her findings have been incorporated into SHIFT and the coach-the-coach workshop.

Psychological safety in the workplace determines whether employees feel safe to speak up about errors, challenge the status quo, and contribute their unique set of skills, knowledge and experience to the job. It is strongly linked to better performing teams through increased learning behaviours, greater employee effectiveness, increased innovation, improved wellbeing and higher retention rates.

Jo Eady said the on-farm coaching program aims to boost awareness of psychological safety and other non-technical skills that are essential to helping people adapt to the challenges everyday farming presents.

“We know they are proficient at the technical side of growing cotton, but through the SHIFT experience we want to ensure growers provide psychologically safe teams and workplaces that will result in efficient recruiting of staff, and most importantly, retaining them,” Jo said.

“This new program helped them to understand how a one-on-one meeting with a team leader can multiply outcomes for a whole team, and how to perfect the art of giving one-on-one feedback that motivates change.

“We also touched on topics about how to connect and care for staff, so they perform at their best, and how to ‘shake the shame’ when things don’t go to plan.”

Ten weeks of remote coaching now follow the initial one-day program. Having developed the SHIFT resources over the initial three-year project, Dr Nicole McDonald is excited to see the growing interest in the suite of resources available.

“SHIFT is a direct outcome of listening to industry and grower concerns around attracting and retaining the workforce, and it’s the culmination of previous CRDC-funded research projects that focused on adaptable and engaging workplaces,” Nicole said.

“Showing growers how to take control of the things that can improve the attraction and retention of workers, and how to recharge and manage the risk of burnout for themselves while providing a safe and supportive workplace, is central to SHIFT.”

SHIFT resources cover a wide range of skills for people management, including the Australian Cotton Industry Non-Technical Skills Guide for New Entrants and another specifically for team leaders. The full suite of SHIFT resources are available to growers via the CottonInfo website. 

For more:

SHIFT resources - www.cottoninfo.com.au/blog/shift-resources

This article appears courtesy of the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC). It was published in the (Autumn 2026) edition of CRDC’s Spotlight magazine: www.crdc.com.au/spotlight

South Bunarba Agriculture’s Jack Scilley, Sarah Vivers and Sam Heagney. Sarah and Sam have contributed to cotton industry non-technical skills guides for new entrants and growers.