People with Hugh Pocock from Cultura Connect

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Right, hello, everybody, to another episode of season two and the free prong podcast. And tonight we have the usual three musketeers. But tonight we're also joined by a special guest, Mr. Hugh Porcock, who is a real specialist in the recruitment world. So I think this episode really is for. For anyone looking to. To further themselves in the career. Hopefully from listening to this podcast you might pick up some useful tips from an industry expert. And yeah, hopefully this will be a benefit to you. But to start it off, before we start with Hugh, we're going to do our regular intro, which is the good, the bad and the ugly of our week. So I think we'll start off with the good and I think, Hugh, our guest, I think you had a good this week. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys. I'm really looking forward to having a good old chat. Yeah. What good happened to me this week? I guess I'm in the world of recruitment, so you can have good weeks and bad weeks and this week's been particularly good. We've gained five new clients already this week. That's from all different walks of life. So for us as a business, we don't go actively looking for business. To get five new clients come to us is outstanding. [00:01:17] Speaker C: That's great news. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah, really good. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think I'll. As many listeners know, I'm quite heavily involved in the poultry industry and yeah, I think bad again is just gonna talk about the dreaded bird flu once again. Yeah, quite worrying times with. Obviously we've seen in America there's been some cases coming into cows. I also watched a typical sort of whistleblower media, the way they are now as well, about potentially at some point down the line, bird flu could become a pandemic. And it's just very, very worrying really, for the. For the UK and poultry industry. Yeah. And we really must. Yeah, must do all we can to keep that dreaded disease away from. It's a. It's a fantastic industry, poultry. It's an affordable source of protein and both eggs and chicken and ducks and everywhere else. But, yeah, it's really worrying times for those that have invested heavily and rely on it for an employment. Yeah, it's just the worry surrounding it and the unknown. I think that's one of the hardest things in farming really, is the unknown and uncertainty. Yeah, it's after not having many cases in the last year. Touch wood. Yeah, it's just something that's sort of always on the edge of my mind. [00:02:42] Speaker C: Has there been any sort of Like, I know there's like a season to it, isn't it really? I know that's not the right. Good. [00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's obviously linked. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's linked to sort of migrating birds. 20, 22 and 23 were, were much worse for cases in the UK it seemed every day there was a different case. Fortunately it hasn't been as bad this year. So that's, that's a positive. Yeah, I think it's just all of the, all the background noise and the potential, like the potential spread of it in cows, which is worrying, which is, I know is very strong in the media in America and I think there's been other cases around the world and oi. We tried to take a customer to Italy the other week and we couldn't get into any poultry sheds. So yeah, it's. Farmers really need to continue to be on the top of biosecurity to keep this dreaded disease out. Really? [00:03:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Has there been many cases in humans yet? I know there's been a little bit of warning on that front, but not. [00:03:44] Speaker A: Not, not too much. It's obviously there's different strains of it and so far we seem to have escaped this strain. But you do just worry with obviously with what happened with, with COVID as a strain of flu that yeah, if it really doesn't get into humans then what really does that mean for the future? Obviously now we've all lived through Covid and we've seen what these dreaded pandemics can do and yeah, just hope and pray that it doesn't go the same way with bird flu, really. [00:04:15] Speaker C: No, it does. It's not. Yeah. Like you say, it's. The farmers are the ones that have, you know, they continue doing their hard work of biosecurity, then they're the ones that hopefully can help us, you know, control it or stop it. So I'm gonna do the ugly. And the ugly is the, the thing that happened last week in Surrey regarding the police officer driving over the top of a cow. I just can't get my head around that. Like what. Whose decision was that to ram a cow? It wasn't even a cow, was it? It was like a 12 month, 11 month year old beef and quite a small animal just to do that. And then it made me very, very angry that then I read that obviously they're not our competition. But the guy, whoever, the guy who does the Farmers Weekly podcast has sort of put a thing out there saying, well, it was the best course of action. And I'm thinking, why is that the best course of action? Because if you smashed its leg, missed, you know, ruined it, it would have been running around in a worse state. And I just think there's 500 different things you could do before you run over the top of it with a truck. It was. It just. I don't know, it made me very, very angry. [00:05:27] Speaker B: And it didn't look like it was even going berserk as an animal. It was wandering around aimlessly. [00:05:31] Speaker C: It was quite quietly, happily, you could have sorted it out, caught it easily, but just bonkers. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Well, I won't say too much, but that, in my opinion, maybe that is the. Maybe one of the. Not the first time that Farmers Weekly hasn't reported maybe something as fairly as. [00:05:52] Speaker C: I think. I think you might. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there we go. So that's my ugly. I think I'm gonna drag on about it because it's been all over the press and everything like that. I just. But I just think it's just bonkers. Like, just what a complete. And that's a load of tosh to do that. And then for the farmers, we needed to come out and say that as well. I just thought it was crazy. But moving on. So welcome along here. Thank you for joining us. And do you want to start by saying a little bit about yourself, why we got you here? [00:06:23] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you. I think Chris mentioned a little bit about my recruitment background and I guess if I could give a bit of an overview about my background before I got into recruitment, because I kind of got into recruitment, not planning to do so, really, and it just kind of happened. But my background. Born and bred on a dairy farm in Shropshire. It's very much a farm that my cousins were going to inherit, so I was sort of not really given the opportunity to take on a farm. So everyone said, don't get into farming, there's no future in it. So I set off not to get into farming, but everything I did brought me back to farming. And I was very fortunate enough growing up, got involved in sort of showing cattle on my uncle's farm. Really enjoyed that. And that sort of led me to have a further interest in farming. Went off to Harper Adams. Had a great time at Harper, Got a degree in agriculture. And whilst I was there, I was clipping a few cattle for shows and exhibitions. And I got asked by the cattle breeding company Cogent to help them out one day preparing some animals, which I did. And then they asked me to do a little bit more, A little bit more. Led to a lot more. Whilst I was still at college, got to a point where I was earning quite a bit of money, self employed, and they turned around to me one day and said, hugh, you're costing us a lot of money, why don't you come and join us? And I hadn't really thought about getting involved in genetics, although I loved sort of cattle breeding, cattle showing and what an amazing opportunity I had. I got initially go and evaluate the bulls in terms of how well they were breeding, got to travel around the country, took international visitors around then I had the opportunity to actually go and buy bulls in the uk. Having the Duke of Westminster's checkbook at the time was great fun. I bought some incredible bulls, met some amazing people and then through a little bit of restructuring, I had the chance to become the sire analyst. So actually got to buy bulls in the UK and internationally, and then also became head of the genetics department. So I was running the whole genetics development, including a nucleus herd, as well as bringing embryos and live bulls into the uk. And then further on in my time there, I got the chance to get involved in sales and I ended up running the UK sales team. And that was a bit of a batsons of fire, having managed two or three people to then manage 40 or 50 salespeople. And that was an incredible experience for me, quite humbling really, but got to use a lot of my contacts. But also all the genetics that we developed were really coming to the fore then and it was a really exciting time. I then carried on with that. We got involved in mergers and acquisitions and so international business development. And 16 years on they got the point that they wanted to sell the business and I had a chance for voluntary redundancy, which I saw as a great opportunity for me to go on and do something else. I'd taken on a farm business tenancy, where we live now with my wife and children, and we have a beef and sheep farm here. And I thought, this is a chance to do that. But little did I know there was a lot of demand for people in the industry and I had quite a lot of interest in me as an individual to go and work for people. I took the decision to do some consulting rather than working for someone full time. And that really then sort of gave me the idea around recruitment, because a lot of these companies were in that sort of stage of early growth or needing to develop them ourselves as a business and they needed good people and I knew good people through the network I built up over the last 20 years and was able to sort of recommend people I thought actually there's a business to be had in this. And I also had a bit of sort of, I wouldn't say bad experience, but I'd used a couple of recruitment agencies and thought this could be done better. And that's really what sort of led me into the recruitment world we set the business up in. When Was it now? Four years ago now? 2020, January 2020. Covid came along. Oh my goodness, what have we done? But actually it was a great thing, farming. Agriculture kept going and we needed more good people in the industry and out of any industry. It's probably short of real talent. If you look at what's happened in the industry, we've had probably consolidation going in all sectors, so that's meant less people have come into it. So there's a real demand for skilled people to work in this great industry that we have as agriculture. So it's blossomed really as a business. We've grown from just my business partner and I got 20 odd years in recruitment and myself to now, come August this year, we'll have 14 of us in the. [00:10:41] Speaker A: Oh, that's fantastic. We've actually talked about on an earlier part about attracting new people to agriculture in the sort of four years that you've been growing the business. Are you finding an increase in people coming from outside of agriculture into the industry? And if not, so why not? [00:11:05] Speaker B: We definitely are having more people showing an interest. I think Jeremy Clarkson has had a big impact on that, highlighted there is an opportunity to do different jobs within our industry. The challenge for us is a lot of our clients will come to us asking us to find people that have got farming experience or agricultural backgrounds to help them with their business. We typically work with the supply industry to agriculture, whether it's feed, fertilizer, genetics, machinery, rural professionals. And the key element, what they're looking for is someone that's, that's interacted with farmers and the best people for that, people that have actually worked on a farm. So that's our challenge to bring new people in. But we always, we are constantly looking for roles where we can bring people from outside the industry and we do have a number of people and I think one area that's quite exciting on that front is ex military personnel because they're used to working outside, they're used to working in regular hours, they've got really good work ethic and discipline and I think that translates really well into the agricultural industry. [00:12:08] Speaker C: But it is like a constant battle, isn't it too, I imagine, you know, getting people to come in. But it's almost like, what's the term, what's the net migration of agriculture? How many people are coming in versus sort of how many people are leaving. And that'd be really interesting, wouldn't it? Sort of know what. What that is. Because there will be a lot of good people going, you know, for. For obvious reasons. And I suppose the challenge that agriculture faces is making sure that these good people don't. Don't choose to leave. And I think, like, you know, someone like you yourself, Hugh Wave, you've had a career in cogent. You could have got 500 different things. You know, all of those things are transferable into other industries. And yet, you know, you chose then. So I'm actually gonna. Gonna stick at this and carry on, which is. Which is great. One thing I do want to ask you, though, going back to your earlier. Do you not miss, like, all the. Because you were a proper, you know, geek into all the breeding. Do not miss all of that with the do a little bit. That's like. That was a huge part of your life. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. I do miss it a little bit, but I think having my own farmers, I can still scratch that itch. You know, we've got some pedigree Hereford cattle. We dabble with a few Wagyu. That's how I know Chris. I sit on the British Wagyu association board. So we still kind of dabble genetics there and then also I'm kind of living it through my son. He's big into the sort of cattle breeding and showing and he shows for his uncle. So, like last night we picked up a show calf and tonight I've been helping him train that. So I still get involved in that side of it. I still get involved in sort of commentating at shows and various different youth events. So I kind of give back that way. But I think also you kind of. You move on a little bit. And a lot of the experiences I've had, I can actually deploy in different areas of what I do now. So, yeah, I do miss it, but I'm still in touch with it. [00:14:00] Speaker A: One thing as well, that obviously over the last few years, a lot of sort of smaller farmers, every sort of tenancies running out, have sort of given up and had to sort of give up their farms or whatever for various reasons? It's not sustainable. Have you had any of those sort of people that have had to give up farming for whatever reason, then entered the industry? And how do they. How do they sort of manage to. To go in from being Their own boss to, to sort of working for someone. And is that something that's, that's common or not? [00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I would say quite regularly we're speaking to people that have either decided to give up farming because either they've lost their tenancy or the business wasn't working out, or for health reasons, for example, you know, they've worked in, in farming directly for 20 years and maybe they got an allergy or a bad back or something. So then you do see people sort of moving out of direct farming to do something different. And there are definitely opportunities. I think you see a lot of people would probably go into sort of business development and sort of consult sales consultancy type roles. That would be the normal one where they've, you know, if they're into cattle breeding, for example, the obvious one is they tend to go into sort of the genetics world, cogents genus CMXs of this world. That seems to be a common, common place. But then, you know, there's still an element of upskilling. You know, often they've been at home working away on the farm and also they've got to go and interact with other farmers. You'd think that was straightforward for a lot of them. I guess it can be because they can speak the language, but then it's sort of getting over that barrier that they've actually got to go out there and promote something. And probably one of the people they probably didn't like coming on the farm was lots of salespeople, so they kind of got to change their view on that. But actually, if you look at sales, I think that bit's changed. When I first started out, people just turn up with a brochure and stick it on the desk and say, hey, Mr. Farmer, I think you should use this bull. Whereas today it's more consultative approach. You've got to go in there and add value to that. Farmers. That's often someone moving away out of farming to work within the supply industry can actually do quite well because they've got a good understanding of a farming system. [00:16:08] Speaker C: I think that's really important because I think I've got friends that have left, stop milking cows or been working on farms and they've gone to work, whether it be semen sales or other stuff as well. And back in the days when you literally were just like, here's audience survey map. I already get every farm on here, drive down the drives, irrespective of whether they're milking cows or doing whatever, you know where it might be and no one stuck at it. It was like, no one. Very, very few people would succeed because most people would just do one, you know, off your pot very rarely, you know. So I think it's good now if there's more structure in that. So people are making appointments, are becoming part of the farm business rather than just rocking up willy nilly because that, that's. I couldn't think of anything worse than just driving down a farm drive and getting out of car and having to talk to somebody. We just. [00:16:55] Speaker B: My idea of how you hit on an interesting point there, because I think if a business comes along and, you know, we see a lot when they go to all the effort to find someone to come and join their business, but actually they don't invest in that person in the early stages, you know, and if you want to call business speak, it's the onboarding process. If someone's starting in the job, you've invested in that person, you've gone out there, fine. You may well have used us as a recruitment agency and you've paid money. That first three to six months is a massive investment. In fact, the first 12 to 18 months is an investment and that's where people should be nurturing them and actually giving them support in terms of what to do. Going back to what you said before, they have an ordinance survey map and a few brochures, just go around sticking. Eventually someone will feel sorry for themselves. I'll give you an order. Whereas today you just can't do that because everyone's so busy. They've got to add value, so they've got to have a specialism. And that doesn't just come. You can't just magic that up. That involves in training. And I think some companies really struggle, particularly when they're starting out, trying to develop a product offering and take new salespeople on. They've really got to invest time in that individual to develop them. And that's, you know, one of the secrets to retaining people. You said those people have left the industry or left doing that job, should I say? And they probably haven't had that, you know, really good onboarding process. [00:18:18] Speaker C: But the thing that. Sorry, Chris, you go, yeah, do you, do you ever. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Especially for some of the smaller businesses that aren't sort of used to recruiting people, do you offer them sort of any advice on sort of retention and. Because, like some people aren't used to hiring staff if they just started out or I've had a, like a maybe say a farm manager that's worked for them for, for 20 years, but they're not. They're not used to sort of normal employer sort of relationships and how to deal with them. Is that sometimes a problem in the sort of smaller businesses? They don't know how to sort of talk to staff and keep them happy and give them a goal of where you're going? [00:19:02] Speaker B: Yep, Chris, I would say that's a problem for small or large businesses. You'll be amazed how many large businesses don't think about that investment and that onboarding process. And yet we do give quite a bit of advice, particularly when we know we're working with a company that's not maybe employed a lot people before a new business starting out or even an existing business. We don't do a lot of direct farm work. There's an awful lot out there. There's not a lot of people and. But when we do, we always make a point to actually help the farmer in terms of saying, look, if you're taking somebody on, you've really, this is the way we think you should be looking after them. So, you know, if they, on the first day they start, you know, give them a good look around, don't be so keen to get them working straight on the job. Just because you're paying them money on that day one doesn't mean that you should be sticking in the pit straight away to milk the cows or sticking them on the tractor for the whole day. Really take some time to show them the overall overview of the business. You know, if you are, you know, if they are coming just to milk the cows, fine, but actually show them everything from, you know, the calf run all the way through, talk about where you sell in the milk, talk about the feeding side of things. So they can see that what they do has an impact on everything else and everything else has an impact on what they do. So. And I think that's really, really important to be able to give them an overview, but then it's also making sure that they actually understand everything. So after the first day, sit them down and say, hey, how's your first day gone? Is there anything you're not aware of? Can I do anything to help you? And that's your chance to also give them some feedback. So if you saw them doing something that you wouldn't, don't like, particularly like the way they do it, handling some animals, whatever, just that's your chance to give them the feedback. If you wait six months down the line, say, hey, I don't like the way you're treating those animals, or don't like the way you're bedding those that they stock up, you better to address it on the first day or the first week or two rather than leaving it six months down the line because hang on, it's been fine till now. And that's when it tends to erupt and they go, either party is not communicating properly. So communication is a big one. So I always recommend have a sit down with them after the first day, have a sit down with them after the first week, do the same after the second week and then sit down every month with them at a set time. So make sure that time is available. It's in the diary. I know it's difficult and often people say, well, I sit in the, in the pickup with them between farms on a regular basis. Can I not do it? Then I said, but it's not about them. You're trying to create a situation where it's about them and you. And you get this two way feedback. They might not be happy with something, how you're dealing with something and you might not be happy as well. A couple of months in a row might, nothing might come up but all of a sudden there'll be something that needs addressing and you've just got that opportunity to do so. And they don't feel threatened by it. It's not at the normal. They are expecting a conversation. And I think that really does help. And I've seen situations where people haven't done that and they've lost people and then they've listened to it and then people have stayed within the business and they've got that much better relationship with their team. [00:21:58] Speaker C: I think with people working on farm as well. That's my background is working on a farm. I've never worked in the corporate industry. I work for a farmer now. I work for myself. But the one thing when you do talk about that, I think it's invaluable that farmers actually do sit down and talk with their staff on a regular basis and find out what's going on. But I also think that staff have to accept that as well. And you know that some people, sometimes people can think, oh, am I going to get told off? Is that a criticism? And all the rest of it. And I think it, you know, that's that whole how that information is delivered and how that communication is held is absolutely key. Like you say, you know, it is really important to sit down and make that time to have those conversations and you know, begin today. Like going back to what you said earlier, when you employ somebody, it doesn't Matter whether you're a farmer or a semen company, a fee company, whatever it might well be. It costs a lot of money to employ people these days. It's not a cheap hobby and it costs even more money to change people. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:56] Speaker C: So, you know, I think you're right and I think, you know, a business like yours where hopefully you can find the right person that is going to stick in that job and not bail in three months or six months down the line and stay there. But it's also about that whole communication thing. There isn't between employer and employee really to sort of make sure those builders, you know, those bridges are built so that, so they don't leave because it is cheap. It's not cheap employing people. [00:23:24] Speaker B: And you mentioned the word communication. And communication is everything, if you ask me. To sum up, give one takeaway to anybody, it would be communication. And it's not just that one to one communication which is essential, but it's that overall view of communication with the whole team in terms of what's going on in the business. You know, if a business isn't going particularly well, you should be, you need to tell the team, don't hide it because then that's when they pick up rumors. Maybe you're not buying something for some reason that you've got an opportunity to tell them, but also, you know, tell them about the great things that are happening. You know, they might, you might not think that getting a particularly high yield is a big thing to celebrate, but actually to the team, they want to be part of a winning team. If you, if you're milking cows, you know, the fact that yields gone up or you've got, you know, good results on your cell counts, practice scan in a silage competition or a show or anything like that, that's all good news to talk about with the team. Sometimes there's only one or two individuals to get involved in that, but the whole team need to know what's going on. And you know, you see it on the sort of larger scales on factories and stuff like that, where people have sort of departmentalized and actually they're in their own little silo and they don't know what's going on. And I think we see that in the bigger farming businesses now as well. So actually bringing everybody together to give them a bit of an update of what's going on, there's no harm in that whatsoever. Don't assume that people know, you know, and you regularly see people now using things like WhatsApp groups to sort of Keep the team update. That's quite good. But bringing everyone together is always a powerful thing in my book. [00:24:54] Speaker C: No, I think you're right. I know a big, Quite a big farming business where they just don't cross over. It'd be like Ghostbusters crossed in the old egg, whatever you want to call them like, because that's what they'd be like, the arable. And they're not dairy farmers. They've got beef on that farm, they just don't cross. But it actually really good at some point if they did actually mix and match a little bit, because I get so much more out of it. And you can see that as a me, as an outsider going on to that farm, you know, really, really do. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So I wanted just to. To ask you about. Obviously, all three of us went to Ag College, different colleges, and obviously, like, personally, I'm a bit sort of out of touch now with kids coming out of. Not kids, young adults really coming out of university, the ag colleges and other colleges. Well, are they doing enough, in your opinion, to sort of set up young people for employment and to join the industry as seamless as possible, or could more be done? [00:25:52] Speaker B: I think it's specific to individual colleges. You know, if I go to, the one I know well is Harper, and we do quite a lot of stuff with Harper. Having the placement year is a hugely beneficial thing, not only for the students coming out, but also the industry as well. And, you know, they have a very high placement rate of people leaving and graduating as a university now. So I think the more universities and colleges can do that form of what we call as an industrial placement, actually out and about, that's where you grow up as an individual. You learn a lot more about life, you implement a lot of things that you've learned in college and actually when you come back to the final year, you know a little bit more where you're going, you can implement a lot of things that you've learned out in the field and understand it in a more practical way too. So I think that's hugely beneficial. I still think there's work that can be done in terms of prepping them, in terms of CVs, obviously all sorts of shapes and sizes of CVs, some with lots of detail, some with no detail at all. And people miss off a lot of things that they've done. You know, we talked about sort of my background in terms of growing up, doing showing and clipping and stuff like that. Be amazed how many people don't put those sorts of things in but that builds that story around a CV and particularly when someone's leaving college they haven't really done a lot of things. So that where you've actually helped out on farms for weekends or volunteered that, gone to different events, you got involved in young farmers debating or stock judging, something like that. These are all great things that people want to see on a CV and I think that's an area that colleges can work. And actually we help out a little bit on one or two of the colleges and kind of give a CV workshop. So we'll go along and talk about my career for example and how I've got to where I have and, and then sort of sit them down. What have you done so far? And let's have a look at what you've got on your CV and it's amazing how much stuff's not on there. So encourage them to get more on and encourage people to go out. And that's something we are seeing with some of the younger ones now, especially some of the sort of further education rather than higher education is they're coming straight out of school going into that and they're not getting any other experience other than going to college and then they're coming out expecting to get a really good job but because they haven't had much practical experience that's going to be really quite difficult for them and they won't stand out the same and then they don't have that kind of work ethic. And I think that's where some employers struggle these what they class as Gen Z coming out of school and college they got a challenge with those guys because they haven't had experience of doing it. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Do you as well, do you ever sort of obviously cvs, the amount of people go, oh his CV was great but there was no substance behind it. Is that a tool that you've picked up on somebody just maybe being a bit creative and checking because obviously your name's a bit on the line as well if you're suggesting someone and someone interviews well. But actually there's, there's not a lot of substance behind it. Whereas you might get someone that's a bit, a bit shyer and not as confident that like you said, maybe he's missing things off. But how do you sort of deal with the ones that maybe are talking themselves up slightly? [00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah, really good point that Chris. So what we do in terms of our process it's a little different I think to other recruitment agencies is that we have at least a two stage process. So one of my team would have a briefing from a client, go out and find candidates that potentially are suitable for that job. They gather the CVs, they have an initial conversation with them, and then someone like myself will do like another interview with them face to face on a video, like we're doing now. And that's when we find out what we call the story behind the cv. So a CV can look amazing today, particularly if you use AI tools like ChatGPT. You can actually create a lot of volume and it can look really impressive. But actually when you start talking to them, that doesn't necessarily resonate. I probably find more than not that the CVs lack information rather than having too much. And that's when us talking to them, we find out a lot more about them in terms of what else they can do. And that's what we. The value we can add to our clients saying, well, look, this person is really suitable to this job for X, Y and Z. If you look on the cv, it says this, but they've also done all this. And that's also where we kind of get to know the clients quite well in terms of understanding their business. But also the culture, and it's the culture fit that's more important sometimes than just what's on the cv. [00:30:14] Speaker C: No, that makes them. That makes perfect sense, really. And then like going on about, you were talking about going back students and stuff like that. And obviously me and Chris have got differing views about. Well, my views are probably not as extreme as what flavs are, but regarding people sort of like, obviously social media is a massive thing now and, you know, everyone's got a social media. Pretty much everybody's got a social media footprint. Do employers look at that? Is that something you do as a recruiter? You get somebody, come along is the first thing you do, actually. Google them and try and find out as much as you can. [00:30:50] Speaker B: We don't do so much about ourselves if we're not sure about a candidate. We may well just sort of do a little bit of sort of searching on them. We know quite a lot of our clients would do that as standard process, particularly after they've met them the first time. So, okay, what else do we know about this person? They come across as if they're this, you know, this sort of personality. What sort of personality are they portraying on social media, for example? That, you know, I think that's a bit of a warning sign for particularly the younger generation coming through, is that it's always going to be there. It's not going to be Deleted. It's there forever. And so just be very careful about what you're putting on there. You can be having an awful lot of fun when you're to college or university. I think all employers will understand that. But as you progress through your career, that's when it's probably more likely that things might trip you up if you post the wrong things. And being too opinionated sometimes can be the case or can be some incriminating photographs. [00:31:51] Speaker C: I'm fortunate that I'm old. Chris keeps reminding our mold. But that's a good thing because there is no photograph. There is, they're like grainy ones somewhere like maybe a Polaroid. There's no evidence which is, which is, which is really good. I'm actually going on Saturday to. It's obviously not a young pharmacy because I'm not young. But a friend of mine, she's organized this. She's done first 12, 12 months of fundraising and she's organized this big sort of doing a barn because everybody was in. My young farmers are going to. And a lot of us haven't seen each other for 20 plus years. So it's going to be really good. But also, you know, the last time we're all together the camera phones didn't exist. So I'm hoping to do some sort of blanket ban on camera phones on Saturday night because otherwise it'd be just horrific. But, but now you mentioned, where do you. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Obviously it was great to hear you say you placed quite a few people this week in the good, bad and the ugly. Where do you see the real sort of growth areas in the industry and, and specifically your business? Is there any specific sectors where you think, God, I'm gonna. Yeah, there's potential to place quite a lot of guys over the next few years. I know there's obviously a lot of talk at the minute in the industry about the sort of the carbon side and people looking for agricultural expertise in that. But yeah, just interested to get your views on that. [00:33:19] Speaker B: I think, I think in the agriculture industry per se, there's lots of opportunity. You know, as an industry we're professionalizing all the time. As I mentioned before, there's a consolidating farmer base and that if anything is our supply best supply base of people. So I think there's going to be lots of opportunity right across the board. I think there's areas where there is change going on. You talked about sort of the sort of carbon footprinting area and that BNG and those sort of things are coming more to the fore. It's still early days. I think there's not many experts in that area, so if someone wanted to become sort of gain a greater understanding of those areas, they'd certainly have some opportunities. But you've got things like these sort of integrated beef supply chains. There's a number of those in the UK that are. That industry is changing with the world of sex semen, for example. That means it's freed up more uteruses in the dairy herd, there's more beef semen used and then there's. I think that model's moving to more towards the sort of pig and poultry world that you'll be very familiar with, Chris, as well. And I know you, you're involved in the Wagyu side of things and I think we're going to see a greater change in that. That's going to change our soccer markets changing because it's very expensive to keep a cow. So you've got those elements. And then the other element then is the whole ag tech piece, bringing new technology into agriculture automation. We see it on the dairy front with the robotic milking parlours. We've got a client at the moment that's got a robot that will produce powdery mildew in strawberries and grapes. And that's a robot that goes up and down, casting light on the crops during the night and. And that's just one of those sort of areas that's really exciting coming along. [00:35:06] Speaker C: Yeah, the whole AI tech thing just is unbelievable where that is going and you've got to sort of embrace it, got to get on with it, really. Otherwise I'm quite involved with a lameness camera. It's amazing what that does and what it picks up is just absolutely phenomenal. You just can't get your head around how that technology works, but it does and it's brilliant. And I think that's just going to become more and more of the case. But I suppose that's as technology becomes more in place, that's going to take over some people, isn't it? But we're still going to need good people to operate that technology. [00:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, we are. It's a question I get asked a lot saying, well, is this automation going to get rid of people? One we're short of people anyway, so actually, I don't think it's going to make much difference on that front. But if anything, you're going to need better people. You take a robotic milking system, you see some farmers saying, oh, this is. This is my secret to not having to work. Quite so actually, you probably work harder. And you've got to have a greater knowledge of that cow itself, but it's utilizing the data to make those informed decisions and that's where the change is. So there's going to be more people needed to really sort of understand the tech, understand the data, less sort of manual tasks, but you're still going to. And that's. I think that's an opportunity for the younger generation because they only know a digital world. And actually a lot of the stuff that's happening in farming now is heading that way. And you talked about the, you know, AI learning stuff, you know, the camera for the, you know, for the last 50 years, we've been collecting an awful lot of data in agriculture, but it's never really been used. So now there's lots of different companies and systems that are actually pooling that data together to actually create learning. So you talk, you know, talk about your lameness thing. All the stuff that you've been collecting with your foot trimming, that's really helped develop data sets to. To see what that means when. When they see a picture of it, isn't it? So, you know, just one small example where it can make a difference. [00:37:02] Speaker C: It does make a good point about robot farms. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:07] Speaker C: As long as I know that this is going to be the future, this is. I'm thinking, yeah, you're crap farm before you went away. But I shouldn't say that really, but it's true. And then an informants for two to four years later, you see the robot going and the cow going. You just think, yeah, yeah, you should have just got rid of the cows four years ago and had less debt. But there you go, that's a whole different story. But no, well, obviously people listening to this will notice there's actually only me and Chris and we've sort of been trying to float our way through, haven't we, Chris? Over this, we've both been frantically testing texting Flav to say, are you joining us? What you doing? [00:37:44] Speaker A: What is he actually doing? What is he doing? [00:37:47] Speaker C: Well, he left that voice note early, didn't he, saying I'm. He's moving a fence. Something to do with horses or pigs. I'm not quite sure. All I know is, is anybody wants to sponsor this podcast that does fencing, they can just go down to Flowers Farm because there's clearly a massive lack of fencing on Fluff's farm. [00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah, he's a danger to the railways. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Yeah, a good job. We live a long way away, I think. [00:38:16] Speaker A: But Hugh, just to sort of bring sort of things towards a close. If anyone listening to this is looking for a career change or to get into agriculture, what would be just a couple of really good tips just to sort of get the house in order to. To make themselves as employable as possible. [00:38:38] Speaker B: I guess it really depends on the stage of their career. Chris but I think the first and foremost is to have a good look at the CV. Some people don't have very good CVs, particularly if you're going to be applying for jobs. That's quite key. If you haven't got a CV and you're not sure, get in touch with us. We can help people put that together. Very happy to have informal chat to kind of point people in the right direction and don't be put off just by. If you send a CV off they don't get response. I think, I think a lot of companies and a lot of say recruitment agents probably don't respond to people. If you send a CV to us, we will always respond to you and have a chat no matter whether you need something now or in the future. So don't get despondent. If you send something off to someone, you don't get a response. Try again. There is a lot of opportunity. There's not an abundance of people so you're needed out there. So give it a go. Get in touch. [00:39:29] Speaker A: One thing that always astounded me is when I used to work for quite a large organization and it was linked to a very large insurance company and I did quite a lot of jobs for certain roles and it would always amaze me. Some people, we had some amazing ones and then some that never even like looked up the actual organization that they were before an interview that they were. They were trying to go and work for. That always astounded me that they wouldn't just. Especially now with Google you can find everything online and just I always think anything I've ever done, if you just come up with some nice little snippets that you can mention about a company or something that you've seen in the press or relevant. It always just is. Yeah. Adds a nice bit of context and show that you, you actually really care about the job. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Absolutely agree. And it doesn't take a lot to do a bit of research on it, does it? And actually, you know, that's. You should be doing that if you want to actually be applying in the first place. Whether you're interested in working for a company like that. [00:40:34] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Especially with them. You can find a lot out very quickly. About a lot of things off your phone really, really quickly. I mean, that's really good advice there, coming along there. Do you two want to try and talk about and sell us some Wagyu? Because, you know, you're both on the board of Wagyu, so you might as just have two minute sales speak. Beautiful waggy. Chris likes normally to try and sell some chicken sheds as well. So if you want a chicken shed, he's normally quite good. I mean, I don't try and sell anything, you know, but Chris will try and sell you a chicken shed. I like eating Wagyu. But you two, you're quite involved with it and it's a growing thing, isn't it? So without mentioning, you know, what it is, well, the company, but you know, what, what makes that sort of breed of animals so, so sort of like what. Why should people be choosing to use Wagyu? [00:41:29] Speaker A: Well, I think, I think for me it's. And me and Hugh, I think we're both quite lucky really to be involved in something that's. I've done various different bits on societies and stuff before, but I think the most exciting thing about Wagyu is the growth and the potential. And I was like, I was lucky enough to go to America last year to the World Wagyu Conference and see other markets like American, in particular Australia. A bit like we've mentioned before about the data. Well, the data that those guys have in Australia, they're so professional and have really created from a pretty small base a really wonderful industry that people around the globe are very, very envious of. And you see what, what has happened in the uk and I think, I think really, yeah, consumers want a quality product. I think there's, there's, there's more work being done now on, on sort of that fat isn't always just bad. There's, there's good fats, monounsaturated fats and yeah, it's just a pleasure to be involved in something that's grown and work with great people like Hugh and, and Jim Bloom and it's, yeah, it's, it's exciting times. What do you think, Hugh? [00:42:42] Speaker B: Yeah, great. Chris. I think, you know, you've talked about the sort of expanse of the breed. I think that's exciting itself, that, the rapid growth on it. But if you, if you look at it from a farmer level, you know, I've had Wagyu for a number of years now. I'm involved in one integrated scheme, but I've also got a few of my own and they Cross really well on traditional breeds. So if I take on my own, you know, we've crossed them onto the low lying Angus which is. At the miniature Angus, which is a quite a quiet animal anyway, that does really well off grass. We put wagyu on top of that, we end up with an animal that's even more docile. But an anim is more predisposed to marbling. And we're finishing cattle at less than 24 months of age off grass that are absolutely littered with marbling. And the eating quality is exceptional. You know, it's so tender to eat, but it's also got this lovely flavor to it as well. And when you're cooking it, you know, you see the fat melted a lower temperature. The fat just. It can look quite a well marbled piece of meat and quite a bit of fat on it. But very quickly in the frying pan or on the barbecue, the fat just disappears and that leaves this real open structure which gives a really pleasurable eating experience. So I think if you combine the fact that they're really easy to handle with the meat quality and the fact that you're kind of adding value to a carcass, it's a no brainer really if you like that thing but don't come. And in the trap that some people had when it sort of first came out, oh, this wagyu thing is going to take off. Let's use some wagyu seamless and let's create some cows. But actually what happens, you've got to really make sure you've got a market for it. And that's the secret to success with this. If you can't just assume that you're going to create this and someone's going to want it. So either get involved in a scheme or have a meat box business or a butcher that will take it. And that's what we do. We've got a meat box and then we sell some on a scheme as well. And that's, you know, for me with a farming hat on. Knowing what that you're going to get a decent value for the animal at the end and knowing what your inputs are going to be makes, makes it more pleasurable farming rather than guessing what you're going to get for something at the end. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's one of those things, obviously. We talked again on another previous episode about sort of negativity between the farming market and there has been a bit more about wagyu recently, but I think really those in the industry maybe got to see that as a Bit of a success because now anyone that's getting a lot of air time and a lot of press is going to get a bit of, a bit of negativity and maybe a little bit of envy. But what I really like, what about Wagyu and Hugh sort of mentioned it there is, he's actually is the link to our consumers and actually producing a product that sort of chefs and retailers want a healthy product, but a tasty product with good eating quality. They're not the best look. They're not the best looking cattle and you will know that from your, from your cattle showing days. But actually the, the cuts that are really worth the money and that restaurateurs really want, that's where Wagyu gives such fantastic quality in those cuts and along with other breeds. And yeah, it's just, yeah, it's a good thing to be involved in. [00:45:53] Speaker B: You talk about, you know, the cuts that the restaurants want, but even, you know, the sofa end and you mince up a brisket and turn that into burgers. It's so succulent, juicy, tender. I take it. I sort of, sort of mention people. It's like almost like eating a piece of silk. It's really soft in its texture and that's just a very pleasurable eating experience. And that's, you know, the lowest grade cut on the, on the carcass really. [00:46:15] Speaker A: So I hope you've had your tea, Neil, because you'll be hungry now. [00:46:18] Speaker C: Well, I have, but after that, if we didn't get like sponsored by freaking Warrendale and Wagyu and all the rest of it like that sales pitch, there's only going to be a quick question. I was like, open a can of worms here. I'm like, both of them are just setting off now. [00:46:37] Speaker A: As I said Voldemort as well. And one thing with poultry and Wagyu is similarity. The people in it are so passionate about it. [00:46:44] Speaker C: And I think that's what I'd say you clearly passionate about, about what you're doing. Pair of you, which is really good. And I think, I think I forget which one made the point because you sort of both just merged into both Wagyu salesmen. But talking about where people have a negativity around something that's successful, you know, because you go into Waitrose now and you'll see Wagyu burgers there or you go into, is it Lidl and Audi and you'll see, you know, Wagyu stuff there. So it's getting in the mainstream supermarkets and there'll be a Lot of breed societies that have probably tried for 40, 50, 60 years to get, you know, a breed onto a shelf because of that clear traceability and sort of, you know, coming back. And I think to be able to do that, I think, yeah, fair play. It's incredibly the people involved with their society and the marketing have done an amazing job. [00:47:39] Speaker B: I think if you. Part of the success is that it's been focused around the meat rather than the actual look of the animals. And that's where, you know, a lot of other breeds have probably fallen down as they've concentrated on the look of the animal and actually not thought about what's the product for at the end. That's that, that's the consumer. We're very fortunate with Wagyu. It's, it's known as the world's luxury beef because it is incredible beef quality. [00:47:59] Speaker C: So it is also the world's ugliest looking cows. So it's a good job it's got good meat there to advertise it because you could never put, you put a picture of a Wagyu cow or anything. You wouldn't sell all. [00:48:12] Speaker A: Come and see Mark, I'm telling you what with the girlfriend wagger, you better be nice about them because I think you could be contributing quite a few of their feet going forward. [00:48:25] Speaker C: But I'll always be nice, I'll always be nice about something if they're going to pay. [00:48:29] Speaker A: But no, that, yeah, I think that sort of brings us to a close. I think me and Hugh could, could talk about Wagyu all night. But yeah, it's been really great to talk about. Q. As we've mentioned, I think before that good people coming into industry and retaining good people is so important. And hopefully by listening to this podcast, anyone looking to stay in the industry, enter the industry or really push on with the career has learned a couple of things that they can put into practice and will help them in the next stage of the career. So thanks Hugh for joining us. [00:49:08] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Pleasure guys. Thanks for having me. [00:49:12] Speaker C: Really, really, really good advice there, Hugh. And then I think we're very lucky to have somebody like yourself working in the industry and hopefully, you know, trying to, you know, attract people industry but also keep people in the industry. So, yeah, thank you and thank you for your time. [00:49:26] Speaker B: Pleasure. [00:49:27] Speaker C: Thank you. A massive thank you to Hugh Pocock for joining Chris and myself this evening. So just a little heads up. A lot of these podcasts were recorded back in the summer and due to, well, basically we're all rubbish at tech stuff. We're only just putting them out there now. So there are some historical references in these podcasts. The last couple that probably times past, and you're probably listening, thinking that's already happened. So Chris Flav and myself can only apologize for that. We are, though, recording some new fantastic podcasts which will be coming out in the coming weeks. So we're really excited about our journey now and where this is going. And please, we're on Apple now, so please like and subscribe to us on Apple podcasts, like and subscribe on Spotify and Amazon. In fact, we're across everything now. So please, wherever you listen to your podcast, wherever you download it from, like and subscribe it, and we can continue to grow this to be the number one food and farming podcast.