Jobs, Labour & Seasonal Workers
Jobs & Labour: For Advisers & Agents
What Jobs & Labour changes for agronomists, agents, vets and consultants.
Advisers need scoped access, defensible records and a way to work across a client base without re-keying. Labour is the dominant cost in horticulture and a growing constraint everywhere else. This module runs recruitment, rostering, time recording and payroll integration, and handles the Seasonal Worker sponsorship and agricultural wages obligations that carry real legal consequence when they go wrong.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
Labour provider
Supplying workers
Needs licence and compliance evidence available to clients.
- Forecast labour requirement from the crop plan
- Recruit through the appropriate route
- Verify right to work and sponsorship obligations
- Induct and record health and safety training
Seasonal worker
On a sponsored visa
Needs transparent hours, pay and conditions.
- Recruit through the appropriate route
- Verify right to work and sponsorship obligations
- Induct and record health and safety training
- Roster against skills and certification
Farm supervisor
Daily rostering
Needs to assign only workers certified for the task.
- Verify right to work and sponsorship obligations
- Induct and record health and safety training
- Roster against skills and certification
- Record time and calculate pay with floor checking
End to end
How Jobs & Labour runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Forecast labour requirement from the crop plan
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Recruit through the appropriate route
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Verify right to work and sponsorship obligations
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Induct and record health and safety training
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Roster against skills and certification
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Record time and calculate pay with floor checking
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Pay and allocate cost to enterprise
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Retain compliance records for inspection
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Jobs & Labour does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Job posting and applicant management across permanent, seasonal and casual roles
- Rostering by task, skill and certification requirement
- Time and attendance recording with mobile and offline capture
Operate and monitor
- Piece rate and hourly rate calculation with minimum wage floor checking
- Agricultural wages requirements where devolved rules apply
- Seasonal Worker sponsorship record keeping and compliance evidence
Comply and evidence
- Right to work verification and document retention
- Worker welfare, accommodation and transport records
- Payroll integration with enterprise cost allocation
Analyse and improve
- Contractor and labour provider engagement with licence verification
- Health and safety induction and toolbox talk records
- Labour requirement forecasting from the cropping and harvest plan
Work
Roles on UK holdings
Permanent, seasonal and contract work, with the pay basis and the statutory position stated plainly — including where the Seasonal Worker visa route applies and what it obliges an employer to do.
| Role | Type | Pay basis | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Herdsperson | Permanent | Salary | Accommodation often part of the package; the offset rules are specific. |
| Tractor driver | Seasonal | Hourly | Working time and rest break rules apply during harvest. |
| Harvest operative | Seasonal | Hourly | Seasonal Worker visa route where applicable. |
| Agronomy assistant | Permanent | Salary | BASIS training usually expected within the first year. |
| Relief milker | Contract | Per milking | Self-employed status must be genuine; the tests are strict. |
| Farm secretary | Part time | Hourly | Often shared across several holdings. |
What an employer has to do
- National Minimum and Living Wage Rates change each April. Accommodation offset is capped and counts toward the calculation.
- Agricultural Wages Order Still in force in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with different grades and rates in each.
- Right to work checks Required before the first day, with a statutory excuse only if done correctly.
- Employer's liability insurance Compulsory, and the certificate must be accessible to employees.
- Gangmaster licensing Required for labour providers in agriculture; using an unlicensed provider is an offence.
Worked example
How a business like yours would use Jobs & Labour
The problem: Needs sponsorship compliance and minimum wage floors evidenced.
What they do
- Forecast labour requirement from the crop plan
- Recruit through the appropriate route
- Verify right to work and sponsorship obligations
- Induct and record health and safety training
What changes
- Labour cost per unit of output
- Hours worked against forecast
- Minimum wage compliance rate
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Labour cost per unit of output
- 02Hours worked against forecast
- 03Minimum wage compliance rate
- 04Sponsorship compliance status
- 05Worker retention through the season
Free tool
Run the numbers for your own holding
Enter your figures and get an answer you can act on, with the method shown so you can check it. Save the result to your account or take it away as a PDF.