The Keirsey Sorter defines people as being one of four general types: artisan, guardian, idealist and rational. Here are some of the traits displayed by each:

BANFF, Alta. — Large agricultural operations are putting more emphasis on human resources in efforts to find and keep employees amid a country-wide shortage of farm labour.
Among those is Sunterra Farms, and Trish Hyshka, human resources manager in the company’s Acme and Trochu hog operations, said it remains difficult to find enough people to work in hog barns and processing plants.
“It’s a tough industry. It’s something that people don’t look at as a career, and that’s where we try to do our people development, turn people into leaders and realize that this is a career. It’s a very important industry,” Hyshka said in an interview during the Jan. 9-11 Banff Pork Seminar.
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Attracting people to the industry in the first place is the hard part, she said. Once hired, managed and guided, employee retention levels improve, as has been the case at Sunterra.
“If we get them in and we’re able to show them a path, the longevity in those employees is very good. If we don’t on-board them properly and they don’t see that they can get somewhere, the turnover is very high.
“Our turnover has decreased tremendously in the last 10 years just because we’ve spent more of a focus on seeing what we can do to develop these people.”
Hyshka uses the Keirsey Temperament Sorter as a tool when working with managers to retain employees. It’s a simplified version of the Myers Briggs Indicator, a test that reveals personality type and temperament.
By learning what makes a person tick, so to speak, managers can put them in a job that suits their temperament and learn how best to work with different personality types.
The Keirsey sorter puts people into one of four categories: artisans, guardians, idealists and rationals. Hyshka said sorting isn’t designed to weed out any personality types in new hires.
“Everybody brings a different piece of the puzzle to the big picture so we want people of all different personalities. They truly do bring a different perspective, a different idea on how things work and how they come together,” she said.
She administered the sorter to groups at the Banff Pork Seminar, where one session identified a high percentage of guardians, those who are sensible, down to earth, follow rules, co-operate with authorities, stick to schedules and are trustworthy and hardworking.
Statistics show that 40 to 45 percent of the population trends to be the guardian type.
Hyshka, a guardian temperament herself, said new managers tend to hire people like themselves, which can be a pitfall.
“That’s where I come in and say, ‘we don’t want to change them. We don’t want them to be all like you because then there’s not the dynamic that we’re looking for.’ ”
Nationally, a shortage of labour in Canada’s agriculture industry has been flagged as a continuing challenge.
The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council has said the shortage is “chronic and significant” and will intensify as the global market expands for Canadian agricultural goods.
The swine industry is one of 11 key agricultural industries that CAHRC said will be challenged by labour shortages in the future.
“The area of greatest concern to agricultural employers and sector stakeholders is the persistent lack of workers, especially workers with the right skills who are located in areas where agricultural jobs are located,” CAHRC said on its website.
- Artisan: seeks adventure, impulsive, daring, generous, optimistic, willing to take risks, likes to try new things, easygoing
- Guardian: sensible, follows rules, loyal, cautious about change, trustworthy, hardworking, warmly affectionate, likes routine
- Idealist: cares deeply about people, co-operative, highly ethical, values beauty and poetry, seeks ideals, easily upset by disagreement, good people skills, empathetic
- Rational: driven to learn how things work, efficient, skeptical of all ideas, values competence, bothered by wasted effort, questions authority, private, oblivious to schedules
