Ambition, hard work, navigating change and investing in people – this husband and wife team have built a highly successful shearing business in Central Otago.

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Peter Lyon and his wife Elsie started their shearing business in October 1985. In the first three years they saw phenomenal growth, taking over six small businesses, and in 37 seasons have grown to a turnover of $14.5 million. 

Put that into perspective: in the same period of time, our sheep population has halved.

At season peak they employ around 230 people; 70 percent of those loyal returnees. This past week, they were shearing in 19 different farms each day.

“We’re proud of what we’ve done, and we’re proud of every one of our teams.

“We started out in hard times, interest rates hit 15 percent, GST was introduced, there wasn’t the advice and support there is now to move from worker to business.

“You took a lot of risk, you needed a lot of ambition to even have a go in business.”

The young couple didn’t flinch. Together they made mistakes, learned, survived and navigated big changes. 

Peter said a big change is the priority now placed on work/life balance.

“Back when we started, everybody’s life revolved around their work; now everybody’s work has to revolve around their life.

“I see the importance of having a full team on the job; yet they might have reasons why they don’t want to work today. It’s just the way the system is.”

For the previous generation, if you didn’t have a job and didn’t have money, he said, you couldn’t support your family. Employers could count on everyone turning up, every day.

“On any one day now, you’ll have people who have personal reasons they can’t work. It’s one of the biggest changes with a huge impact on our business.”

Peter says he and Elsie work as a team.

Another major change Peter noted was higher worker expectations and improved working conditions. This has had a big impact on attracting good workers, and necessitated a high level of capital investment. Peter and Elsie have opted to provide accommodation for all staff – renting locally just isn’t affordable for their workers.

“In the shearing industry, you’re also governed by seasons, geography, and you’re dealing with livestock.

“Farmers bring the sheep in to shear, they can only be off the feed and the water for so long, so you’ve got to be there. There’s no ringing up and saying I can’t come today.”

Peter said alongside people welfare, animal welfare was another big issue for the industry.

“You can educate about people welfare, but animal welfare doesn’t always come naturally.”

Peter explained that traditionally shearers came from rural backgrounds with the affinity for animal welfare that farming brings. However, now the majority of workers are urban-based.

“A proportion of our staff have never had much to do with a farm, so they don’t understand the whole animal welfare picture of farming sheep.

“So that then falls on us to educate. Education has become a very big thing for us.”

Peter said they also have challenges with the wider public understanding shearing. Social media has meant if one of the team takes a photo, it’s ‘around the world in 30 seconds’, and can have unintended impacts on their business and the industry.

“Some organisations like PETA have some unusual views on what happens to a sheep when it’s shorn.

“The truth is most of what happens is all good – shearing and crutching are actually beneficial to the stock, as long as it’s done in a skilful way.”

It all comes down to training, skill development and creating good teams, he said.

“We educate and put responsibility on each individual for their own performance. 

“In that way, we can highlight anything that’s not up to standard and deal with it in terms of skills and training.”

Peter said the shearing industry is built on relationships, built up over years. For both him and Elsie, good relationships with clients is the strength of their business, he said.

“With that goes trust; our clients trust us to do a good job, and we trust in our staff, their skills and commitment to what we’re trying to do.

“We give a high standard of service to the wool growers.”

Peter said they were privileged that shearing was an essential service, so the teams could operate within their bubbles through Covid outbreaks.

“We can work, but the hardest thing has been the supplies of shearing gear and food.

It is important now more than ever to plan ahead, Peter said. Feeding over 200 people on a daily basis through lockdowns could be a problem. This time there had been very little warning of the move to Alert Level 4.

“We got down to our last ten loaves of bread this time.”

Peter said they were thankful for the support of the local Four Square and others in the community to help them through. 

“The biggest problem Covid brought us was that we were under-staffed; our busiest part of the season was through Alert Level 3 and 4 lockdown.

“We were reluctant to bring in anyone from outside our bubbles.”

This time, he said, they had been fortunate to have good weather, which meant they had no stand-downs and could work through all the time they had available to them.

Peter said he wonders how his industry will cope in the future, with increasing promotion of work/life balance, and changing views of what that balance means in reality.

“Shearing is hard work, it’s seasonal, it’s also skilled work.

“We pay a good rate here, more than a lot of other hourly rate jobs, but it’s not enough to attract people to the industry.”

Part of the problem is the high skill level required, Peter said. 

Peter said the shearing industry may eventually have to follow the dairy and horticulture industries and utilise overseas seasonal workers.

“There isn’t the population in Central Otago to do what we need to do – we must find another solution.”

Peter said investing capital to provide accommodation for workers, paying a good rate, providing training, are all components of the way he believes businesses should run.

“I’ve got the attitude that I’m quite happy to share my income, as long as I get my share.”

It’s all about giving his staff what they want, attracting them back, rewarding them for good work. In doing so, it ensures that Peter will get his own reward as a business owner.

Image credits: Tyla O’Neill