The dairy industry is rapidly intensifying and becoming more diverse in terms of employment organization. Many dairy managers have limited human resource knowledge and experience; this often leads to frustration with protocol drift and a sense that employees are not motivated to engage in the success of the farm beyond prescribed instructions. Additionally, the role of immigrant labor can complicate communication barriers and management–employee relationships. Education, training and translation tools have been developed by land grant universities, consultants and agricultural agencies. However, these programs were developed from a management-directed perspective with minimal input from employees. Furthermore, the effectiveness of employee training, or education programs, relative to farm protocols and productivity, has not been evaluated for short or long-term success. Dairy herds that ensure strict compliance of milking protocols have lower bulk tank somatic cell counts (BTSCC) than herds that have difficulties with protocol compliance. Thus, further advances in milk quality may be impeded by the gap between the human resource needs arising within the industry’s labor force and the capacity of producers and managers to address them. Superimposed on these labor issues, many dairy operations increase the pressure on employee performance by striving to maintain a high level of milking parlor throughput. Thus, milking efficiency is often defined in terms of cows milked per hour. While this definition of milking efficiency is pervasive, recent research by our project team suggests that we may need to reconsider the definition of milking efficiency to include milk quality, harvest, and employee performance.