Same could be said for picking fruit or harvesting veg
More money isn't always the answer - so how do you attract staff to work for you
- Thread starter Tonka
- Start date
- Location
- Fife
Bricklaying robots already exist as a proven concept. Article from 2015.
Bricklaying robot SAM - on your site for £330,000 - Construction Management
A New York-based robotics company has created the world’s first commercially available brick-laying robot – available to order now for $500,000, or £330,000. The bricklaying machine is called SAM, or…
constructionmanagement.co.uk
- Location
- LINCOLNSHIRE/KENYA
If they can make a machine to mechanically pick broccoli or pick ripe strawberries rather than unripe I’d say building a machine to lay large areas of bricks would be easier. However there might be a bit of resistance from the brickies but I bet I would make building a house cheaper.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
The things that peed me off working for others:
Nowhere to park your car.
Poor hand washing and toilet facilities.
Working with others who couldn’t give one.
Pointless jobs.
Complex bureaucracy.
Impossible deadlines or demands.
Management who took no interest and never spoke to the staff for weeks at a time.
Working for miserable old barstewards who took their own issues out on those around them.
Things that made me happy:
A sense of responsibility or ownership of a task and being trusted to do it right in the way I saw fit.
Tidiness.
A bit of variety but not too much of it.
Colleagues with a decent work ethic who cared about what we were doing.
Targets.
Activity, not being stood around or waiting for hours.
I never really thought about the money. It’s of insignificant value compared to job satisfaction.
Nowhere to park your car.
Poor hand washing and toilet facilities.
Working with others who couldn’t give one.
Pointless jobs.
Complex bureaucracy.
Impossible deadlines or demands.
Management who took no interest and never spoke to the staff for weeks at a time.
Working for miserable old barstewards who took their own issues out on those around them.
Things that made me happy:
A sense of responsibility or ownership of a task and being trusted to do it right in the way I saw fit.
Tidiness.
A bit of variety but not too much of it.
Colleagues with a decent work ethic who cared about what we were doing.
Targets.
Activity, not being stood around or waiting for hours.
I never really thought about the money. It’s of insignificant value compared to job satisfaction.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
To add:
Some places I’ve worked at have existing staff who freeze out newcomers and starve them of the knowledge needed to do the job because they don’t “like” the newcomer. They also do this to avoid dilution of their own pathetic little power base and keep themselves indispensable, with timid management, probably because they feel insecure and paranoid or are generally just awful people. Management never see this and often can’t understand why many promising new starters leave after only a short time. I’ve experienced this a few times. A horrible feeling but eventually I’ve said stuff you and moved on and been glad of it.
Some places I’ve worked at have existing staff who freeze out newcomers and starve them of the knowledge needed to do the job because they don’t “like” the newcomer. They also do this to avoid dilution of their own pathetic little power base and keep themselves indispensable, with timid management, probably because they feel insecure and paranoid or are generally just awful people. Management never see this and often can’t understand why many promising new starters leave after only a short time. I’ve experienced this a few times. A horrible feeling but eventually I’ve said stuff you and moved on and been glad of it.
Netherfield
Member
- Location
- West Yorkshire
Does he pay for the labourer himself or does the company supply one?
Chap who once did some building here told me, there's no sick pay, no holiday pay, provide your own labourer and tools, and no guarantee of work, tax man to take care of, some weathers you can't work at all, he'd done it when younger and he'd never go back to it, and one time he had to drive 2 hours a day to get to and from the job.
smcapstick
Member
- Location
- Kirkby Lonsdale
A lot of you focus on the wage too much. It's none of our business what a brickie of a shelf stacker makes.
A lot of what makes a job position fillable isn't just the money, it is desirability - does anyone actually want to do it? Loads of people on here moan about being tractor drivers for near minimum wage, but what is stopping them laying blocks instead? Themselves, that's what. They want to drive tractors, they don't want to lay blocks. Likewise, many people would rather work on a building site than stand under a tarp in a damp field miles from anywhere looking at cauliflowers.
Picking veg is a crap job, as is cleaning public WCs. Therefore, to get people to do it, you need to pay a lot. There's no use moaning about it - it's a fact. If you don't want to pay a lot, pick them yourself. Filling the tractor seat will be a doddle, as long as that man gets to stay there. Air seat, heater, lunchbox and Snapchat - a farmer's son's dream job.
A lot of what makes a job position fillable isn't just the money, it is desirability - does anyone actually want to do it? Loads of people on here moan about being tractor drivers for near minimum wage, but what is stopping them laying blocks instead? Themselves, that's what. They want to drive tractors, they don't want to lay blocks. Likewise, many people would rather work on a building site than stand under a tarp in a damp field miles from anywhere looking at cauliflowers.
Picking veg is a crap job, as is cleaning public WCs. Therefore, to get people to do it, you need to pay a lot. There's no use moaning about it - it's a fact. If you don't want to pay a lot, pick them yourself. Filling the tractor seat will be a doddle, as long as that man gets to stay there. Air seat, heater, lunchbox and Snapchat - a farmer's son's dream job.
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
I cut the veg & pick stones.
Pay tractor drivers.
Pay tractor drivers.
My Boss is a total and utter tyrant,
He has me in a tied house and doesn’t pay me enough to have anything other than pocket money.
Makes me drive auld tractors
Has me paddling about in all weathers working and doesn’t have my heating for the buildings (if you can call them that) wen I’m trying to fix the latest lump of scrap that’s broken down.
goes ballistic when I break something as well.
and is always far too ambitious at what can be done in a day and moans like hell when it doesn’t go to plan.
He has me in a tied house and doesn’t pay me enough to have anything other than pocket money.
Makes me drive auld tractors
Has me paddling about in all weathers working and doesn’t have my heating for the buildings (if you can call them that) wen I’m trying to fix the latest lump of scrap that’s broken down.
goes ballistic when I break something as well.
and is always far too ambitious at what can be done in a day and moans like hell when it doesn’t go to plan.
smcapstick
Member
- Location
- Kirkby Lonsdale
He sounds a bit like mine!
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
your wife
No she’s just the scary finance lady
TripleSix
Member
- Location
- Helmsley, North Yorkshire
I work for some great people, if you're trying to fix something at 11pm in the mud and the shite, they'll be there alongside you.
Makes hell of a difference.
The most frustrating bosses have been the ones that give you a list and disappear back into the house...
Ploughmaster
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
That will only be £500 a day on the days when they have work though
They will almost certainly be self-employed (so no holiday pay, sick pay or automatic entitlement to benefits if unemployed), orb will be on a zero-hour contract so no other work (or pay) when there isn't any bricklaying to do, or when conditions prevent it (weather).
Be interesting to know what they make over a full 12 months?
smcapstick
Member
- Location
- Kirkby Lonsdale
You don't see many bricklayers cruising around in new Discovery Sports or jetting off to Val-d'Isere to catch some lovely fluffy snow, do you?That will only be £500 a day on the days when they have work though
They will almost certainly be self-employed (so no holiday pay, sick pay or automatic entitlement to benefits if unemployed), orb will be on a zero-hour contract so no other work (or pay) when there isn't any bricklaying to do, or when conditions prevent it (weather).
Be interesting to know what they make over a full 12 months?
A good wage, but nothing astronomical.
davidroberts30
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
Sounds like mine
ollie989898
Member
Ultimately it does matter what brickies or supermarket staff are on because people will always have the option of doing that work. Ag needs to be focusing on offering pay and conditions that are at least halfway to being in balance with these. I mean for fudge sake if your business can't offer something a snitch more attractive than pallet dragging in Tesco then you need to pack it in surely?
Expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for farmers published
Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer from July will give the sector a clear path forward and boost farm business resilience.
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...
From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and The Rt Hon Sir Mark Spencer MP Published21 May 2024
Full details of the expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer available to farmers from July have been published by the...