- Location
- Fife
4xtrahands / farm employee
- Thread starter jjm
- Start date
pdagriservices
Member
Ah! I thought it was someone else running it now!! Agree was a great site years ago when there really was no other! Was always plenty of jobs advertised and most employees raved about it! Now it's the complete opposite! Shame! They were nice people and always went out of their way to help too!! Vaguely remember the dating site?? Was it Farmers4dating or something similar?
- Location
- North Yorkshire
Tanker driver
Member
I would say pay is the ongoing problem. No end of people start out in the industry and after a few years leave to go other industries. I’m one of them myself and I know of others in the local area.
Martyn
Member
- Location
- South west
One issues is staff want top dollar from the start but often don't have the experience. We have a 18 year old on about £10 hour, takes a bit of finding when some jobs are limited he can do. I hope in three years he will be a good investment and we can pay more.
ollie989898
Member
Asked around locally to drive a tractor, hours would not concern me. Not much about but I get the feeling I left it a bit late in the day.
Chasingmytail
Member
- Location
- Newport, SE Wales
In our experience you can find a fat tractor driver who doesnt even want to get out to close the gate! The issue is like many young people they cant eat properly and have no strength to do any manual job. We had students here from local agri collage couldnt keep up the pace one lad was useless he was so thin he couldnt stand up straight and had to keep stopping for water (struggled to retain instructions). Other had manky teeth turns up with no lunch and a can of red bull. The indicator for for is whether they can 1. turn up with a decent lunch 2, wet weather gear. This is 2 big ticks to get the ball rolling after that it can go down hill though. Talking properly is another (ability to string a sentence together always bonus). Worrying
Maybe you're all struggling to find staff because your working conditions are pretty crap, you're bad bosses and you don't pay enough?
And don't just say "Well when I started working in 1972, I was grateful I wasn't down a coal mine and I used to get a bit of corned beef on a slice of bread if I was lucky. Kids these days have no work ethic etc", standards change and if you can't attract staff in 2021 maybe your business isn't up to standard.
Labour is affected by supply and demand after all
And don't just say "Well when I started working in 1972, I was grateful I wasn't down a coal mine and I used to get a bit of corned beef on a slice of bread if I was lucky. Kids these days have no work ethic etc", standards change and if you can't attract staff in 2021 maybe your business isn't up to standard.
Labour is affected by supply and demand after all
I've got 2 positions advertised with them & Fish4jobs at the moment. Not much feedback so far either. One is to replace a former employee of yours who now has his own farm tenancy.
I've got to hire harvest staff too - is the Darlington & Stockton Times any good for advertising? I'm in touch with various ag colleges/universities too.
- Location
- North Yorkshire
Really??.....
”Crap working conditions”..... ......... Good hourly wages, generous overtime pay, occasional £ bonus , use of farm equipment by permission , 28 days holiday, sick pay, pension scheme, use of farm vehicle, modern washing facilities , cloths washer , tumble drier, heated eating room with microwave and kettle ,drying room, safety clothing allowance, modern clean reliable air conditioned GPS steered tractors , continuous training and fully concreted clean farm yards.
Upto the early nineties the two staff members had been here since the age of 16 until their retirement as had their grandfather before them. I don’t think we are too bad to work for.
Sounds bloody awful to me???!.
- Location
- North Yorkshire
I have tried the D and S and have had zero applicants!.
ollie989898
Member
Christ, so now even us slim folks are out?
What exactly are you doing that is so manually taxing? This ain't 1935 any more.
beardface
Member
- Location
- East Yorkshire
We've been very lucky with our recent addition to the team. I think going forwards though willingness to learn and punctuality coupled with ability to do long hours will be far more important than experience. Plenty of "experienced" people who are all talk....
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
oh course, if I as an employer want an employee to work outside in the rain, it is my responsibility to provide wet weather gear!
ollie989898
Member
I guess the reality is that if people are prepared to do nothing but manual labour all day then can probably earn good money as labour in the building trade and get paid better money. I don't see much difference between using a dung prong cleaning out calf pens or a shovel loading a cement mixer. Builders normally knock off around 5-6 as well.
CopperBeech
Member
- Location
- A Welsh man lost in England
People always blame the industry and pay. But let’s be a little bit realistic shall we, it’s not one sided. There are lots and lots and lots of folk desperate for work, who are offered no chance to get into the industry and find themselves facing a closed door ........ or so comes the oft trotted out line on social media. It’s fecking tiresome.
The minute there is a job on offer, most of those folk vanish or are washing their hair. Or “wouldn’t even get out of bed for less than £20 an hour despite having no experience at all, limited skills and lots of social problems which require on site counselling.
The simple fact of the matter is half the young folk desperate to get into the industry don’t actually know what it involves and want to be paid £10-20 an hour for waltzing about doing the nice bits or ‘being willing to have a go’. That’s great but if you’re running a Buisness you need to at least try to have someone who has a clue, will stick at it long enough if you train them up and is value for money in some respect at least.
We pay pretty well, abs previously offered accommodation with fixed employed positions (now use contractors) and from 4xtra hands and other sources had all manner of life forms, few of them much use, including someone who ended up a rapist, someone else who was a woman battering nonce and compulsive liar, abs a variety of other wet blankets.
Funnily enough after most of them left they continued to farm the dream on social media (usually slandering me and the farm here in the process
)
The minute there is a job on offer, most of those folk vanish or are washing their hair. Or “wouldn’t even get out of bed for less than £20 an hour despite having no experience at all, limited skills and lots of social problems which require on site counselling.
The simple fact of the matter is half the young folk desperate to get into the industry don’t actually know what it involves and want to be paid £10-20 an hour for waltzing about doing the nice bits or ‘being willing to have a go’. That’s great but if you’re running a Buisness you need to at least try to have someone who has a clue, will stick at it long enough if you train them up and is value for money in some respect at least.
We pay pretty well, abs previously offered accommodation with fixed employed positions (now use contractors) and from 4xtra hands and other sources had all manner of life forms, few of them much use, including someone who ended up a rapist, someone else who was a woman battering nonce and compulsive liar, abs a variety of other wet blankets.
Funnily enough after most of them left they continued to farm the dream on social media (usually slandering me and the farm here in the process
)
- Location
- Lincolnshire
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
Having said what I said above about employers needing to provide PPE, I think society seems to have changed and young people seem to lack a work ethic, part of the rot set in when Tony Blair wanted so many more to go to uni (so we have lots of young people borrowing lots of money for worthless degrees from second rate institutions ~ really been taken for a ride), another factor is schools don't want to fail anyone, so everyone thinks they are a winner. I noticed the builders all seemed to want to employ farmers son's rather than town boys, as they had a better work ethic. The rise of social media has not helped either, becoming a star on xfactor without putting in the hours and doing the "apprenticeship" like the old musicians did in the past, pubs, clubs etc and learned their trade.
- Location
- Ledbury, Herefordshire
5-6?
The pub has been open for hours by then.....
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
My son spent a summer as a bricklayers labourer, and he said, it was much harder physically than on the farm, as here on the farm, there are days on the tractor or checking stock on the quad bike. And on really wet weather, we try to find inside jobs if we can.