4xtrahands / farm employee

Flasheart

Member
Location
N.Suffolk
We've done ok with 4 xtrahands over the years, not perfect every time but mostly needing a bit of training.

The one time we found a lad who ticked all the boxes, he'd been working in construction but wanted to get back into farming. We offered him the job, he accepted subject to working out his notice. Few days later he rang up, very apologetically, saying there was no way his wife would let him go back to farming with the random hours. She wanted him home weekends and evenings.

Btw we don't work ridiculously long hours her.
 

had e nuff

Member
Location
Durham
Talking to a friend in the demolition/land reclamation industry and they are struggling to find staff as well. 360 drivers,dozer drivers and dump truck drivers. Offering £18 hour on the books for 360 drivers, nobody wants it.
 
Talking to a friend in the demolition/land reclamation industry and they are struggling to find staff as well. 360 drivers,dozer drivers and dump truck drivers. Offering £18 hour on the books for 360 drivers, nobody wants it.

I will come and drive an ADT 70 hours a week for £12/hour. When can I start?

Everyone is full of 'can't find staff' but I will work tooth and nail for the next 6 months but can't find anything.
 

Forkdriver

Member
Livestock Farmer
Is not just
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
. I recruited nationally for an NGO. The quality of applicants went down over the years, but one of the biggest factors was location. These were good jobs with the offer to train and qualify but we just couldn't get the applicants. It's not just agriculture that can't find good applicants.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
I will come and drive an ADT 70 hours a week for £12/hour. When can I start?

Everyone is full of 'can't find staff' but I will work tooth and nail for the next 6 months but can't find anything.

ADT drivers will be bottom of the pile money wise, it's experienced digger/dozer/scraper guys that are hard to find.
You have to go to the job too, it won't be round the corner from your house, so long commute or (if they still do it) live on site in a shi**y caravan etc.
Many of the big companies wanted self employed too, so they can "off hire" them straight away if they run out of work or find out they can't do the job. Don't know if that's still the case.

There's always loads of jobs out there, everyone's always struggling to get staff but many of them have a catch of some kind and rule themselves out.
 

pgk

Member
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???!.
Where do I apply, better than my own place!🤣
 

pgk

Member
Exactly, lets face it if a child says that want to work on a farm when they leave school the career officer would see this as a drop out. Schools rather see kids aiming for collage. My 15yr old doesnt want to go to agri collage and I cant actually see what he is going to learn anyway. We can send him on individual causes on all sorts of direct training in crash courses or specific courses than learning very little to get an average NVQ at the local agri collage. He doesnt mind working manual working, fit as a butchers dog and stamina he'd be happy going to work for a contractor for a few years and deciding if he wants to specialise when hes more mature.


Saturday college workers, self employed and those turning up on probationary 3 months should be willing to bring some kind of decent coat. We had a lad self employed we supplied PPE etc but they still wouldnt bring it in every day and go home because they were soaked through. That drove me nuts. If you are working outdoors no harm in chucking extra workwear in the car either.
Spot on, son was actively discouraged at school from a career in agriculture, would not stretch him. Now at 24 he does his 40 hours a week on the buildings and runs 400 plus ewes etc with me as a hobby as well as building up our farm to a more commercially viable operation.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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