Job/staff/interview nightmare!!!!

[lynne_macleod]

Have you tryed yard and groom web site, i got allot of responses from that, and if they dont turn up for interview etc that goes on their profile

 

[Tapir]

not in the horse industry but we have been trying to take on some telephone staff at work for months. The pay is £8 per hour, school term times only and we are really struggling. We have arranged so many interviews only for people to not turn up. The application letters and emails we get are appalling.

So many people would very clearly stay on the dole rather than get off their backsides and do some work.

 

[noblesteed]

I don't think working 8-12 is unreasonable, you would finish on lunchtime and then the person could have the rest of the day to please themselves. Starting at 8 am isn't an unreasonable request! As a teacher I often get to school around that time. I would expect most shift workers would tell you 8am is a lie-in to them!!!!! And if the applicant did have kids, wouldn't they qualify for working tax credit wotsits and free childcare etc anyway?
That's our government for you, making it all too easy to sit on your backside and get paid for doing nothing.

 

[Goldenstar]

OP could you make the hours flexible to attract different people ? Ten years ago I took on a mum with a five year old who had just started school she did around five hours then with hours to suit her it was a nuisance when her son was sick or in holidays . Ten years on her son is fifteen and she runs the yard she a marvellous girl and one ofbthe family now.
So few hours mean its someone with kids looking for a few hours or someone with a horse looking for a bit of income it's not enough hours to be someone's main job so you may have to be flexible.

 

[OFG]

Wow, real people who think like I do! It is infact paid just over minimum wage, I bend over backwards to alter the amount of day that people want to work so they don't loose their benefits!!!!! but at the end of the day I am running a business and I work for a lot less than minimum wage, last weekend when one of my livery horses was very ill, I didn't blink at working 15 hour days. I do feel that perhaps the government pay people a little to much to sit at home and watch Jeremy Kyle. I had my first job when I was 13 and old enough to work part time, I have never claimed a penny I have only ever earn't it. When I had finished my time at Huntley School of Equitation, I felt I needed to learn more about young horses before I came home, so I worked for NO PAY! for 3 months and lived in a mobile home with no heating during the winter and slept on a colapsable kitchen table to get the experiance I felt I needed. Yes that is 3 whole months of no pay for 3 whole months of 6 day week working and I loved it, I learnt a huge amount it was fabulous. This is a hard industry but I am offering a good little job and I am not even in the sticks i'm only 3 miles from the centre of Bristol!
Thank you to all of you who have posted back.

Typical, why couldn't you have been advertising a year ago just after I had been made redundant? i would have snapped your hand off for the job. It would have beat having to go sign on and being made to feel like some scrounging scum

I have to say, having had to sign on made me wonder why people actually do it. It was the worst experience I have ever had to endure and I hated every bloody week of it. But then maybe its because I actually have morals and don't like having to rely on handouts and would rather be earning / paying my own way. The staff in the job centres are condesending and on a couple of occassions I nearly told them to move over so I could input the data to the computer myself as they could barely operate it!

 

[dumpling]

Tv while tack cleaning sounds fab!

Well, I'm in the opposite boat. I gave up my full time work(still do it part time) to go and help a yard once a week(I wanted a break from work). Its only half a day and is the usual duties- tack cleaning, feeding, etc and after only 4months I'm going to have to give it up. Financially it's just not worth the time, so am going back to my full time job.

I think with the likes of what you've described perhaps the time & wage is putting people off as if they do more than their 16hours a week they won't get their JSA! There's probably a fine line with where working for you and getting there JSA is pretty much the same therefore they'd choose the latter!

 

[Serephin]

I hope he interviewed you

Lol! No he didn't, come to think of it! Hah haa

 

[Rowreach]

Oh you want what i've got, she's fantastic!

On the yard every single day, bright and early, even over Christmas! Really quick, thorough and efficient. Nearly always cheerful Will ride anything that comes into the yard, will handle all the youngsters confidently, doesn't care what jobs she has to do, whatever the weather, whether it's shovelling poo, painting stables and fencing, harrowing the arena, walking miles with water to fields with no drinkers, grooming, tack cleaning, rug mending, anything you throw at her she'll have a go at

Oh, and she's got 2 kids at primary school and runs a self catering business from home AND works part time elsewhere.

And she hardly gets paid anything, far less than minimum wage in fact

Oh look, it's ME

OP I sympathise, it's really difficult and tbh sometimes you're better off doing the work yourself rather than trying to find someone and then putting up with their foibles when you've got them I've had two outstanding grooms in 20 years - one now runs her own yard in Devon, and the other has now got a job in a hotel which pays more than I could, but she still comes (voluntarily!) to help me exercise a few times a week. They are few and far between unfortunately

 

[Jemima_P]

Wow, wish you were all closer! I would bite your arm off for a job like that

Have to agree.. signing on was the worst experience. I turned down money in the end just because I couldn't stand going in there for yet another week. I've never been so glad to get a job in my life!

I must say though, I've been applying for horsey jobs for the past year and the amount of people that have messed me around is unbelievable. The ones that don't answer phones or reply to applications is even more annoying!

Wish there were more people like you guys in this area!

 

[tizer]

thanks all of you for your support. I cannot change the hours as my yard is a full livery yard and the work has to be done by lunch time. As far as tax credits goes, I have bent over backwards so that staff don't loose them, paying up to what they are allowed and cash for the rest! I had interest from ages 16 to 40, both male and female. I just think that people don't want to work! well obviously not all people! I do a lot of the work myself but with 20 domestic horses and 5 wild equids I cannot do it all myself, I already do every afternoon on my own 7 days a week and I am also studying for a degree! Oh and I'm trying to get my application for BHS approval sorted too, even tho i've been in business 19 years!!! Have I missed any questions that I should have answered?