No one wants to work or just unrealistic work

[PipsqueakXy22]

https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/nobody-wants-to-work-jay-halim-equestrian-staff-778276

I just read this article and wondered your thoughts?

It’s actually something I’ve seen a lot on the last couple of years- yards complaining that they can’t get grooms who want to work…

But perhaps grooms are fed up of working for a pittance while just scraping by… and looking after other people’s horses while they can only dream of affording their own

It was actually a career I considered myself. I worked on a yard straight out of school 6 days per week I did 6-8 hours but was only paid for 3… but I was young and naive and thankfully living at home with no rent. Next yard I was on paid me 8 hours but expected me to muck out 12 horses and turn out and all other jobs that go with it, on top of keeping the yard tidy. I often had to stay an extra hour or two to get all the jobs done. I was also exhausted daily. And they treated me like dirt.
Maybe it was a blessing in disguise but decided this wasn’t the career for me, now at uni and working on a lovely yard full time on weekends paid fair and treated great but still it’s minimum wage. And having just read through that very depressing thread on here regarding price rises and how people afford horses. it’s going to be even tougher living off minimum wage.

I know of many grooms and majority of them work so hard. Often 6 even 7 days per week 8-12 hours per day for minimum wage and they can’t even afford their own horses. And it’s tough manual labour, often paid pennies, and treated like rubbish, on top there’s the dangers and risk of injuring yourself. And when you can work somewhere else like Tesco’s for £12 p/h in the warmth and with great benefits (sick/ injury pay, paid holidays, discounts on shopping etc…) why wouldn’t anyone? I guess there’s the love of the sport, but sadly love doesn’t pay bills…

Perhaps yards will have to offer more, but I also know the profit margins in running a yard is slim in most cases. So I feel for yard owners they can’t always afford to pay grooms more. Maybe livery prices will have to rise to cover the costs. But again cost of living is already rising and many people can only just afford the current prices. And as a young equestrian I do fear for the future of the sport, I think it’s becoming more and more exclusive to the elite.

But I don’t know what the answer is. Are people just not willing to work? Or it’s just that kind of work is no longer realistic for many…

 

[DirectorFury]

IME people are more than willing to work in exchange for a fair wage that they can afford to live on, non-toxic bosses, and a fair workload.
I've yet to come across a single yard offering all of these things.

I'm not sure what the answer is, and long-term I expect it'll be an answer that many people won't be happy with, but when people start bleating about how "PeOpLe DoNt WaNt tO wOrK tHeSe DaYs" all they're doing is raising a giant red flag above their heads that tells me they'll resent paying their staff the meagre amount they already do, and ensures I'll never ever work for or with them.

Disclaimer: I'm not a groom, have never been employed as a groom, I just have eyes.

 

[Iznurgle]

Horses are my job and hobby. I work as an assistant manager of a medium-sized riding school and livery yard, and have my own horse closer to home. I do DIY livery (which is pretty cheap for the area) but on tight weeks I might do a day's work at my livery yard instead of paying. I make minimum wage (10e50/hour in Ireland) and coupled with a dog, things are tight. I have a degree in IT, but can't deal with offices (thanks, mental health). I truly love my work - the horses, the kids, the satisfaction, but the pay and the constant outdoors make other facets of my life difficult. I can completely understand how people simply can't afford to do it as work; I'm fortunate to have comparatively low rent and a wonderful boyfriend who fully supports my interests and is happy to cover any emergency vet bills (none so far, touch wood!), but I pay for all animal things myself.

There have been a few tight weeks over the last while where I've thought "sod this, Aldi are offering living wage," but honestly it's been so long since I've done anything else I can't imagine the leap of faith I'd have to take to change. The pipe dream is to have my own livery yard and make a meager income from that so I can have my passions closer to home, but little niggles, like a shoulder injury I can't afford to take time off to let heal, or the fact that my hands are forever cracked and dry no matter how much I moisturize and wear gloves, or that I can't seem to save any money, make me question the reality of doing this long term.

We're seeing the price of horses go up, and the price of horse-related things go up. Lord knows my bedding has gotten more expensive over the last while. I think if there was actual money to be made in the industry bar the select few who earn a decent amount, more people would be willing to do it. I've often thought of unions for grooms and yard staff, but it feels so daunting - the industry is small and well connected, and a failure to launch would destroy my credibility, but yard staff need protection. I broke my ribs in a trampling accident and had to take four weeks off; I couldn't afford to wait six, as I had no sick pay.

I've worked for absolute buttocks, people who speak down to me and make me feel inferior, men who've made advances towards me, women who've tried to shame me for my (normal!) weight, people who've refused to pay me, people who've held riding over my head as a threat. I'm lucky now that the woman I work for is wonderful, extremely supportive and knowledgeable, but I know she can't really afford to bump my pay, and certainly not to a living wage. Horses are hard work to begin with, the people don't have to make it worse.

I suppose what I'm saying is that there do exist people who want to work in the industry, but that article was a frustrating read. The answer is to be better employers. Regardless of what some would say, it's a job, fundamentally, and a skilled one at that. Skilled work needs to be paid fairly, like teachers, cooks, nurses, janitors, whoever. Honestly thinking about it now, I think working at Aldi would absolutely stress me out as so many different, new-to-me skills are required. The real secret is that "unskilled labour" is actually skilled labour, and skilled labour should be compensated fairly.

 

[suebou]

I rode at a place in Ireland where they had streamlined everything , provided decent machinery and something like four staff ran, very efficiently some 50- odd full stabled horses…..

 

[RachelFerd]

IME people are more than willing to work in exchange for a fair wage that they can afford to live on, non-toxic bosses, and a fair workload.
I've yet to come across a single yard offering all of these things.

I'm not sure what the answer is, and long-term I expect it'll be an answer that many people won't be happy with, but when people start bleating about how "PeOpLe DoNt WaNt tO wOrK tHeSe DaYs" all they're doing is raising a giant red flag above their heads that tells me they'll resent paying their staff the meagre amount they already do, and ensures I'll never ever work for or with them.

Disclaimer: I'm not a groom, have never been employed as a groom, I just have eyes.

Totally agree with this.

There's a funny old thing with horses where people seem to thin it is their right to be able to afford them... and this seems to extend to yard owners who think it is their right to be able to afford to have staff even if they can't afford to have staff. The cost of livery should rise to cover paying a living wage, and if that's unaffordable, people will have to do it themselves. It is the only way that this ends up working out.

 

[stangs]

I've been keeping my eye open for a part time temp groom gig, but, if I'm commuting over an hour one way, there's no way I can be at a yard by 7:30 which is a surprisingly common requirement. And then you get the "you cannot have a 9-5 mentality" ads without specifying how many hours you'll actually doing, which makes one wonder just how much unpaid overtime there'll be. Lots of expectations that you have your BHS stage 1 or stage 2 just for simple groom work - but, if you're earning minimum wage, it'll take you 15 hours to just pay off the fees for the stage 2 care exam! Saw a groom job asking for people able to work with fit and hot TB stallions. These stallions' foals were going for hundreds of thousands, yet the stud was only willing to pay someone minimum wage, even though they're at a considerable risk of being injured.

I saw a very snippy comment the other day saying no young people want to be grooms because "anyone with one brain cell is forced to go to uni" - true, but, at the same time, is it surprising that people don't want to enter an job path where they may just end up still struggling to get by at age 40?

This industry has always been supported by people who do it for love not money, but you can't do things for love if you don't have enough money to stay afloat.

 

[Otherwise]

I used to be a groom but don't ever want to work with horses again. It wasn't the hard work or even the ridiculous pay that finished me off, it was the people. The last job I left you could offer me double and I still wouldn't work for them again.

 

[poiuytrewq]

I worked hard as in it was always flat out in racing for years. Never got a bank holiday off, did a 7 day week every week (my choice, needed the money for my own horses)
Last summer I left the Monday-Friday yard and now have, really the most amazing gig at another private yard. Pi** easy, great pay, a day off, paid bank holidays, seriously laid back, I pretty much do what I want as long as the horses are happy the owners are happy… perfection? No I’m bored stupid ??

 

[Ratface]

I have quite a number of brain cells. I work very part-time with horses for the mimum wage.
I can only afford to do so because I am old, widowed, have a hefty professional pension and a reasonably stout State Pension.
I do it to help a friend and because I enjoy it.
If I didn't have those two regular income streams, and the previous good fortune of free undergraduate/post graduate/ post doctoral/clinical training, I certainly wouldn't be able to live fairly well on what my State Pension currently provides.
Had I not had the good fortune of being born in the early 1940s, I'd probably still be a home help. I loved that job, but it was miserably badly paid.

 

[canteron]

Where I keep my horse, they really encourage the grooms to work towards long term training aims - teaching / management / physio etc.
They also wouldn’t tolerate anyone being rude to the staff, or indeed the staff being rude.
They don’t have a recruitment/retention problem.

 

[milliepops]

I have never been happier than when i worked as a groom. i was fairly knackered, and it was sometimes a struggle to be motivated with my own horse after 10 hours of other people's, but it was wonderful for my mental health and i leapt out of bed to start work in the mornings, i loved it.

Unfortunately i was a single person on minimum wage and there was no way i could afford to run even my very very cheap house and car on one wage. So that was that. I'd go back in a heartbeat if i could afford to, but there's no chance of making a proper living with horses really.

 

[Rowreach]

I rode at a place in Ireland where they had streamlined everything , provided decent machinery and something like four staff ran, very efficiently some 50- odd full stabled horses…..

I've worked at a place like that, and I can promise you that it is no fun to work like that and bloody awful for the horses.

 

[spotty_pony]

I’ve worked with horses for years but sadly it just doesn’t pay for the amount you have to do and the physical strain it puts on your body. I am now 31 and still do the odd things freelance - mostly clipping. But at a price. I’ve had some people ask for a price and then never get back to me - but a lot have been very supportive and understand I have to cover fuel costs, equipment maintenance and of course my time. Being employed is a different matter though - usually you end up working all hours with a rubbish wage!

 

[Rowreach]

Every time this topic comes up, it comes round to one thing. Until people are prepared to pay a realistic amount of money for livery/training/riding lessons then there isn't a hope in hell of wages being realistic too. It's very hard to be enthusiastic about doing a job which keeps you in a diet of budget baked beans.

However, having run my own yard for 25 years I do laugh at the idea that working long, antisocial hours or mucking out 12+ horses as well as riding a few of them is somehow anathema to people wanting to "work" in the industry. It's the nature of the beast that it is hard work. I blame the colleges for a lot of it, totally unrealistic ideas of the hours involved and the commitment - which means they're producing people aren't expecting to have to be on a yard before 9am and think that the day stops at 3.30pm (I know this because I taught in one for a few years and it was a real bugbear of mine).

 

[chaps89]

Trouble is it’s a viscous circle.

In parallel to this thread is one about cutting/reducing horse costs.

It’s also a time where we are all facing increases in general through increased fuel/energy/NI etc.

So if yards were to turn around and say prices are going up (so that they can invest in good staff) how many people truly could or would pay it?

Yard owners have - wrongly imo- subsidised owners hobbies for a long time but as their costs increase and staff are harder to find there has surely got to become a sticking point where they can’t any longer?!

I have a share horse on a yard where, as far as I can tell, the yard is run well and fairly.
I don’t know what staff are paid, but I’m not aware of it being awful. They also get paid for training, yes they work 7-5 but they get a full lunch break and 2 days off. That’s still a 50 hour week though!
There’s something wrong with the industry when a 50 hour week sounds cushy that said horses aren’t a 9-5 commitment/job, unless maybe yards all moved to overnight turnout or more communal barn housing. But that requires investment on its own and requires having enough land and the equipment to maintain it if it’s in use more. So I don’t know the answer to that one really?

Liveries do pay a higher rate than is normal for the area, but the yard is well run, well maintained and has good facilities.
There is a turnover in liveries but actually on the most part I’d say the vast majority of them have been there a long time.
So it is possible!

Equally on the other hand I can see the lower end of the market (think we all know the ones, overstocked, not maintained etc) getting worse as people can’t afford things and move to more yards like this (where generally the owners are always happy to fit one more in for that extra £20 a week or whatever)

 

[chaps89]

I have never been happier than when i worked as a groom. i was fairly knackered, and it was sometimes a struggle to be motivated with my own horse after 10 hours of other people's, but it was wonderful for my mental health and i leapt out of bed to start work in the mornings, i loved it.

Unfortunately i was a single person on minimum wage and there was no way i could afford to run even my very very cheap house and car on one wage. So that was that. I'd go back in a heartbeat if i could afford to, but there's no chance of making a proper living with horses really.

With your level of experience you’d be able to get a job as a rider as opposed to groom surely? Not sure how much better paid it is mind you, but better than general groom

 

[usaequestrian]

Over in the U.S, my stable has a mucker who saw horses pulling something at a strongman competition, found my trainer's stable, and began working with no previous horse experience. His passion is amazing. I think people haven't been working because of the pandemic and jsut don't want to put in the work that is needed for being a groom/mucker.
xx usaequestrian

 

[ycbm]

I rode at a place in Ireland where they had streamlined everything , provided decent machinery and something like four staff ran, very efficiently some 50- odd full stabled horses…..

I've worked at a place like that, and I can promise you that it is no fun to work like that and bloody awful for the horses.

I think there may be a happy medium that many yards could achieve. 40 years ago I stabled on a 60 box yard that was mucked out direct onto a smooth concrete yard. The yard was then swept with a tractor bucket straight to the muck heap. No wheeling muck around, no stacking the muck heap, huge labour savings.

I know a yard today which deep beds for a week and then takes the entire bed out with a machine in one grab. Standard stables. Fresh straw is sprayed in when required with another machine. Again, massive labour savings.

Simply digging a pit for a muck trailer to sit in saves time and energy putting muck up onto a muck heap or trailer, it's just tipped downwards instead. The yard I hope to move to does this.

Sometimes there's too much acceptance of cheap labour and not enough thinking outside the box, pun intended.
.

 

[Rowreach]

I think there may be a happy medium that many yards could achieve. 40 years ago I stabled on a 60 box yard that was mucked out direct onto a smooth concrete yard. The yard was then swept with a tractor bucket straight to the muck heap. No wheeling muck around, no stacking the muck heap, huge labour savings.

I know a yard today which deep beds for a week and then takes the entire bed out with a machine in one grab. Standard stables. Fresh straw is sprayed in when required with another machine. Again, massive labour savings.

Simply digging a pit for a muck trailer to sit in saves time and energy putting muck up onto a muck heap or trailer, it's just tipped downwards instead. The yard I hope to move to does this.

Sometimes there's too much acceptance of cheap labour and not enough thinking outside the box, pun intended.
.

Well yes, but 4 people doing 50 horses does not provide for enough care, attention, or time for each horse. It's not about the logistics of moving shit about, it's about the care of the actual animals involved.

 

[Tarragon]

I thought I wanted a career with horses as teenager, until I went to Australia to work in racing stables after my A levels. I came home and promptly applied for a degree in Maths and computing and it has stood me in good stead for nearly 40 years. Even back then, once the reality of the pay and working with people who have to treat horses as dispensable had sunk in, I realised that what is a passion is best saved as a hobby - perhaps nothing has changed!

 

[ycbm]

Well yes, but 4 people doing 50 horses does not provide for enough care, attention, or time for each horse. It's not about the logistics of moving shit about, it's about the care of the actual animals involved.

That's what I meant by "happy medium" MoC, it's a total acceptance that what soubou described isn't right.
.

 

[suebou]

That's what I meant by "happy medium" MoC, it's a total acceptance that what soubou described isn't right.
.

I’m sure it wasn’t perfect, but stables were deep littered for a week with new straw every morning. Internal walls folded back on a Saturday morning. One medium tractor took maybe fifteen minutes to empty 30 boxes, straight to muck lorry. About ten new straw bales, blown in. Walls un clipped, staff member with leaf blower tidying corridors in minutes.30 stables once a week, less than an hour. Gates/fences all movable to put groups of horses in right fields with minimal effort and horses brought in maybe five at a time, calmly into their own boxes….. looked ok from where I was!

 

[paddy555]

I’m sure it wasn’t perfect, but stables were deep littered for a week with new straw every morning. Internal walls folded back on a Saturday morning. One medium tractor took maybe fifteen minutes to empty 30 boxes, straight to muck lorry. About ten new straw bales, blown in. Walls un clipped, staff member with leaf blower tidying corridors in minutes.30 stables once a week, less than an hour. Gates/fences all movable to put groups of horses in right fields with minimal effort and horses brought in maybe five at a time, calmly into their own boxes….. looked ok from where I was!

I like that idea
. I try to look at everything that I do with the horse jobs and see if there is an easier way or it a machine could do it to save myself work. Machinery to remove any of the harder work jobs is the way forward. It also saves "killing" the staff quite so much. so they can do the more skilled work.

I too have a muck heap which is dug below the yard surface so I am always emptying downhill.

 

[Sossigpoker]

Where I keep my horse, they really encourage the grooms to work towards long term training aims - teaching / management / physio etc.
They also wouldn’t tolerate anyone being rude to the staff, or indeed the staff being rude.
They don’t have a recruitment/retention problem.

Whereas at my current yard the YO is a rude bully and thinks the reason why she can't get staff is because her standards are so high. ? there have been cases where someone has agreed to an interview but they don't turn up, presumably because they've asked around and been told what she's like. I don't condone just not turning up but as the same time I don't blame them.

 

[usaequestrian]

IMO there are some RUDE YO's that make working miserable. At my old stable(I moved), the owners gave the horses 4-5 lessons a day, kept them in their stall with tack on, locked the yard manager out of the medicine cabinet, and horses were lame left and right! Working students were given one 30-min lesson for 9 hrs of work. No wonder she could only get unfair labor.

 

[teapot]

I suppose what I'm saying is that there do exist people who want to work in the industry, but that article was a frustrating read. The answer is to be better employers. Regardless of what some would say, it's a job, fundamentally, and a skilled one at that. Skilled work needs to be paid fairly, like teachers, cooks, nurses, janitors, whoever. Honestly thinking about it now, I think working at Aldi would absolutely stress me out as so many different, new-to-me skills are required. The real secret is that "unskilled labour" is actually skilled labour, and skilled labour should be compensated fairly.

Yet another thing the industry needs dragging into the 21st century over I feel!

Every time this topic comes up, it comes round to one thing. Until people are prepared to pay a realistic amount of money for livery/training/riding lessons then there isn't a hope in hell of wages being realistic too. It's very hard to be enthusiastic about doing a job which keeps you in a diet of budget baked beans.

You can pay stupid money per hour and if management/ethics aren't ok, staff won't stay. I know somewhere offering £30 an hour for coaches. Why? because no one's prepared to work there, or lasts longer than a month. I couldn't do anything about pay, but I damn well made sure my girls were warm, dry, fed, and got their exam training. Keeping staff happy and valued isn't just about pay imho.

Also, price rises aren't always the answer. They're often an easy short term fix for cash injection, while still spaffing money out side doors in my experience. Clients tend to actually spend more when they think they're getting better value for money.

I'm glad I got out the industry when I did - it was hellish to find yard staff, and you know what I don't blame decent grooms not accepting £10 an hour, it's piss poor for what the job involves.

 

[Rowreach]

Yet another thing the industry needs dragging into the 21st century over I feel!



You can pay stupid money per hour and if management/ethics aren't ok, staff won't stay. I know somewhere offering £30 an hour for coaches. Why? because no one's prepared to work there, or lasts longer than a month. I couldn't do anything about pay, but I damn well made sure my girls were warm, dry, and got their exam training. Keeping staff happy and valued isn't just about pay imho.

Also, price rises aren't always the answer. They're often an easy short term fix for cash injection, while still spaffing money out side doors in my experience. Clients tend to actually spend more when they think they're getting better value for money.

I'm glad I got out the industry when I did - it was hellish to find yard staff, and you know what I don't blame decent grooms not accepting £10 an hour, it's piss poor for what the job involves.

Well yes I agree to a point, but if a business is undercharging it’s customers and running at a loss, which a lot are, then paying a realistic wage ain’t gonna happen, and the usual complaint on these threads is that yard staff are paid crap wages.

 

[marmalade76]

Trouble is it’s a viscous circle.

In parallel to this thread is one about cutting/reducing horse costs.

It’s also a time where we are all facing increases in general through increased fuel/energy/NI etc.

So if yards were to turn around and say prices are going up (so that they can invest in good staff) how many people truly could or would pay it?

Yard owners have - wrongly imo- subsidised owners hobbies for a long time but as their costs increase and staff are harder to find there has surely got to become a sticking point where they can’t any longer?!

I have a share horse on a yard where, as far as I can tell, the yard is run well and fairly.
I don’t know what staff are paid, but I’m not aware of it being awful. They also get paid for training, yes they work 7-5 but they get a full lunch break and 2 days off. That’s still a 50 hour week though!
There’s something wrong with the industry when a 50 hour week sounds cushy that said horses aren’t a 9-5 commitment/job, unless maybe yards all moved to overnight turnout or more communal barn housing. But that requires investment on its own and requires having enough land and the equipment to maintain it if it’s in use more. So I don’t know the answer to that one really?

Liveries do pay a higher rate than is normal for the area, but the yard is well run, well maintained and has good facilities.
There is a turnover in liveries but actually on the most part I’d say the vast majority of them have been there a long time.
So it is possible!

Equally on the other hand I can see the lower end of the market (think we all know the ones, overstocked, not maintained etc) getting worse as people can’t afford things and move to more yards like this (where generally the owners are always happy to fit one more in for that extra £20 a week or whatever)

I don't equate the massive problems grooms face with livery and what livery owners are willing to pay, the majority of livery in this country is DIY = no grooms required.

Whilst I'm sure there are YOs that subsidise other people's horses, I'd say that far more grooms are subsidising the careers of the professional riders who employ them. If they can't afford to pay a groom properly, they should be mucking out their own bl00dy stables.

 

[teapot]

Well yes I agree to a point, but if a business is undercharging it’s customers and running at a loss, which a lot are, then paying a realistic wage ain’t gonna happen, and the usual complaint on these threads is that yard staff are paid crap wages.

Yes I do agree re undercharging but there's SO much mismanagement around, I sadly still can't see the staff getting an increase even if prices were to double... (I am being really cynical here).

 

[Widgeon]

that said horses aren’t a 9-5 commitment/job, unless maybe yards all moved to overnight turnout or more communal barn housing. But that requires investment on its own and requires having enough land and the equipment to maintain it if it’s in use more. So I don’t know the answer to that one really?)

This is the conclusion I've come to as well. To run a yard without enormous amounts of backbreaking labour, it needs an intelligent setup, plenty of suitable grazing land, and good quality permenant fencing. So much yard work is running around fixing things - putting electric fences back up, bringing horses in and mucking them out because the ground's too poached to leave them out. That sort of thing. But yards like that don't really exist without huge amounts of capital for the setup, which (let's face it) very few people have. So I don't know the answer either.