I keep hearing about how all across the industry there are issues hiring and getting barn help. I’m looking at hiring some, and I’m wondering what you are finding in your area. Do competent stall cleaners exist? What are the market rates in your area?
The poor gal who has been cleaning stalls at the barn I’m buying is only paid $10 to clean the whole barn, and $20 on a “stall strip” day, and I think that’s unreasonable (on the “I can’t believe you’re putting up with that side”) but I want to be sure I’m putting good things into her agreement if she is going to continue, and we’ll need more help because it’s a lot of work for one person.
You need to look at local conditions. What is minimum wage in your state? What other employment options exist for healthy hard working young people?
Then you need to look at your own barn. How long does it take to clean a stall including out to the dump pile and back? What is average time given a mix of stall pigs and stall princesses who wont step in their own poop? How do you want your stalls bedded and cleaned? Etc.
Do you want to hire a totally outside person or employ a boarder who is already onsite to ride and this is just an added bit of cash?
Where I live the minimum wage is now CAN $15/hour which with exchange rate is US $10 or $12. We are in a metro area with a lot of fast food and mall jobs and a declining population of teens.
I’m in a metro area with a relatively high unemployment rate as compared to the state. Minimum wage here is $10.30.
It takes me about 2 hours to clean the number of full stalls that I have at a leisurely pace, but clean them well. I am picky about the stalls. Of course, that doesn’t really account for the fact that I have to strip them because the $10 to clean the barn gal that is currently present does an understandably rushed job. I want someone who will be more thorough, even if I have to pay a bit more.
I do not want to employ any of the current boarders, no - mixing business in that way is not my preference.
I guess the question really is - how much above minimum wage do you feel you have to get in order to get quality help?
Another question is length of shift versus travel time.
In proper jobs here a minimum shift is 4 hours. Commute by transit or car can be time-consuming. If your job is only say 2 hours work but the commute is half an hour each way that’s not so attractive. If you can hire someone really near by who can squeeze a couple hours in at the start of the day that might be attractive to them.
I wouldn’t look at it so much as from a minimum wage example. Think more about how many hours you want someone there. Is it a full time or part time job. The more part time you go and the lower per day you pay, the less it’s worth the time and gas to drive out to your place. You want to make it worth their while to be there as well as to do a good job. Maybe figure out what a reasonable day rate would be then work backwards into what on average that would be per hour to see if it makes sense. But for part time help, you probably don’t want to pay hourly if it’s not that many hours, if you want someone reliable and not so rushed.
I pay $18 per hour. Well above minimum wage. The girl isn’t very “skilled” but a good learner with a good attitude. I don’t have a lot of hours to give her, usually just two per visit. Probably she’d take less per hour if I had more hours. I do work around her schedule so that she comes to my place when she’s going to another job near me so that it’s more economically feasible for her.
More important to me than skill were her excellent character and “professional” references from known and trusted sources.
Thankfully I’m closer than any other barn to the city, so that’s worth it. Debating on skill level. I may want to hire someone who is willing to learn to be a barn manager but I’m not willing to let that role go just yet. I might feel differently in a year or two.
Or I might find someone who is willing to “just” do the labor and be teachable. We have a caretaker house on the property and that should be pretty attractive.
$2/hr above minimum wage has been my sweet spot for attracting & keeping good help for the last decade. Also a two hour minimum. I’m in the mid-Atlantic. YMMV.
I have pondered this question since it was posted. OP stated the barn had a worker who was working for greatly less than minimum wage but then questions where do you find a person to do the work… look in the barn since there is a person there.
This thread is not about finding competent workers but is about what is “right and just” to pay a worker.
I dislike when a poster disguises what is considered a political topic as a general thread
There is one plus side to hiring a boarder to do this type of work. It makes the equation of - is it worth driving there for that many hours of work for that pay - equation lean a little more to side where the worker will not require as much financial compensation. (I am not saying it is an excuse to not pay fairly.) Since the worker is also coming to the barn to spend time with their horse.
I think topic needs to be flipped… How Much should I charge to teach a student Equine Stable Management?
In the United States, 44 colleges and universities are offering Horse Husbandry/Equine Science and Management programs. The average tuition & fees of the Horse Husbandry/Equine Science and Management program at the schools are $5,460 for state residents and $17,534 for out-of-state students for the academic year 2020-2021
I paid $50 flat rate for my barn help to clean 5 stalls and rake the aisle. It takes me just over an hour; it was taking her 30-45 minutes (she was doing a piss poor job).
It really wasn’t meant to be any sort of political commentary whatsoever. The barn worker isn’t doing a great job, and I meant that I couldn’t “just use” the existing rate. Not sure why that is remotely considered political commentary in your mind.
In addition, I need to hire another worker since existing worker doesn’t have time to do all the stalls…so…I need a rate. I think you’re reading a LOT into this that isn’t there.
Sometimes it’s worth it to pay a little more to get a little better labor.
FL minimum wage is $8.56. Depending on experience, I pay between $12 and $15 per hour.
That brings me a SLIGHTLY higher quality worker than paying minimum wage.
Being an employer is really difficult. I’ve come to the conclusion that at this low rate of pay, you really aren’t paying someone to care about the job. You are barely paying them to show up. I’d love to pay more but that would mean raising fees for my clients as I’m already on a shoestring profit margin. A lot of my clients are for raising the state minimum wage to a “living wage” but they aren’t for me raising their board bills to pay the farm labor.
$10/hour, or $10? How many stalls? I’m in shock if she is getting paid a flat rate of $10 for more than…I don’t know…filling a single water bucket. That’s insane!
I have a really good farm kid working for me right now - I only have 3 stalls but he’s a strong kid that can do things like rake, dig and drive a tractor really well. I hired him at $15/hour, but I pay him $20/hour for at least one day of 3 hours. He works hard and is efficient, so I feel like it’s very worth it and hope he is available more as the summer goes on. But, if it was every day…I’d probably say $15/hour. I think the key is not making it a really crappy job - no pun intended. He was cleaning stalls at a larger barn - it was a really dirty, hard job, and they paid $35 flat fee for something like 27 stalls. He lasted about 8 months.
Poor girl. Good lord, what made her keep coming back?
I’d discuss a wage increase, but I would also expect a better product. But it’s possible she would also be willing to spend longer on each stall but for the 1970s era wages. LOL.
It’s a complicated personal history (previous abusive relationships among other things) for the gal, combined with a personality that doesn’t doesn’t like change and doesn’t like confrontation. She was also living in a small home on the property that was almost condemned by the county when it was inspected, and was paying rent at more than board cost for a stall. She didn’t want to move because she doesn’t like change.
The previous owners were nice people, but I just get the feeling that they hadn’t adjusted anything at all in the years they owned the place. The board (full stall board) was also at 1990s stall board rates (and every person paying a different rate, so that’s been a fun adventure). Everything was done “thriftily”. I’d like to think none of it was intentionally exploitative as, like I said, they were nice people, but rather “this is how we’ve always done it”.
