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<blockquote data-quote="J and L" data-source="post: 187556" data-attributes="member: 3494"><p>Born2run- glad to hear that your employer recoginized that you were experienced and valuable <em>before</em> you left. I've heard many stories from employers after an opportunity is lost. Our employees also get 1 week vacation after 1 year, 2 after 2 and 3 after 5. Your's will increase by a week for every year you are there? So at 10 years you will have 10 weeks? Ours also get a benefits amount that most spend on housing (currently all except our kids live in farm housing) and gas. (We have charge accts for them at a local station.)</p><p></p><p>As Jerry said in an earlier post-- we both avoid deductions-- accidents do happen and as the crew improves many of the small things (like cows out) are not an issue. In the past part timers (yes teens :roll: ) were most likely to mix pens while the fulltimers got to unmix them. Now you mix-- you unmix. </p><p>(The deduction exception<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite9" alt=":eek:" title="Eek! :eek:" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":eek:" />ur kids. At 16 I started deducting for late for shifts and poor work habits-- got down to half pay sometimes lol --since I had the "power of the paycheck" they knew they would get exactly what they earned ;-) All got to pay me if it took more than a couple of wake-up calls or reminders to get them to work on time. Figured that if I needed to play babysitter I should get paid for doing it-- in cash of course to make it more painful. LOL) We try to make employees responsible to each other as much as possible... and them having to call others in to help with a goof up seems to do that. (Kind of a dis-incentive plan :lol: )Our herdsman takes care of many of the smaller issues.</p><p></p><p>We have taken money out of the bonus pot to pay someone to clean the parlor when the employees started ignoring (1x) and have required people to fix problem they created (like cow mix-ups) they make on their own time.</p><p></p><p>As for our parlor, we have a double 6 flatbarn with walk through stalls, Germania Model B arm takeoffs, and an air crowd gate. With the barns being overcrowded we have 2 on for all shifts with both in the parlor for most of the low group and TLC groups. A good milker can run 65 cows/hour through working alone in the high cow and high heifer pens while the second milker scrapes and cleans waterers, etc. A huge time advantage is that we do not to need to hold up the whole group for that odd slower cow. Today we put 320 through each milking.With the new parlor (2x16) we expect to have 2 on each shift with one spending time alone while cows are moved, prefresh cows checked, etc. We are hoping to be able to do some grouping by milkout speed as our flatbarn has taught us much about how slow cows effect efficiencies. While a 2x16 is a little much for one person, it will more fully utilize that 2nd person. Labor costs year to year can easily out run the capital investment costs that gain efficiencies.</p><p></p><p>We, too, put alot of effort into keeping very clean attractive facilities (4 sites). We live on the main farm and made a conscious decision that the view out our window would not change just because we had employees.</p><p></p><p>Our first hispanic answered an ad in a paper. We suspected during his second interview that he exceptional. He spent his first three years working with me daily and I saw first hand how quickly he learned and how much he pursued learning. Training has had costs, as always, but his learning curve was very fast. Learning to communicate was also fun- we used some sharades and alot of stick people drawings <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /> He was the one who asked if his brother could come. When a spot opened we said yes. Then he asked if another newly graduated brother could come- we didn't realize that the "graduate" was from U-Mexico in international trade!! Another exceptional individual. We've had many hispanics apply (the stories we could tell lol) but the hurdle here is high and having a bi-lingual herdsman helps our interviewing process immensely. I know of farms where no one in management knows Spanish and the employees know only a little English leaving no communication on some shifts. Then the farmer bemoans things not getting done right.</p><p></p><p>Our baseline for hiring is good work references, a comfort level around large animals, and being detail oriented. Several of our best cow handlers were folks with horse experience. Can't really categorize milking experienced vs none as we have had good and bad experiences with both. Comfort around animals comes out clearly in our parlor and detail oriented can be spotted in the questions asked by them during the walk around part of the interview.</p><p></p><p>Linda</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="J and L, post: 187556, member: 3494"] Born2run- glad to hear that your employer recoginized that you were experienced and valuable [i]before[/i] you left. I've heard many stories from employers after an opportunity is lost. Our employees also get 1 week vacation after 1 year, 2 after 2 and 3 after 5. Your's will increase by a week for every year you are there? So at 10 years you will have 10 weeks? Ours also get a benefits amount that most spend on housing (currently all except our kids live in farm housing) and gas. (We have charge accts for them at a local station.) As Jerry said in an earlier post-- we both avoid deductions-- accidents do happen and as the crew improves many of the small things (like cows out) are not an issue. In the past part timers (yes teens :roll: ) were most likely to mix pens while the fulltimers got to unmix them. Now you mix-- you unmix. (The deduction exception:our kids. At 16 I started deducting for late for shifts and poor work habits-- got down to half pay sometimes lol --since I had the "power of the paycheck" they knew they would get exactly what they earned ;-) All got to pay me if it took more than a couple of wake-up calls or reminders to get them to work on time. Figured that if I needed to play babysitter I should get paid for doing it-- in cash of course to make it more painful. LOL) We try to make employees responsible to each other as much as possible... and them having to call others in to help with a goof up seems to do that. (Kind of a dis-incentive plan :lol: )Our herdsman takes care of many of the smaller issues. We have taken money out of the bonus pot to pay someone to clean the parlor when the employees started ignoring (1x) and have required people to fix problem they created (like cow mix-ups) they make on their own time. As for our parlor, we have a double 6 flatbarn with walk through stalls, Germania Model B arm takeoffs, and an air crowd gate. With the barns being overcrowded we have 2 on for all shifts with both in the parlor for most of the low group and TLC groups. A good milker can run 65 cows/hour through working alone in the high cow and high heifer pens while the second milker scrapes and cleans waterers, etc. A huge time advantage is that we do not to need to hold up the whole group for that odd slower cow. Today we put 320 through each milking.With the new parlor (2x16) we expect to have 2 on each shift with one spending time alone while cows are moved, prefresh cows checked, etc. We are hoping to be able to do some grouping by milkout speed as our flatbarn has taught us much about how slow cows effect efficiencies. While a 2x16 is a little much for one person, it will more fully utilize that 2nd person. Labor costs year to year can easily out run the capital investment costs that gain efficiencies. We, too, put alot of effort into keeping very clean attractive facilities (4 sites). We live on the main farm and made a conscious decision that the view out our window would not change just because we had employees. Our first hispanic answered an ad in a paper. We suspected during his second interview that he exceptional. He spent his first three years working with me daily and I saw first hand how quickly he learned and how much he pursued learning. Training has had costs, as always, but his learning curve was very fast. Learning to communicate was also fun- we used some sharades and alot of stick people drawings :D He was the one who asked if his brother could come. When a spot opened we said yes. Then he asked if another newly graduated brother could come- we didn't realize that the "graduate" was from U-Mexico in international trade!! Another exceptional individual. We've had many hispanics apply (the stories we could tell lol) but the hurdle here is high and having a bi-lingual herdsman helps our interviewing process immensely. I know of farms where no one in management knows Spanish and the employees know only a little English leaving no communication on some shifts. Then the farmer bemoans things not getting done right. Our baseline for hiring is good work references, a comfort level around large animals, and being detail oriented. Several of our best cow handlers were folks with horse experience. Can't really categorize milking experienced vs none as we have had good and bad experiences with both. Comfort around animals comes out clearly in our parlor and detail oriented can be spotted in the questions asked by them during the walk around part of the interview. Linda [/QUOTE]
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