We (the usual 'husband does labour side / wife does admin and has 'normal' full time job' team!) are new to the site (stumbled across it this morning looking for info on seasonal workers) and would really like some advise please.
Although we have one fulltime staff member now we have been been burned badly in the past employing staff. The husband has been diagnosed with a hernia and has been put on light duty. We need to take on another person to help with the heavy things but we're very wary.
As we are unsure of outcome of hernia re operation etc, we don't know how long we will need another person for so would the best option be seasonal contract for six months (with 3 month probation period if that is permitted - can't find anything to say yay or nay to this) or get someone to become a contractor?
Any advise would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
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Replies
First question I would ask myself - do I wish or intend to grow the business ?
What's your business ? Gardeners, Landscape Gardeners, Hardscapers ?
If on light duties, you may have the ideal opportunity to sit back and review your business plan. You may be able to invest effort in looking for new/additional business and thus you would need staff. Therefore making sense to employ someone FT.
Staff will always be a challenge and it is worth waiting for the right person for the long term. You could offer a FT position with a probation period against an agreed job description (ie you need something objective to measure the person against). You could offer it on a Temp or Permanent basis, but would question who you would get for a Temp Position. Anyone good would be looking for a FT Permanent job I suspect, unless their lifestyle allows or requires them to work otherwise.
Would suggest you are upfront with who ever you talk to - I've seem some companies supposedly take on staff on a Permanent basis and dismiss them after their Probationary period, thus having used them to get over 'work peaks'. So wrong on so many counts :-(
If you decide on someone for a short term Temp position, consider using a good Hort Agency to handle it all for you.
If you do not intend growing your business, you need to determine how booked up your diary is and how that will change now Spring is here. You could just go for a labourer position to help with heavy work.
wife does admin and has 'normal' full time job'................ you forgot to mention that she spends all the takings too!!!
Geoff, you've clearly not got her trained well enough !
Geoff Norfolk said:
Geoff Norfolk said:
Sorry to disappoint Geoff but no I don't. I actually don't like spending money and hate shopping!
Gary RK : MLJN said:
Thanks Gary.
We have a garden maintenance business. There is someone interested who doesn't have maintenance experience but has worked in garden centres but happy to train him. We have a steady client base and don't want to expand to where can't be on site. As we were novices when we set up we got burned by 2 employees but obviously didn't learn quickly enough as current employee is on a really good wicket with no actual job description and it's too late to change that now and we don't want to make the same mistake with a new employee but apparently all employees need to have same terms & conditions / contracts. Think temp to perm may be best option as we can then see if we can get enough extra business to cover costs.