Finding staff

[doctor Bob]

Bloody hard work at the moment.
Took on a new guy this week, he went home at lunchtime and never came back, very strange.
Doing my nut in and costing a fortune on adverts.

I'm not looking for anybody fantastic, just a bit of woodwork ability and potential, can't be too hard.

 

[Baldhead]

Doctor Bob I would have given my right arm for a woodwork based apprenticeship in the late 70s, (well perhaps not my right arm) instead I became a heavy goods vehicle fitter, but that's another story.

When I went to school we did woodwork and metalwork, the store rooms were full and you only paid a token gesture for the timber and metal you used for your projects, I was amazed to discover from a neighbour who's son was making a coffee table for his GCSE's, that the school didn't have a wood store room, the parents were expected to buy the timber they needed from wherever they could, (my neighbour bought softwood from B&Pooh, all of which was different sizes to what he really wanted)

The problem in our area (Northumberland) is that we adopted the comprehensive system (this happened in my last two years at school) it is in my view not working and never will, some of today's children probably don't get the teaching I had at 'hands on' subjects, instead it's roped into something called DCT (design, craft, technology?)

Until the problems are addressed at grass root level, people like yourself will struggle to expand their businesses as the basic training required at school isn't being taught.

Rant over.

Baldhead

 

[ColeyS1]

Ring him up, tell him you were only joking when you told him to go find 'a long weight' does seem odd. What task did you have him doing ?

 

[undergroundhunter]

It's a shame I don't live closer, I would rip your hand off just for a chance.

Matt

 

[No skills]

Whats the starting wage?

 

[doctor Bob]

Whats the starting wage?

I'm advertising in the local press.

"Cabinet maker required. Excellent opportunity for the right person. Experience in bespoke kitchens and furniture preferable, knowledge of machines, up to £12/ hr depending on experience."

 

[No skills]

Strange, I don't understand why you haven't got people asking for work (?). Nobody in the trade want to do a days work for a days money anymore??

I don't have the experience your asking for (yeah yeah poor me) but if I'd had a bit I would offer 3-4 days work for nowt and see if you thought I was worth taking on. Does nobody do things like that anymore?

Sorry, moaning again.

 

[Ed Bray]

Hi, I looked at the pay you were offering and thought that was a bit low for a craftsman with experience, I then did some searching on Google and was extremely surprised to discovered that the typical gross pay for a carpenter was between £8 and £13 an hour for a 40 hour week, this also was with the carpenter on short term contracts with minimal holiday pay and no sickness benefits. So your offer seems to be well in line with expected for the work.

It is extremely sad to report that a meter reader in our company (probably the lowest skilled starting post) who only really needs to have a clean driving licence and a grasp of numbers and English gets a basic gross starting salary of circa £14000 (for a 37 hour week) with sickness benefits and 23 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with a vehicle (van, no tax implications) and if he works an additional 7.4 hours over a 4 week period he can also have an additional day off (thirteen extra days a year). This does not include overtime and the typical starting gross wage is circa £16500. This work is often picked up as a starting role in the company and has a typically high turnover of staff, as those with potential are often moved into work more fitting.

What makes this so sad is that this probably explains why there is so few skilled wood-workers around, as people would be much better off doing other less skilful jobs but with similar pay and much more security.

I would think that a fully skilled woodworker would be better off starting their own business and taking on commissions where they could then get paid commensurate with their skills and years spent learning their craft.

 

[doctor Bob]

Hi, I looked at the pay you were offering and thought that was a bit low for a craftsman with experience, I then did some searching on Google and was extremely surprised to discovered that the typical gross pay for a carpenter was between £8 and £13 an hour for a 40 hour week, this also was with the carpenter on short term contracts with minimal holiday pay and no sickness benefits. So your offer seems to be well in line with expected for the work.

It is extremely sad to report that a meter reader in our company (probably the lowest skilled starting post) who only really needs to have a clean driving licence and a grasp of numbers and English gets a basic gross starting salary of circa £14000 (for a 37 hour week) with sickness benefits and 23 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with a vehicle (van, no tax implications) and if he works an additional 7.4 hours over a 4 week period he can also have an additional day off (thirteen extra days a year). This does not include overtime and the typical starting gross wage is circa £16500. This work is often picked up as a starting role in the company and has a typically high turnover of staff, as those with potential are often moved into work more fitting.

What makes this so sad is that this probably explains why there is so few skilled wood-workers around, as people would be much better off doing other less skilful jobs but with similar pay and much more security.

I would think that a fully skilled woodworker would be better off starting their own business and taking on commissions where they could then get paid commensurate with their skills and years spent learning their craft.

I'd like to point out the annual salary is nearly £24000 so quite a bit above your examples, with overtime this can be in excess of £33000.
38hr week. overtime if you want it.
20 days holiday plus bank holidays.
Unpaid leave is usually fine.
I think your post is off the mark

As for just starting a business and taking on comissions, if it's that simple why doesn't everyone do it. Whats the point in anyone working for anyone if it's so easy to make more money on your own>

 

[Jamesc]

Bob, I think it is a problem accross all industries, there seems to be a grossly over inflated view on what basic tasks are worth. I recentlytried to get some CAD work done as had so much work on. Very simple work takingexisting drawings and adding a few lines (literally) to make them record drawings. The quotes I got were out of this world so I ended up doing them myself. On average they too half an hour apiece, had I gone with the ceapest quote I would have paid around £75 per hour.
I went back to the guy tellling hm this as I have several more jobs coming up and was told that he wouldn't get out of bed for anything less.

So sadly rather than starting to farm work out with the view to eventually taking someone on I am resigned to working longer hours

 

[ColeyS1]

So what job did you get him started on ? Could it be he felt out of his depth, or bored out of his mind? He must have had a reason to walk away :?

 

[deema]

Finding people is for me the most difficult problem, the right attitude,polite, willing to listen and earn are qualities which were not handed out in great quantities.

Have you thought if seeing the local college? There are apprenticeships that you can tap into, they get trained for free and you can take a couple on to see if either make it through. I have had some excellent results, as you often get the pick of the class. And in every 20~30 people there are some real gems. I take people with the right attitude rather than the best skill set these days. Anyone who doesn't turn up in time, or clock watches at the end if the day when we are busy gets their DCM. (Don't come Monday)

 

[Ed Bray]

Hi, I looked at the pay you were offering and thought that was a bit low for a craftsman with experience, I then did some searching on Google and was extremely surprised to discovered that the typical gross pay for a carpenter was between £8 and £13 an hour for a 40 hour week, this also was with the carpenter on short term contracts with minimal holiday pay and no sickness benefits. So your offer seems to be well in line with expected for the work.

It is extremely sad to report that a meter reader in our company (probably the lowest skilled starting post) who only really needs to have a clean driving licence and a grasp of numbers and English gets a basic gross starting salary of circa £14000 (for a 37 hour week) with sickness benefits and 23 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with a vehicle (van, no tax implications) and if he works an additional 7.4 hours over a 4 week period he can also have an additional day off (thirteen extra days a year). This does not include overtime and the typical starting gross wage is circa £16500. This work is often picked up as a starting role in the company and has a typically high turnover of staff, as those with potential are often moved into work more fitting.

What makes this so sad is that this probably explains why there is so few skilled wood-workers around, as people would be much better off doing other less skilful jobs but with similar pay and much more security.

I would think that a fully skilled woodworker would be better off starting their own business and taking on commissions where they could then get paid commensurate with their skills and years spent learning their craft.

I'd like to point out the annual salary is nearly £24000 so quite a bit above your examples, with overtime this can be in excess of £33000.
38hr week. overtime if you want it.
20 days holiday plus bank holidays.
Unpaid leave is usually fine.
I think your post is off the mark

As for just starting a business and taking on comissions, if it's that simple why doesn't everyone do it. Whats the point in anyone working for anyone if it's so easy to make more money on your own>

You are indeed correct and I can only apologise for my miscalculation with the starting gross salary. That makes it much more realistic and I can not understand where I went wrong (sausage fingers perhaps when using the calculator).

My quote about starting their own business was really directed at what I perceived to be (incorrectly as you have pointed out) the typical wages for an experienced carpenter as found when doing a google search for typical rates of pay and the figures quoted above (these were averages and I am sure there were much higher earners and lower as well) and I would have thought that someone with the required skills and experience and more importantly the drive to work for themselves could carve a niche for themselves if an area was lacking the number of skilled, professional craftsman who can produce fine work to deadlines at a reasonable cost.

By the same token, I have worked for myself twice through my working life and I personally prefer the security (albeit not as secure these days as it once was) of working for someone else with the advantage of knowing a wage is coming at the end of every month.

 

[JandK]

The wage package offered is not bad at all, and I would think that job satisfaction in this case would be great. But sadly it seems that a lot of people expect to start at top dollar for very little input from themselves.

Unfortunately there is a culture of "I can't be bothered to work for x amount or I won't get out of bed for x" - because the tax payers will look after me via the government.

 

[RobinBHM]

It is really really hard to obtain good staff in woodworking.

In theory it should be possible to advertise, get lots of enquiries, interview and employ the best. In practice it is hard to find enough candidates worth shortlisting.

Ive recently taken on 2 new staff. Both are 18 and had completed a 2 year NVQ day release prior to joining my business. With 2 years college training and work experience already, one might assume a good level of competence of basic bench skills, especially as they both are keen and want a career in joinery. The reality is very different: not great with a tape measure, sanding is appalling, cant use a belt sander, random orbital or hand sand, cant use a cordless drill or an impact driver. What is really galling is that they have a very high opinion of how skilled they think they are, one of them asked me for a large pay rise after 4 months, saying 'Im ready to take on more responsibility now, you can just give me drawings to work from' -Really, I dont think so, I still have to check all of his work before goes to the spray shop and almost all has to be resanded.

I also find, whilst young staff are happy to be using an air sander, when they are hand sanding there is no hard graft applied just tickling the wood -there just doesnt seem to be any understanding that hard physical graft and a sense of urgency is required.

And dont get me started on mobile phones and tea breaks!

I can fully sympathise with your struggle to obtain good staff.

 

[Ed Bray]

What is really disheartening is I would take a large drop in pay to do something that I enjoy, it is not a chore going to work to do something you enjoy and even better when at the end of the day you can feel that you have created or completed something of note. At the moment I go to work for the money and the pension, there is never enough time to do all that is expected of you and it is very rare I get home and think that was a good day, I achieved something worthwhile, we are always fire-fighting I'm afraid, never enough resources to do the job properly, either staff or equipment, sad I know but just the way of the world these days.

 

[doctor Bob]

I already have 2 apprentices on the books, best guys I have, I'd take a third but feel I would be constantly looking over my shoulder or supervising.

 

[SteveF]

Hi Bob

I really enjoyed my day visiting your workshop
I cannot understand how you are struggling for staff
All the tools you can "play" with
professional setup and quality product
I would throw in my stressful job and a wage cut to have such an opportunity
sadly you are a bit too far for me to travel each day...and i may be a bit older than you are looking for

but my point is:

what a chance for someone with a bit of commonsense to learn a trade at a more than reasonable starting wage
does nobody want to learn anymore ?

Steve

 

[Matt@]

out of interest and without wishing to write the wrong things here, have you tried eastern european workers? I had a Latvian guy who cycled to work 8 miles each way and worked like a trojan and not for big money either! Also, consider those with disabilities - deafness can be an attribute as the individual absorbs themselves in the work oblivious to the ******** around them

 

[RossJarvis]

It is really really hard to obtain good staff in woodworking.

Ive recently taken on 2 new staff. Both are 18 and had completed a 2 year NVQ day release prior to joining my business. With 2 years college training and work experience already, one might assume a good level of competence of basic bench skills, especially as they both are keen and want a career in joinery. The reality is very different: not great with a tape measure, sanding

I also find, whilst young staff are happy to be using an air sander, when they are hand sanding there is no hard graft applied just tickling the wood -there just doesnt seem to be any understanding that hard physical graft and a sense of urgency is required.

And dont get me started on mobile phones and tea breaks!

I can fully sympathise with your struggle to obtain good staff.

Having recently been sacked from a "technical college". I can sympathise too.

Unfortunately the education system is totally designed to fail the skilled trades. Anyone with half a brain is pushed toward "academic achievement". Why should the "brightest" 50% have to go to University to learn skills that 30 years ago were done by people with 5 O' Levels? So the people who go to do the trades rarely choose to do this, they go because nowhere else will take them and it's the only choice they have. Often they have lot's of "baggage and issues", often not of their own choosing. It is very unlikely that someone with more than 5 GCSEs at C grade will go into a trade. This doesn't mean that there are no good students, but the vast majority tend to have lots of "issues".

It is now a given that people going into the trades in colleges are now generally the disadvantaged. There is no pride or sense of achievement inherent in the system.

Incidentally, one of the reasons I was sacked was because I pointed out that my management were actively giving qualifications to people who could not have possibly passed them. This was seen as "bringing the organisation into disrepute" not as trying to maintain standards. As FE colleges are now businesses which are valued on their "rates of achievement", you will find very few colleges failing students because they are not actually up to the task, which is a bit ironic as the minority of the students are actually up to the task. Unfortunately we just see the inability of the student as the issue, whereas in fact it's the whole "system" which is at fault. The British Education system is not designed to create capable trades people, it is totally focussed on "highly educated" experten. It is crap at making them too!