Thanks, John. We went through a little of this with the sporadic
job-specific hiring we've done in the past, and I can see a lot of truth in what
you've written. Also, for the sake of our conversation, I'll say now that
my friend may have used the word "partner" in her proposal, but I'm relatively
certain she didn't want to come on board as a formal partner as Richard very
helpfully defined. Even if she liked that idea, I doubt she'd want to take
on 50% of the financial, logistical, and legal burdens. So we'll restrict
this to "hiring employees" for now.
Keep the comments coming; they're already very helpful.......
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
In a message dated 12/26/2012 9:42:26 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
stonecirclefarm AT tds.net writes:
When I
started my farm, I wanted to avoid hiring people beyond paying my two
boys. My reasons were pretty simplistic: I did not start a farm to be an
employer and managing hired labor was something I was frankly afraid of based
on my preference to work alone (and some "control freak" issues). I've
done a 180 on this and now feel that hiring labor is virtually essential if
one is to derive any decent amount of financial return from a small market
farm. I say that in terms of my context which involves a spouse with no
desire to work on the farm...things could be different with two people at the
helm although I know of few examples where two people are able to earn a
complete livelihood without some hired (or volunteer) help.
So, I
recommend hiring help. But one thing that is tricky is that hiring
people too early in your farms development can be very inefficient. It
is one thing to "pay yourself" to do work on a farm that may still be lacking
adequate tools, infrastructure, and refined systems to get jobs
accomplished. It is another thing to actually stick an (untrained, less
skilled) person into an inefficient system and than have to pay them.
So, one bit of advice is to hold off on hiring until you've "got things going
enough" to warrant plugging in a paid employee into a well-functioning
system. That said, you might not completely recognize where your farm is
inefficient until you start hiring and observing things from a manager's
perspective. Growing pains are inevitable! Do not let a fear of
growing pains prevent you from investing in tools, equipment...or
employees.
Another general piece of advice I have found useful is to
hire part-time employees in the beginning so that you can ease into being an
employer. This could be a partial day arrangement where you have workers
for 4 or 5 hours a day or an arrangement where you have helpers 2 or 3 days a
week.
-John
On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 11:05 AM, <KAKerby AT aol.com> wrote:
We have been on the fence for awhile now about hiring some help for the
production year. Things came to a head this past weekend, when a good
friend of ours, who has worked with us here sporadically in the past,
dropped a comment at a Christmas party that she thinks we should work
together during 2013 as partners, really rev up production, and go back to
selling at the farmer's market.
A 15 second comment has proven to give me three days' worth of "should
we or shouldn't we?" And every time I think I've answered the
question, I think of some new "angle".
We weren't planning to return to the farmers' market this year, for
a few reasons which I thought were pretty solid. Solid, that
is, until I started to think about what I could do with a second pair
of hands around here. We also had figured on not hiring anyone "yet",
but maybe in a year or two. Her suggestion has sped up our
deliberations, but I still find myself on the fence. It's a
Catch-22. Looking at "what could be" through the optimistic lenses, I
see some really nice improvements. But looking through the pessimistic
lenses, I see a lot of ways this could go south on us. And I won't
know until we commit to one or the other, but by committing, we set things
in motion (or don't), which will dramatically impact what we do during
2013. I can't put this off for two months and deliberate - we'll have
missed some planting windows if I do. But I can ramp up now in
anticipation, and if things don't pan out then I'll have a nightmare
schedule to maintain by myself for the rest of the year.
I know some of you have gotten along very nicely without any hired
help. Some have hired help, and tweaked things so that life goes on if
that hired help doesn't pan out. And some of you depend heavily on
your hired help, such that you couldn't function without it. How do
you all know "now is the time" to hire, and/or when not to hire? A big
question for the last week of the year. Thanks all. Kathryn
Kerby
Snohomish,
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