Finding Staff

[billd766]

7 hours ago, Thaidream said:

You may want to consider a salary and a percentage of the  yield. That normally provides the incentive to stay and be part of the process rather than just a 'worker' 

 

People just don't want to  do manual labor anymore.  Tractors have replaced the Water Buffalo and harvesting machines exist for certain products.  A robot could be designed but it would be costly.

 

What has kept Thailand so independent for centuries is it's ability to grow more food than it needs and export the rest. should this breakdown and the land remain unworked, a radical change in Thailand will take place and not necessarily for the better.

 

In the West where robots are taking jobs in manufacturing that have been generally high paying- a new permanent class of the unemployed will emerge. Governments are talking about providing people a standard wage- for doing nothing.

 

I would hope somewhere Thai social scientists are sitting down talking about future automation and how it will affect the land; jobs; and the economy.  Just because you have the ability to do something- build robots; rockets to Mars or nuclear power plants doesn't mean you have to do it.

 

 

 

My Thai son is 13 and is talking generally about becoming and engineer but not anything specific as yet. I am try to nudge him towards robotics, either build and maintain or possibly design and build.

 

We live in rural Khampaeng Phet and when he leaves school in 5 years time he will either go to a tech college for hands on or university for design.

 

There is no real work for him here and certainly nothing for him to use his brains on.

[matador007]

11 hours ago, Thian said:

Call the King Monkul Technical University and let them build a robot...i have one here by the way.

 

 

So the job is cutting/collecting the pineapples from a field like this right? That seems easy for a robot.

 

 

 

Does a robot need a work permit ? 5555

[cyberfarang]

I didn`t think Farlangs could run agricultural businesses. How does the OP manage to get around the legalities?

 

Who is onsite and who is giving the orders? Maybe the foreman is pushing the staff too hard?

[kannot]

12 hours ago, Formaleins said:

Paid for 7 hours but tied to the job for 12. A bit like split shifts in hotels and bar work, no one wants to have to be available for 12 hours a day and only get paid for 7, maybe you should try zero hour contracts too?

not so, they can work any hours they like can do 12 midnight to 7 am if they want, as for contracts thats laughable, they up and leave when "they want" no notice no warning nothing

[kannot]

4 hours ago, cyberfarang said:

I didn`t think Farlangs could run agricultural businesses. How does the OP manage to get around the legalities?

 

Who is onsite and who is giving the orders? Maybe the foreman is pushing the staff too hard?

an agricultural business, hilarious, 8 rai of  pineapples planting price is  almost 1  baht per pineapple, selling price now about 2-3  baht per KILO , one pineapple, if  lucky, is 1  kilo, the pineapples arent there to make money they are there to keep the land tidy and to have something to stop soil erosion as I live on a  hill, the thread is about employing staff ie giving THAIS a  job. I  tell them what to do ,even though I tell them this is what needs  doing, I  tell them to walk round daily and look for yourself what needs  doing, 

Edited April 8, 2018 by kannot

[kannot]

11 hours ago, GreasyFingers said:

I do not know where you are kannot but up here we are lucky that the local, and maybe not so local, Hmong people are always looking for work. They work hard under any conditions, not like some of the Thais we have used. If you have any in your locality they would be worth contacting.

Best we had was Karen Hilltribe, lasted about 20  months, the  guy worked ok for a  year then trailed right off and one morning just said he was going, , the  few  days before going said he was  "sick", we knew he wasnt, and then the  night before he left said he will be "working tomorrow". When tomorrow  came announced he was leaving and as many do left his  house like a s h  i t hole for us to clean up.

Some people here have no idea what  staff are  like in Thailand it seems ( I dont mean you)  many will lie to get the job, 1. have  you ever  worked on the land before?? all answer YES and  the reality is many havent, we  tell them all its gets HOT to warn them in advance  but you can work early morning and late afternoon and have 4-5 hours  midday to stay out of the heat but "up to them" its only a  suggestion because we know how  hot it is and experience tells  us  this way is  best. 2  Can you lay blocks, answer "yes" then when try  can see immediately that they have never  laid  a block with comical results.

Wife always  tells them we dont  mind if you dont know or cant do it, just tell us as it will be easier for both of us, we dont mind showing  them or  teaching  them, same as  we'll tell them if  something breaks  tell  us so we can fix  it, they  never  do.

Most of them want the money but want to do as  little  as  possible as badly as  possible , the work ethic  is appalling here, thats the reality of staff weve seen in general, there are exceptions, the Wifes  sister is a great worker but she lives in Loei and she doesnt  want to live down here and weve found also in the Wifes  business of condo management and sales that out of every 10 workers you might find ONE who is the exception, works  well,  rarely  ill, clean , tidy , thoughtful, careful and they get well rewarded, the vast majority are  dross, doesnt matter what you pay them, doesnt  mater how  kind  you are with them, theyll take and take and take and give nothing back.

Some people commenting here it seems they have zero actual experience of the reality of hiring staff in Thailand.

 we  pay one man 16k baht a month, thats a lot for this  work and plenty enough for Thais to  more than survive on especially  with the job perks of free  house, electric,  water, motorbike, fish, rice etc

[Thian]

2 hours ago, kannot said:

an agricultural business, hilarious, 8 rai of  pineapples planting price is  almost 1  baht per pineapple, selling price now about 2-3  baht per KILO , one pineapple, if  lucky, is 1  kilo, the pineapples arent there to make money they are there to keep the land tidy and to have something to stop soil erosion as I live on a  hill, the thread is about employing staff ie giving THAIS a  job. I  tell them what to do ,even though I tell them this is what needs  doing, I  tell them to walk round daily and look for yourself what needs  doing, 

But pineapple plants will give fruit year after year isn't it? So you build a field and only have to harvest next years plus maybe do some maintenance like weeding?

 

2-3 baht a kilo i also think is very cheap, i forgot the price of them but pulae costs a lot more. Also dried pineapple isn't cheap at all. 

[robblok]

I don't blame the Thais who would want to work on the land and do manual labor, only fools aspire to a job like that. I would prefer working in the aircon of a 711 for less money. I worked on the land when I was young in the tulips and harvesting biets, one thing it taught me was to study on so I would not be forced to do something like that.

 

Almost anything is better then working on the land in the sun, so yea I get it. I wonder how many of the people complaining here about the work ethic of Thais would be willing to work for Kannot at the price he is offering. 

[FritsSikkink]

Change the hours, let them start early. 5AM or earlier, then they can do it in 1 go. 

[VocalNeal]

I'm thinking 16,500 x 12 = =/- 200,000 a year. 

 

So either change to  one year contract 12,000 a month with an annual bonus of 50,000 -ish. The free housing etc. makes the reality up to 16,500 but...

Many workers around me in Bangkok get quite low salaries but a big annual bonus. Could make it 9000 a month and 90,000 a year bonus. Some will disappear after they get their bonus but...

 

Or if there is any profit? Work out the total and lease the land to them for one season, pay for the seedlings or whatever. They get free housing etc and a stipend for survival but they get all the profit at the end less what you would have got minus their salary. That way they are working for themselves not for you. If it all goes to ruin then they lose as well...

 

Wander around large pineapple farms and talk to workers there. maybe you can find a willing couple? Wife gets, if she wants, extra money for house keeping etc. independent of her husband's contract. Her hours of possible working mirror his.

 

If free house has hot water and AC. I'll do it  Bonus we will both have someone to converse with in English! 

Edited April 9, 2018 by VocalNeal

[billd766]

20 hours ago, kannot said:

Feedback ( as  such) from other staff is its  too  hot which is why I work as  soon as its  light 6 am to about 10-10-30 then again at about 3. What I dont want is  them working 9-5 then saying its too hot because you can mitigate  most of this by doing those  hours. Up to them.

 

That is what I usually do when I cut the grass and scrub in the early morning until perhaps 9, then have a shower and breakfast. I do other outside oddjobs after 4pm simply because I am retired.

[Cake Monster]

Another option that may be available to you, is to not employ direct staff.

 

There are " Agency / Contract " Companies that will supply your labour 

 

OK, the cost is high, but as you yourself have said the workload is light, and you could offset the costs by renting out the house that the staff would otherwise be useing.

 

This was a solution I used in my Business in the UK, and it worked well there

[billd766]

1 hour ago, FritsSikkink said:

Change the hours, let them start early. 5AM or earlier, then they can do it in 1 go. 

 

Have you ever tried working in the dark for a couple of hours?

 

Have you read post#34 where Kannot says " not so, they can work any hours they like can do 12 midnight to 7 am if they want"

[FritsSikkink]

34 minutes ago, billd766 said:

 

Have you ever tried working in the dark for a couple of hours?

 

Have you read post#34 where Kannot says " not so, they can work any hours they like can do 12 midnight to 7 am if they want"

Fisherman do, btw it is light at 6 AM

[billd766]

47 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

Fisherman do, btw it is light at 6 AM

 

Fishermen are not trying to see what they are weeding etc.

 

I know I am usually up at that time most mornings.

 

05:30 on school days.

[JOC]

OP...You claim that the pineapple farming is not to make a profit, but to prevent soil erosion, so why not just leave the plants on the land.

Will save you a lot of headache....you will never make any money anyway....The plants are in the soil and will prevent erosion, no reason to tend to them.

They will not die.....and you will save 200k yearly by not having staff.

If you insist on being a "farmer"....I will suggest a trip to Palau....( I take you are in the Hua Hin area).....Plenty of Karen people out there...treated like slaves and paid well below the minimum wage....Take a Thai speaker with you (your wife?) and spread the word out there, and I am certain you will find your staff...

[Thongkorn]

On 08/04/2018 at 1:36 PM, ToddinChonburi said:

Funny I see women working construction here all the time and on road crews maybe you would be better off hiring a women.  Most men here appear to lazy to work.

Most are Burmese or Cambodian.same as on building sites.Thais are just lazy.speaking from experience.i wanted a wall building yes everybody can do it.every body wants todo it until you say ok get on with it. I did it myself in the end.with a lot of inspections from Thai people telling me how it should be done.

[kannot]

7 hours ago, Thian said:

But pineapple plants will give fruit year after year isn't it? So you build a field and only have to harvest next years plus maybe do some maintenance like weeding?

 

2-3 baht a kilo i also think is very cheap, i forgot the price of them but pulae costs a lot more. Also dried pineapple isn't cheap at all. 

Last year the price of  pineapples was 12  baht a kilo, now  like many fruit including mangos the price is  very very low. After 2  fruits on the pineapples you have to remove the plant and re  palnt BUT I dont grow them for money I grow them to keep the land tidy otherwise it would just be full of weeds and nothing to control erosion, they are also easy and low maintenance

[kannot]

1 hour ago, JOC said:

OP...You claim that the pineapple farming is not to make a profit, but to prevent soil erosion, so why not just leave the plants on the land.

Will save you a lot of headache....you will never make any money anyway....The plants are in the soil and will prevent erosion, no reason to tend to them.

They will not die.....and you will save 200k yearly by not having staff.

If you insist on being a "farmer"....I will suggest a trip to Palau....( I take you are in the Hua Hin area).....Plenty of Karen people out there...treated like slaves and paid well below the minimum wage....Take a Thai speaker with you (your wife?) and spread the word out there, and I am certain you will find your staff...

Weeds  will out grow the pineapples, they have to be weeded either by hand or spray, spray will be every 4  months, hand weeding more often, also the staff are there to water my other trees some 250 palm trees and feed  the fish  although almost all  trees are on sprinklers, all they have to do is open a tap and 12 trees  get watered at one  time, Thanks for the tip of Karen people.

[Thian]

1 minute ago, kannot said:

Last year the price of  pineapples was 12  baht a kilo, now  like many fruit including mangos the price is  very very low. After 2  fruits on the pineapples you have to remove the plant and re  palnt BUT I dont grow them for money I grow them to keep the land tidy otherwise it would just be full of weeds and nothing to control erosion, they are also easy and low maintenance

If i were you i would plant some easy ground cover, there's a peanut plant for that....and with a sit-on lawnmower you can easy cut it...or just let a some sheep or goats graze there. Problem solved.

 

 

 

 

[Thian]

2 minutes ago, kannot said:

Weeds  will out grow the pineapples, they have to be weeded either by hand or spray, spray will be every 4  months, hand weeding more often, also the staff are there to water my other trees some 250 palm trees and feed  the fish  although almost all  trees are on sprinklers, all they have to do is open a tap and 12 trees  get watered at one  time, Thanks for the tip of Karen people.

You can buy water timers to open the taps, works great...we also use them.

[kannot]

ROBBLOK,

 

Lets explain the amount of manual labour to you, there are about 8 rai of pineapples, every 5  months  you will need to cut the leaves, it will take  one person about 3-4 days, then there is weeding which you can do by hand or spray, spraying 5-6  hours will last for 3-4 months, by hand maybe 3-4 days every 6 weeks. 

Every day you  will have to water my other trees which are all on sprinklers, its as hard as "opening a tap" then sitting down and waiting  for 4  minutes this will take about 1.5  hours. Once every 10 days you will have to cut a 50 metre hedge which is 80cm tall with a  petrol /benzene hedgecutter Honda imported from the UK,   after cutting you will have to get the clippings up except we dont have to as I also use a Hond HB25 leaf blower again petrol/benzene, this all take 1.5  hours, twice a  day feed the fish takes 2  minutes.

In between that there is nothing to do in fact Id  say at least 60% of the time you could sit and twiddle  your thumbs. Its never 7-8 hours solid working in the sun. We pay one person almost triple the minimum wage for that, 800 baht a day, 5  day week 2  days  off , 7  hours  a  day inc free  house, water electric etc etc as  stated before.

All of the above work Ive done myself so I know exactly  how  long  it takes, if they arent tending to the pineapples then daily I would think less than 3  hours actual work and  all of that will be watering trees by sprinkler

Edited April 9, 2018 by kannot

[kannot]

8 minutes ago, Thian said:

You can buy water timers to open the taps, works great...we also use them.

I could also set it  up to do it from anywhere in the world  via  numerous apps but I want someone physically at the land as sometimes Im away for 6 weeks  at a a  time,  eventually I will have about 450 trees

[kannot]

11 minutes ago, Thian said:

If i were you i would plant some easy ground cover, there's a peanut plant for that....and with a sit-on lawnmower you can easy cut it...or just let a some sheep or goats graze there. Problem solved.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately not as the land is up a hill with MANY large stones, Prachuap is also the driest province I believe so watering  up to 16 rai of anything would be a lot of work, the pineapples require ZERO water another bonus here then id  have to fence off everything else as the goats would have the lot.

[kannot]

4 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

I'm thinking 16,500 x 12 = =/- 200,000 a year. 

 

So either change to  one year contract 12,000 a month with an annual bonus of 50,000 -ish. The free housing etc. makes the reality up to 16,500 but...

Many workers around me in Bangkok get quite low salaries but a big annual bonus. Could make it 9000 a month and 90,000 a year bonus. Some will disappear after they get their bonus but...

 

Or if there is any profit? Work out the total and lease the land to them for one season, pay for the seedlings or whatever. They get free housing etc and a stipend for survival but they get all the profit at the end less what you would have got minus their salary. That way they are working for themselves not for you. If it all goes to ruin then they lose as well...

 

Wander around large pineapple farms and talk to workers there. maybe you can find a willing couple? Wife gets, if she wants, extra money for house keeping etc. independent of her husband's contract. Her hours of possible working mirror his.

 

If free house has hot water and AC. I'll do it  Bonus we will both have someone to converse with in English! 

I do have a spare house I built for the staff but they turned out to be such dirty pigs I had to move them to a burnable bamboo house, after a few  years it will get torched and a new one will come on the back of a lorry. I already used to give the staff half  the money we made on the pineapples.

Some good  ideas in there never the less and I had thought about this before.

We have actually found some staff now thanks to a TV member, just waiting there arrival

[kannot]

4 hours ago, Cake Monster said:

Another option that may be available to you, is to not employ direct staff.

 

There are " Agency / Contract " Companies that will supply your labour 

 

OK, the cost is high, but as you yourself have said the workload is light, and you could offset the costs by renting out the house that the staff would otherwise be useing.

 

This was a solution I used in my Business in the UK, and it worked well there

We used to use agents for Burmese  staf but now Burmese dont want these  jobs  either.

[kannot]

8 hours ago, robblok said:

I don't blame the Thais who would want to work on the land and do manual labor, only fools aspire to a job like that. I would prefer working in the aircon of a 711 for less money. I worked on the land when I was young in the tulips and harvesting biets, one thing it taught me was to study on so I would not be forced to do something like that.

 

Almost anything is better then working on the land in the sun, so yea I get it. I wonder how many of the people complaining here about the work ethic of Thais would be willing to work for Kannot at the price he is offering. 

But you know many would rather not work at all than do this, the last staff left after 10 days after telling us  when he wanted the job " I really want this  job".

They left telling us Mum sick etc ( normal) and they "would be back in 1-2 days.

Wife  called them after 5  days and they said not coming back and they "still dont have a job"

I dont know about you but  when I was young I would  have done any job.

[robblok]

12 minutes ago, kannot said:

ROBBLOK,

 

Lets explain the amount of manual labour to you, there are about 8 rai of pineapples, every 5  months  you will need to cut the leaves, it will take  one person about 3-4 days, then there is weeding which you can do by hand or spray, spraying 5-6  hours will last for 3-4 months, by hand maybe 3-4 days every 6 weeks. 

Every day you  will have to water my other trees which are all on sprinklers, its as hard as "opening a tap" then sitting down and waiting  for 4  minutes this will take about 1.5  hours. Once every 10 days you will have to cut a 50 metre hedge which is 80cm tall with a  petrol /benzene hedgecutter Honda imported from the UK,   after cutting you will have to get the clippings up except we dont have to as I also use a Hond HB25 leaf blower again petrol/benzene, this all take 1.5  hours, twice a  day feed the fish takes 2  minutes.

In between that there is nothing to do in fact Id  say at least 60% of the time you could sit and twiddle  your thumbs. Its never 7-8 hours solid working in the sun. We pay one person almost triple the minimum wage for that, 800 baht a day, 5  day week 2  days  off , 7  hours  a  day inc free  house, water electric etc etc as  stated before.

All of the above work Ive done myself so I know exactly  how  long  it takes, if they arent tending to the pineapples then daily I would think less than 3  hours actual work and  all of that will be watering trees by sprinkler

I despise gardening and as i said i did my manual labor when I was young and swore never to do it again. That is why i studied so I would not end up having to do it.

What your describing does not sound like a lot of work, I wonder why the Thais if its not that much work don't like the job. I hope your new workers will be good for you. I would say that for what your offering there should be people available. 

 

[robblok]

1 minute ago, kannot said:

But you know many would rather not work at all than do this, the last staff left after 10 days after telling us  when he wanted the job " I really want this  job".

They left telling us Mum sick etc ( normal) and they "would be back in 1-2 days.

Wife  called them after 5  days and they said not coming back and they "still dont have a job"

I dont know about you but  when I was young I would  have done any job.

If I had no other job id do it (not in Thailand of course work permit ect). I might hate manual labor but if there is nothing else and I make more then I get doing nothing (welfare) I would do it. I am not lazy, just invested time when I was young to study so I would not have to do jobs like this. 

[watcharacters]

On 4/8/2018 at 11:55 AM, colinneil said:

You are wrong, even if he increases the salary he will still have the same problem.

When i came home after 7 months in hospital, i needed a carer when my wife was at work.

Wifes cousin wanted the job, ok start tomorrow, she was paid good money for her time, after 3 months, she said i tired to work, i stay home p[laying on the internet, 4  weeks later wanted to work again lasted 2 months stopped, came back again wanting to work, lasted 1 week.

People here who are not already working do not want work.

 

Sounds like the wife's cousin wanted part time or "seasonal" employment.

 

No harm in that I suppose.