My advise to people under thirty.

OP, hate to say it, but it sounds like you have set your wage too low. It may be a bit over minimum, but what is the actual going rate for heavy labor in your area? Where I live, a bit over minimum wage is what Wal-mart pays for indoor employees who cannot often manage more than about 1 hour of work in an eight hour shift. If you want folks who show up on time, work their butt off, and be willing to work outside, you will need to start them at a higher wage, and then increase pay from there.

Loki

Bare minimum pay, bare minimum effort. I wouldn't do *any* job for $8/hr, much less hard labor. Now, $12/hr? That I'd consider.

I've hired more than a 1000 people in various industries ranging from hotel maids to PhD scientists and engineers and one thing I can tell you, what you pay someone does not make them honest, hard working, or on time. The same problems I had with maids I had with the PhDs, it was no different. As long as the ground rules are laid out, the boss is honest, and the path to advancement is clear, a good worker is going to be a good worker and a bad non-worker is going to find ways to not work.

research has shown that money is not a motivator. It might work for a few weeks, but long term it does not change the worker's attitude one bit.

If the problem the OP was experiencing was having good workers suddenly quit for better jobs, pay might be the issue. It doesn't sound like that is the case here. People who are no shows are going to no show no matter what they get paid.

Work hard for 8 bucks an hour - are you kidding - heck I'll go on welfare and make a lot more plus housing, food stamps, medical and dental care - why work when I can go fishing and hunting instead - the government will take care of me - my buddy Obama will see to that - Oh - I think I'll sign up for disability too - I just hurt my finger typing

Personaly if you pay me peanuts I'll act the monkey, pay me decently and make me feel valued and I'll work a lot more hours that you pay me for, but bad pay and no advancement posibility = bad work. Back home manual labour pays a small premium, as not everyone can do it. (over shop or bar work for example) I think part of that is becasue there's often nowhere to go with it, in the shop in time you could end up managing it, same with the bar, but working for a owner, you'll never get a promo. so the wage has to be enough to entice someone to stay.

try doing the first month on a really low wage as a "training time" or trial period whatever the law lets you do there. cost you less to weed out people then, but you have to make sure they know that the pay will go up.

__________________

I would say that $8 is good money in swains local. I suspect he gets the kids who quit school, or the military, or even finished it and have no skills, come from bad homes where nobody works, and they take from any there who do, or from failed marriages if no kids involved.
When I worked at a mill, everybody showed up and on time. One guy even lived there, in a junked pk bed with a homemade top over it out of boards. He bought a tiny stove and fed it with scraps around the mill. He was a hard sleeper, and I occasionally had to go wake him. Stunk like heck in there lol. He had a motor cycle he would go to town once a week. Doubt he ever took a bath in the wintertime. BUT he could have as W Planes had public bathing facilities around the square.

If the job you have doesn't pay a "living wage"...

Examine your bills, and change/pay them off....

Examine your lifestyle and change that....

Get a second job, you'd only waste that second 8 hours sleeping or watching TV anyway...

Get some training...

Problem solved!

Mon

__________________
"Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are
wonderful."

--Ann Landers

"keep hiring when you think you are well staffed..."let the cream rise to the top""

That one is tricky and requires pacing. The temptation is to chop the heads off the lowest 10% periodically, but doing it too often will make the entire workforce nervous and result in people looking for work elsewhere. As long as the basic work rules are followed, churning can be counterproductive. Another problem with that type of management is that often the devious and dishonest can appear very smart. If you aren't watching out for that and are focusing on the low performers, you set yourself up for being clipped big time.

In some situations I had to go in and clean house entirely, watch out for friends of the old regime trying to infiltrate, and periodically hire in ringers from a detective agency to ferret out hidden thieves.

Henry Ford was an employer who understood this. He was paying his workers $5 a day when everyone else was paying $2 a day. And since his workers had money in their pockets they were spending it (including on Model Ts) which contributed to the economy. And surprisingly enough the fact that he paid his employees more did not make him any less rich. He understood that there was no such thing as a trickle down economy - that money had to flow at all levels but especially at the middle class in order for a country to prosper.

One thing that caught my eye when reading the opening post was something about it not being long before the workers were standing around watching you work.

Hmmm. Why would that be? Do they have specific jobs that are for THEM to do? Why would it not be you standing there staring at them saying, "Well, we're waiting." It almost sounds like you're just stepping in and doing it all even though you're paying them to do it.

It's one thing if they really did not know what they were supposed to be doing. But even if they do, and the boss man steps in and does something, who are they to say, "boss, that's not your job, let me..." Um, you're the boss. And if you want to do what they're supposed to be doing, they're ok with that. When you're doing what they're supposed to be doing, have you given them instructions as to what they're supposed to be doing while you're doing their job?

Yes, I think $8/hr is pretty low. Do the people that you hire have any idea that if they work hard, they'll move up in pay? Would you consider doing something like a "bonus" where they'll have 90 days to prove themselves as a good worker and if they do so, they'll get an extra $2/hr for every hour worked from day one? And maybe the chance to continue moving up, and not just $0.10/hr. I've had jobs in the past that paid dismally with no hope of any decent raise, ever. I gotta tell ya, wasn't all that interested in bustin' my butt there.

I may be way off base but it was what came to mind. No offense intended.

I can understand why he wants to start off with $8.00 a hr. I just got a new job though a temp place old job was mim wage for 52 hrs a week and no benefits was there for 4 yrs. Make the same or so for 40 hrs. I would pay some like he is but would tell them they have to prove they earn more. A guy i worked with his wife gets disability and he gets maybe 30 hrs sometimes more. He can work 55 but don't want to bc she gets money from the gov. Something else i don't understand. A man i know wife passes and the kids(15 to 8 and 4 kids) gets money from the gov. He has millions of dollars.

The part that seems to be getting lost in this thread with all the talk about the wage is.......he couldn't get the guy to get out of bed and come to work!

I know the starting wage is low, but if you show up and do a good job, you have two options.
1) You'll get a raise.
2) You'll be on your way to finding another job that WILL pay you for your efforts.

BTDT.
I generally give an employer up to two years to show this is mutually beneficial.
If after 2 years, I've busted my hump only to hear, "Sorry no money for you." I'm gone, adios.
My resume is filled with two year employment periods.
It's a two-way street but you have to willing to do your part as well.

Been there, done that.

Especially in the hotter months, you start at 6AM and are pretty much shot at noon.

The guy who owned the mill would take three one-gallon milk, fill them 1/3 full with water and freeze. Before he kicked the old diesel motor off, he give me the jugs to fill with water - that was mine for the morning.

We'd run the mill with three guys. One sawed, one tailed and ran the bull edger and one caught the back of the edger, stacked at the end of the line and kept the chips raked down in the dump truck.

Been more than one day, I drank all three jugs. I don't ever remember a day when I had to stop to pee.

I haven't decided what is the best argument to persuade a kid to got to college...Letting him roof for the summer or work at a sawmill...

I'm sorry, but I have NEVER matched the amount of work I did to what I made per hour...EVER. My job was always to do the BEST job I could. Period.

My job was to show up, on time, every day and do the job I was paid to do. And, if I felt I could NOT do the job, or do it adequately for some reason, it was my responsibility to notify my employer.

Mon

__________________
"Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are
wonderful."

--Ann Landers

IF your workers all burn wood, which I suspect most of them do, You could let them have the slab sides, as there not worth much, you wouldn't have them to move/load, and they wouldn't be in your way. If they were removed by the day, you wouldn't have to buy banding to strap them, and your workers would get free heat without taking the time to cut it for themselves.

There are lots of people who want to get paid for doing very little. And it does seem to be a bigger problem with younger people than with some of the older ones. Our work ethic has gone downhill over the years. Some kids are great though, but more are lazy. My husband has issues with lazy, whiny employees too.

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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Hello- no one is a slave. If they find the pay too low for the work, they simply refuse the job.
But having agreed to it, then they should meet the minimum of showing up. For pete's sake.....

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For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

Hard physical work out in the weather commands higher wages. I'm surprised he got anyone to even agree to take the job at those wages.

I got hired by UPS for $8 an hour back in 1990 to unload and wash trucks. That was almost 30 years ago!

I'm a one man band, but occasionally I need a helper.

I had a neighbor kid about age 28, looking for some cash. I needed a part at a salvage yard 40 miles away. We made a deal for him to show up Monday morning. I was going to give him $50 in the morning, and $50 when he returned from the salvage yard with my part. (80 mile round trip)
Monday came, and no show. About two weeks later he stops in and says, Sorry, man, I over slept!!. I said, So you over slept for two, Blank,blank WEEKS!!

The kid would have profited about $80, for a three hour car ride

Around here, they have trouble getting anyone to umpire youth baseball. They'll let high school kids umpire, as long as they take a weekend course and pass a written test.

Pay starts at $15 for a 1-hour T-ball game. If a kid will work the early 4PM T-ball games and then pick up a game or two with the older kids, he can easily pocket $75-$100/evening, more on Saturday. A kid that really hustles could put $500/week in his pocket.

The association has very few takers among the high school kids...