What do your pay your gardener?

R170 per day with lunch and breakfast. Work starts at 07:30 and ends at 16:30 or thereabout. With about 30-45 minutes allowed for lunch. Bloemfontein.

****er fired himself though. Lent R800 from me and hasn't been back since. Now I do my own garden.
 
ambroseg1 said:
R170 per day with lunch and breakfast. Work starts at 07:30 and ends at 16:30 or thereabout. With about 30-45 minutes allowed for lunch. Bloemfontein.

****er fired himself though. Lent R800 from me and hasn't been back since. Now I do my own garden.
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R170 per day for a 9 hour day with barely a break? That is only R20 per hour for hard work in the sun...No wonder he took the money and never came back. I'm guessing the guy probably had to pay at least R20 for transport there and R20 for transport back too.
 
silverfoxrox said:
We are in Pretoria and pay our gardener R275 per day, provide breakfast and lunch. He can help himself to things in the fridge (since I don't have time to prepare something for him).

Do you need to give him an annual increase if he works for you longer than 1 year? Depends, do you also expect an annual increase at your job to cope with 6-10% inflation? Poor/low socio-economic status people also have to cope with inflation, so yes...yes you do have to give an annual increase.

Edit: We have a rather large yard so it is usually 5-8 hours of work (depending on what we outline for him at the beginning of the day). He can leave when he finishes as long as all the work is done and done well. This has never been a problem.
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How big is your garden?
 
R150 p/day, breakfast , tea and lunch. 5 Days a week. When there is no garden work to do, he does handy man jobs, painting etc. Jack of all trades.
 
ambroseg1 said:
****er fired himself though. Lent R800 from me and hasn't been back since. Now I do my own garden.
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I think I had the same gardener a few years ago - borrowed R900 for his dads funeral; never came back.

Been doing my own garden ever since :-)
 
maumau said:
How big is your garden?
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Our entire ERF is 1200 sqm. However, the entire front yard is now succulent/hard-scaped so is very little maintenance. The work he does varies from week to week because we actually have very little grass that needs to be mowed. The type of work he does varies from cutting grass, trimming trees, sweeping the hardscape, weeding vegetable beds, digging vegetable garden beds, fixing things, small painting jobs, etc. It is never the same each week because not everything I listed needs to be done every week.

After a bit of experimenting we decided to let him control his own hours...we give him the list of tasks (within reason....he is a human working outdoors in heat and sun, after all and there is only so much one can do) and he can leave when he is done with them. He comes in and takes tea and coffee breaks and eats lunch whenever he wants (although, since he can leave whenever he is done, we find he doesn't take too many breaks because he'd rather just leave early). He helps himself to bread and sandwich toppings in the fridge (that way I don't need to take time out of my work day or leisure to make him something). Then when he is done, he showers in the guest room and goes.

The guy we've hired is neat and thorough and usually completes all his tasks by around 3pm.
 
small print reads: necromancy warning, but looking for a decent and fair rate

maumau said:
In Johannesburg.

R180 + lunch, 6 hour day. Increase next month to R190.
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jesus. would you be ok with R180 vir 6 hours of work? (R30 p/h)

Looking at the replies so far seems the majority are under paying their workers. I would think at least R100 p/h would be a start going into R150 p/h.
 
OP you are paying sufficient, if he wants more he can voetsek, there are plenty willing to work in a garden for R250 a day tax free and get a free lunch :thumbsup:
 
I don't have a gardener, more of a handy man.

He's slow when gardening so I've taken that over.

I'm paying R450 for 8h weekly. My wife is not happy.
 
ekske1 said:
small print reads: necromancy warning, but looking for a decent and fair rate


jesus. would you be ok with R180 vir 6 hours of work? (R30 p/h)

Looking at the replies so far seems the majority are under paying their workers. I would think at least R100 p/h would be a start going into R150 p/h.
Click to expand...


Exactly why we don't employ a gardener anymore.

It's not fair to underpay and couldn't afford much more than the R250 he was earning last year. He wasn't keen on a higher salary but only 2 weeks a month.
 
ekske1 said:
small print reads: necromancy warning, but looking for a decent and fair rate


jesus. would you be ok with R180 vir 6 hours of work? (R30 p/h)

Looking at the replies so far seems the majority are under paying their workers. I would think at least R100 p/h would be a start going into R150 p/h.
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You necroed the thread why? To talk about 2 year old pricing?
 
maumau said:
Exactly why we don't employ a gardener anymore.

It's not fair to underpay and couldn't afford much more than the R250 he was earning last year. He wasn't keen on a higher salary but only 2 weeks a month.
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Oh well I started the dude off on R300 of the job he did (3 hours) while I work on papers for tasks that should be done, hour rate and so on not wanting a fallout later on. I still think at least R100 is good place to start and working it up against measurement of work completed. I suppose you can't pay ' a lot ' and they get around to do many hours of little work. Hence legalized contractual paperwork.
 
I pay mine 300 a day and lunch. He usually starts at about 9am and is done by 2pm. If he finishes earlier kudos for him, stays the same. Just don't skimp on the quality of the job
 
TheRidDlerX said:
I pay mine 300 a day and lunch. He usually starts at about 9am and is done by 2pm. If he finishes earlier kudos for him, stays the same. Just don't skimp on the quality of the job
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that's triple minimum wage - good on you :thumbsup:
 
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