The Business of Housing Your Employees
The equine industry is one of the few industries where employee housing is commonly included in a compensation package, yet I have never seen a meaningful discussion on housing. Ever. So let’s start with the central question: should employers offer on-site housing? I have a very definite answer to this: it depends. It depends on your property, it depends on your facility type, and most of all, it depends on what kind of employee you are looking to attract.
Many equine jobs offer on-site housing, but the variation of what that housing entails is significant. As an employer, you need to carefully consider what kind of person your housing attracts or detracts. The most common type of on-site housing is for working students and/or grooms. This is quite often a private room in a shared house or apartment. This kind of housing can work well for intern type situations who are there for months at a time, often college age or younger, single, and female. This housing can also work for grooms who are single and don’t mind living in shared quarters. The next type of housing is private one bedroom apartments, small mobile homes, or campers. They are sometimes for working students, but often are for full-time grooms, assistant trainers or managers. The rarest form of housing is a two or three bedroom home, large enough for a family, often reserved for the owner, head manager or head trainer of a facility.
All of those kinds of housing can be good for the employee and the employer, again, depending on the details. I write about this from personal experience. I was once a working student who lived in a little studio apartment above a barn. When I lived on-site I was single, had no furniture, lived there for the summer months, and brought nothing with me but my horse and my clothes. Under those cirsumstances, that little apartment was perfect for me. After I graduated college and went back to work as an assistant trainer however, my circumstances had changed. I had a significant other who lived with me, two apartments worth of furniture between us, and within a few months I added another horse to my expanded life. All of those things made it no longer practical or comfortable for me to live like I did as a working student. And that’s what I want to get across here. If you as an employer are looking to attract college age or younger working students, a shared house is totally fine. If however, you are looking for a mature, stable, long term experienced groom, assistant, trainer, or manager, a shared housing situation may actively deter potential candidates.
“Mature”, “relieble”, and “long term” are words often associated with someone who is at least out of college, mid-to-late twenties, but often times older. Now, the issue here is that demographic type generally has significant other, pets, furniture, and many other things that would make communal or small apartment living undesirable. If you as an employer are looking for someone with 10+ professional years of experience, be prepared to offer housing accordingly. Again this demographic, early thirties at the youngest, will often be married, and will want or already have children. If you want them to live on the property, have housing that will accommodate that. The housing you offer should be specific to the job and demographic you want to hire.