`They’ve Taught Me To Be Human Again’

No chance. I mean, you just had to take one look at the guy. The tattoos, the words tumbling nervously through gaps in his teeth, the sheer damage he's soaked up. You didn't have to look up his record. It was like he had an invisible ball and chain. So, no, thank you very much for asking, but we don't need any help right now. He could be someone else's problem.

No chance? Not even one? That was all Chris Courtney wanted: a single opportunity to break the cycle, a single precarious plank to bridge the abyss dividing a convicted felon from the world of work; from consuming taxes to paying them. Turns out, one chance was all he needed.

“He kept calling me,” Jeannie Larkin remembers. “I kept saying, 'I'm sorry but I'm just so busy right now, I really don't have time to sit down.' And he finally just said, 'I'm coming.'”

First impressions being what they are, he can't have seemed any more promising in person than he must have sounded on the phone.

“Okay,” Larkin said. “Can you just walk with me while I finish up work here?”

“Because we had to get ready for a show the next day,” she explains now. “He came out at 5 p.m. and I thought, 'At this point I'm still going to be in this barn at 10 p.m.'” She pauses and smiles. “We were done by 7.30 p.m. Chris had two horses bathed and shining in no time. All these farms he'd been to, nobody had let him touch a horse. And when I said, 'Okay, you take this one and I'll take this other one and we'll turn them out,' he got to the edge of the barn and started crying. It all came out: it was just like that, letting go of everything. A new start.”

Jeannie and Nick Larkin from Wainui Farm | Sue Finley photo

That was two years ago, and today Courtney remains a diligent employee at Wainui Farm near Paris, Kentucky. He has seized his one chance.

It has been a long and winding road. His dream had been to be a jockey, like his dad. But he fell into bad company on the racetrack and, trying to keep his weight down, became dependent on cocaine.

“I can't count the jockeys I got high with in the parking lot,” Courtney admits. “I was at Ellis Park, living in the tack room on the backside. My dad had brought a rider in, he called me over there and I couldn't believe it, all these guys sitting there doing their thing right before the race. Next day my dad's horse got beat in a photo finish and he said, 'What were you on?!' It was the jockey that couldn't finish, not the horse.

“A lot of bad stuff went on at the racetrack in the 80s and 90s. I've been everywhere. River Downs, Latonia, Beulah. If I stayed in one place too long, I would get in trouble and had to go on the road again.”

In the end, his addiction became so desperate that he held up a series of motels. He was sentenced to 10 years for armed robbery.

“I didn't hurt anybody,” he stresses. “But let me tell you, doesn't matter how often you see it on TV, when you're in that courtroom and your final judgement comes, and you're looking around and see people that you love and they can't do anything for you, and then they put you in handcuffs and walk you through that door, and it bangs shut behind you, it's scary. You're thinking, 'Wait a minute, is this really happening?'”

And the following years, similarly, introduced him to all the nightmares of prison life. For the first five and a half years he was in a high-security prison, his brutalization measured by a transformation of the 90lbs track rider into 270lbs of misery, barely able to tie his laces.

“They turned me into an animal,” he says. “They put me in this cage, shut the door, walked away, leaving me to fend for myself. Because of my crime, having a weapon, I was classified as violent. So they wouldn't let me go into any rehab, which is what I needed.”

He came out believing that the system had no true interest in reformation, when reoffending would only lock in profit for prison operators. He was grateful, however, to complete his time at the low-security Blackburn Correctional Complex near Lexington, and to excel in the TRF program there. Nonetheless the lack of solid pathways back into society, at that time, left anyone with his history all too vulnerable to relapse.

“I've been good, though, I haven't been back,” he says. “But I was bad when I first come home, I was lost. My dad and my brother both died on me while I was in the joint. I came home and everything I knew was gone. Nobody would hire me. And this is all I know how to do.” He gestures at the barns. “I can't even wash dishes. For two years I tried to find a job. Sometimes I'd get hired but at the end of the [first] day they'd call me in the office and say, 'Well, Mr. Courtney, you're a convicted felon and we run tours here: we can't have you in the barn, out in public.' There was always some excuse.

“Statistically, you will go back. About 80 percent do. Some of them I saw come in three times. And that little gap, between being released and trying to find where you fit in, you get mad, you get frustrated, you try to relieve it with drugs or alcohol, and then it just spirals.”

As things have turned out, however, his love of horses has now restored the trapdoor it opened in his youth–thanks to the intervention of Laurie Mays at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. As project manager of the Agriculture and Equine Talent Pipeline, Mays was determined to dovetail a labor crisis on Bluegrass farms with a route back into society for released prisoners. Those plans were still evolving when she put Courtney in touch with Larkin and her husband Nick at Wainui Farm.

Chris Courtney in the stall with `Alex' | Sue Finley photo

“We've had a farm for over 20 years,” Larkin says. “And we've had a lot of people come through and work for us. And I have to say it's just a handful that have truly cared about the horses. We've had highly educated people wanting to do horses, people with PhDs. But compassion and caring is what it really comes down to. And Chris has a natural ability. Even from a distance he can look at a horse and see when something's wrong. From the start, he was somebody we could depend on. We trusted him immediately. He's been through a lot, but we're just looking to the future, and beautiful days with the horses.”

“I thank God every day that Miss Jeannie trusts me to be out here,” Courtney says. “I mean, look at this!” He surveys the rolling paddocks, the shades of green altering with the breeze, and laughs. “I'm being paid right now! Can you believe that? I ought to be paying them. I came through that gate and have been here ever since. I never had a job this long in my life. I'm 50 years old, and sometimes I've had three jobs in a week. I'm happy every day I come here. I feel my heart full. They've taught me to be human again.”

He relates how another troubled creature, a mare named Miss Cocoa, had also found sanctuary on the farm about a month previously.

“She was a really nervous one,” he says. “She'd pace and work herself up in a frenzy. But she has finally started to come around. And today I walked through the field and said, 'Hey, Cocoa.' And she raised her head up and started walking towards me, paid no attention to the other horses, came over on her own. And I told Miss Jeannie, 'You know what, that's the moment in a horseman's life when you know you got that horse. This is 'my' horse: she's comfortable, she trusts me, and I trust her.”

The parallels are too obvious to require stating. The question is whether these redemption tales, the kind that united Miss Cocoa and her groom, could be emulated elsewhere? After all, this is an industry nearly as lacking in skilled and willing labor as Chris Courtney had been lacking opportunities to provide just that.

'It's about Breaking down That Stigma'

The fervent ambition of Mays, back at the Kentucky Chamber, is that people sharing this kind of odyssey might now find their path to a brighter future better signposted.

“We now have a pipeline from Blackburn straight into the industry,” she explains. “Whereas Chris came in a roundabout way, now we work very specifically with the instructor and the warden to make sure when guys are coming out, we know exactly where they're going.”

Laurie Mays | Sue Finley photo

Many who enter the TRF program at Blackburn have no previous experience with horses; nor will they tend to know a great deal about the surrounding region and its premier industry. At the same time, many potential employers know little more about the program than they might have glimpsed from the interstate. So a connection had to be fostered from both sides.

“Within the prison system, we help with resumé writing, cover letters, interview skills,” Mays says. “A lot of gentlemen, if they've worked jobs before, maybe in manufacturing or construction, don't know how their skills transfer into the equine industry.

“And then on the flip side, we educate. Oftentimes, they've hired people with a criminal record, but they've not done it on purpose. So we're helping them figure out how to be good employers.

How can you support that population? A lot of times, these justice-involved individuals come out with needs outside of the scope of work. Housing. Transportation. If they're in any type of recovery program because of a substance-use disorder, how can employers support their recovery so that they are the best employee that they can be?”

Though Covid delayed things, the next initiative was to invite potential employers to visit the program.

“Employers would tour the facility, and basically do working interviews with the guys, they could see their skills,” Mays explains. “Once employers could put faces to stories, it was a lot easier. It wasn't just 'an inmate', it was 'Steven'. And that really helped with the stigma we had seen in the industry.”

Mays liaises with the prison's re-entry co-ordinator and equine instructor. When they advise her of an inmate nearing release, with an interest in offering the industry the skills he has acquired (and these may be in masonry or maintenance, for instance, as well as in the equine program), she will circulate his details to potential interviewers. These employers can either come to the campus or interview remotely.

“Our goal is that they're hired before they leave Blackburn,” Mays says. “That way, when we know they're going to a certain farm, we can then work with the re-entry coordinator to make sure they have housing, transportation and all of the things that might present as barriers. Our goal is for them to start work within three days of release.”

This is only one of several channels–others include high schools and foster care–opened by the Chamber to supply a labor deficiency in the agricultural sector. But it's proving so successful that the model is now being adopted by other prisons at a higher level of security. Numbers have so far been relatively low, but should keep growing along with the confidence of employers. Over 70 released prisoners have now been placed, so far without a single report of recidivism.

To promote empathy among potential employers, for those leaving prison and/or addiction rehab, the Chamber offers a re-entry simulation.

“All employers are given an identity of someone who's just been released from incarceration,” Mays explains. “And you have all these things you have to do within a certain time limit, and with a certain amount of money. That way employers truly understand what justice-involved individuals are up against, and it really is eye-opening. Employers finally understand why this population often fails, because the deck is stacked is against them.

“A lot of the guys have been incarcerated for a very long time. And to go from 20, 25 years' incarceration, to being out and about within an hour is scary, and hard. A lot of prep work needs to be done. Just grocery shopping can be very overwhelming.”

Some employers have responded by maintaining zero tolerance on failed drug tests while also assisting entry into recovery programs, for instance, or with legal consequences.

Stable Recovery pairs people in recovery with jobs in the equine industry | Stable Recovery

“And so the employers are helping employees to navigate the system,” Mays says. “Employers will say, 'You can come back to us [once clean] and there will be a job here for you.' This support significantly increases the likelihood of success in recovery, and opens the door for the return of a valued employee. So that learning curve, on the employer side, is really helping to alleviate the `one-and-done' mentality. They see the barriers this population faces.”

Mays has gathered 45 farms into her Thoroughbred collective: a solid base, if still only a fraction of the Bluegrass total. But they extend from small family outfits to some of the biggest in the business, and the word should continue to spread as success stories proliferate. Farms that have embraced the program, moreover, tend to make themselves available to mentor those nervous about doing so.

“I think there's been a culture shift,” Mays adds. “It's been about breaking down the stigma. Over the last 18 months, we've seen a huge uptick in involved employers. Because a) they're desperate, and b) they're starting to really understand the benefits of hiring this population, and that it's doable. But I'll be honest, it's an upward climb.”

Because the reality is that there will, of course, be failures. Not every story ends with everyone living happily ever after. “You are going to have people that relapse or recidivate,” Mays acknowledges. “But that doesn't mean they're a lost cause.”

Often the best outcomes reflect best practice. One large show-jumping farm has promoted a Blackburn graduate to professional groom, but had to match his exceptional competence with exceptional commitment. They worked with parole officers, to allow him to accompany horses out of the state, and diverted a portion of his pay into a savings account to fund the purchase of a car.

The one environment of which the program remains wary is the racetrack, which tends to be too volatile for those vulnerable in early recovery. But farms and veterinary clinics have given purpose and engagement to many troubled characters trying to retrieve a foothold in society. Mays says that studies demonstrate a huge reduction in reoffending among those who secure not just a job, but “meaningful” employment. And the key player here, very often, is the horse itself.

“We talk with the guys all the time about how horses have helped them with trust, empathy and understanding responsibility,” Mays says. “A lot of them will tell you, 'I don't trust anybody because of my history and my background, and I was never responsible for anything.' But having been assigned horses, program attendees have to work as a team, with the horses and each other. They build a lot of interpersonal skills that they didn't have before.”

The point is that farms are short of “help” when that is precisely what some of these people could really use. Mays is trying to bring those needs together. But if the Bluegrass community needs to hear the same message from one of its own, then they do not have far to seek. Because one of its premier farms has launched an exemplary rehab program, from the ground up, through a tremendous commitment of both moral and financial resources.

'The Best Thing I've Ever Been Involved In'

“There's been literally miracles happen,” Frank Taylor says. “Guys that would be dead. Guys reunited with their families. A bunch that are now employable and sober. I didn't even dream it could go as well as it has.”

Frank Taylor | Keeneland photo

With the cooperation of his brothers, since 2021 Taylor has helped as many as 40 recovering addicts back onto an even keel through their Stable Recovery program at Taylor Made. At the moment, he has 20 housed together in downtown Lexington, with another dozen sharing a smart residence on the farm.

Responding to a chastening challenge within his family environment, two and a half years ago, Taylor renounced the bottle himself and reset his whole lifestyle. And he resolved to match this spiritual renewal with a hugely practical walking of the walk.

On the one hand, like so many others, Taylor and his brothers were finding it increasingly difficult to hire reliable help. They did muster a score of “super people, very hard workers” through the H2A Visa program. But then Taylor went to see Rob Perez, whose two DV8 Kitchens in Lexington are staffed by recovering addicts.

“What do you think?” Taylor asked. “Could this work in the horse business? Tell me what you've learned doing this.”

Perez replied that you do it, first and foremost, because it's the right thing to do. Other fulfilments, notably finding yourself a useful employee, are incidental. And he warned that there would be a lot of groundwork. DV8 starts with 90 days' training, half of which is spent patching things up: hauling people to doctors, dentists, lawyers, parole officers.

“But Rob said that once you get somebody through that fire, you'll find they start to develop all the characteristics you look for in an employee or team member,” Taylor explains. “They're honest, loyal, hardworking, grateful, and they work well with others. And I've found that to be totally true. When you bring these guys together, it forms a brotherhood like nothing I've ever seen.”

Stable Recovery addresses the exact same gap highlighted by Chris Courtney and Laurie Mays. Because even when addicts manage the resolution and good fortune to get onto a 30-day detox, they will often drop straight off a ledge once back out in the world.

The Taylors started by dovetailing their School of Horsemanship with the work of Shepherd's House in Lexington, but Stable Recovery only came together once they hired Christian Countzler.
“He was a coal miner and then a soldier,” Taylor relates. “Went to Afghanistan and Iraq, saw a lot of bad stuff. Got into addiction. That took over his life, he lost his family, his wife, his finances. He lived under a bridge here in Lexington for four years. And then he went to Shepherd's House and got sober there. That was five years ago, and now that's what he lives for: to help people get sober, and stay sober.”

The Taylors put Countzler in charge of a program they were bankrolling at arm's length. It was to have financial independence: there would be no Taylor on the board, which instead recruited the likes of Dan Pride from Darley and former University of Kentucky quarterback Freddie Maggard. This was not to be perceived as any kind of private benefit, for the farm, but something that other donors could get behind.

Anybody who comes to Stable Recovery has made a vital first step. They have admitted to themselves that they're in a corner, and need to be lifted out. They start with the detox, gathering basic tools of recovery. But then comes the game-changer: a structure, a navigable path.

The Stable Recovery Workers at Taylor Made | Stable Recovery

“In Stable Recovery, they're around people that are trying to do the exact same thing as them, 24/7,” Taylor explains. “Now, the first 90 days they're going to all these appointments, doctors, therapists. So we only work them about 30 or 40 hours a week. But once they've gotten through all that, they start their typical day at 5 a.m. They make their beds, their rooms have to be spotless. They get something to eat, and have to be ready for an AA meeting in the house at 6.15 a.m. And then, 6.50 a.m., everybody hits the barns. They work until 4 p.m. and then come back, do chores, eat dinner. Then usually they have another meeting, and by that time they're ready for sleep.”

In other words, no free time. No idle hands for which the devil might make work. They do get a chance to lie in, every week or so, just to avoid burnout. But otherwise they don't leave those tramlines. There's sweat, but not the sweats. Countzler sets unsparing standards, and knows how to dish out a military bawling. He won't abide a bad apple. But so long as his guys are putting it all in, they'll be tired but safe.

“The other thing, in their first 90 days, is that they can never go anywhere without another guy,” Taylor adds. “So it's a buddy system. You can't go off to the store or do something by yourself. What's great is that when you can get somebody sober, the only way they can stay sober is by helping another person get sober. So if you get one sober, and he gets 10 sober, and they each get 10 sober, you can start changing this.”

Nobody pays a dime until they get a paycheck. Once they're getting their minimum 15 bucks an hour, they pay $160 a week for board, lodging, utilities, some clothing. Taylor belongs firmly in the school that you don't give a man fish to eat but instead teach him how to use a rod. But he's animated primarily by his faith, and a Christian duty to those in need.

“I think if everybody woke up in the morning and said, 'What can I do to make this world better?' and then took action on doing that, this place would turn around pretty quickly,” he says. “Not overnight, maybe, but pretty quickly.”

As it is, he's distressed to see young people in the thrall of fentanyl; and incensed by the greed that has nourished opioid addiction.

“The way I acted, when I was young, I might not have made it if I'd been born in this time period,” he says. “But look, the thing is that 70 to 80 percent of the people in jail got there because of addiction. And then you take how much it costs to keep a prisoner, when you're just housing them, not rehabbing them. What if you shifted all those funds into a bunch of things like this?

“What we're doing, the government ought to do. Because basically we're taking people that have become criminals on the dole, because they're addicted; we're getting them off the stuff; and we're making them employable. Now they're taxpayers. They go from costing $50,000 a year to paying $15-20,000. And they'll raise better kids too.”

Everyone on the program has started work at Taylor Made but several have graduated elsewhere: a couple placed at Spy Coast, a couple at Rood and Riddle, one at Darley. And Taylor wants them to aim high. One of the first on the program had never been anywhere near a horse in his life. He turned out to be a natural.

“And now he's a broodmare divisional manager for us,” Taylor says. “He's making a good salary plus utilities, car, insurance and a place to live. And his kids are moving out of inner-city Lexington. So it's just awesome to see that. And I've another guy that took over my maintenance, did the same thing.”

When he meets resistance from industry peers, Taylor tells them straight. “Basically, when you're hiring at that groom level, you're not going to get some Harvard graduate come in there,” he argues. “And basically the group you're hiring from is composed of two people: the ones that are addicted and not treated, and the ones that are addicted and treated.”

Okay, that might be overstating the situation. But if you're anything like the Taylor brothers, who toiled so hard to get where they are today, you definitely want someone that works as hard as you do.

True, when Taylor first proposed mining this unpromising seam of labor, there was pushback even from his brothers: “What if somebody ODs out here? What if they kill a horse? What if they steal everything?” And he replied: “Yeah, but what if you save somebody's life? Or get a family reunited?”

Recently they had a bunch of their guys in a winner's circle and counted up something like 37 felonies in the picture.

“But I trust those guys, I really do,” Taylor says. “They feel so good when they actually start working, start doing something positive. And then we haven't even talked about the secret ingredient in the whole operation. Because it is amazing how therapeutic those horses are. When you see these guys, down and out, in bad shape, and then they get to handle a horse? As they say, there's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man. We've got all these things, but then, boom, put the horse in there, it's like icing on the cake.”

That should resonate across an industry with many affluent participants and patrons. As Taylor says, addiction is today so prevalent that he doesn't know one person whose life hasn't been in some way affected, through family or friends. Some donors have already supplemented the Taylors' own contribution, which was recently boosted by a six-figure dividend from the John Hall Memorial golf day, staged for the farm's late yearling manager. But Taylor believes that funding is all that prevents exponential growth of this venture.

“If we had the housing and the money, we could have 150 to 200 in the program in 60 days,” he avows. “I've been dreaming big. In five or 10 years from now, you could have a Stable Recovery with 100 people at Belmont Park, 100 at Churchill, 100 in Ocala. And starting in Ireland, England, all over the world. I think it just works so well and, if you can keep the human tendency to screw up out of it, and stay focused on what God wants done, I think it will grow like that. I just think it's a no-brainer. And it's a no-brainer for anybody trying to build a workforce. Our taxes are paying able-bodied people not to not work, and that's crazy.”

A meeting at Stable Recovery | Stable Recovery

Not everyone who enters the program will walk out the door as another miracle. Taylor remembers one tragic case: couldn't see it through, went away and drank himself to death. But even he bequeathed moments of enrichment.

“We're all sitting around this campfire, the sun's coming up,” Taylor recalls. “We're talking about how you don't need to be judging other people. And he goes, 'You ever heard that saying, that you need to walk a mile in a man's shoes before you judge him? Well, I think that's great. Because at least you're a mile away from that sonofabitch–and you got his shoes.'”
Taylor's laughter is laced with sorrow. But overall he is astounded at the extent and degree of reformation his program is achieving. He refuses any credit, instead reproaching himself that he should have tried something like this decades ago.

“This is literally the best thing that I've ever been involved in,” he says. “These guys, I love them. I mean, they've become so close to me. If you hear their stories, and what they have been through, to see them come out of it, see the joy and happiness, man, it really is awesome.

“There's one guy in there, he's been addicted for 32 years. Drugs, alcohol, everything. Had a good family, grandkids, lost it all. For 32 years he's been in and out, hadn't been able to do anything. Now he's been sober 10 months, he's earning a good living, and he's a model employee. He is now running one of the recovery houses and helping a lot of men get and stay sober. He's spiritually strong, he's made a connection with God, he's a totally different person. And the other day, while we're out there working, out of the blue he comes up and gives me a big hug and says, 'Thank you for saving my life.' And you sell a horse for $10 million, it's not even close to what that means.”

The post `They’ve Taught Me To Be Human Again’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Help Wanted: KEEP Helping Kentucky Farms With Strategies To Improve Employee Retention In A Tough Labor Market

The signs are everywhere, and it's no longer just “Help Wanted” hanging in the windows. A “Closed due to lack of staff” sign has become an increasingly common sight at local restaurants and retail stores as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the labor market.

The equine industry has faced this issue for years, and the pandemic has only made it worse. Whether workers are available or not, however, the horses' needs remain the same.

Labor shortages are addressed in any number of ways, but most focus on building the pool of potential employees. In the equine industry, that has included efforts like the NTRA's lobby to increase labor visa caps and grassroots programs to improve working conditions on the backstretch.

Kentucky, meanwhile, has also embraced the exact opposite strategy: working with employers to address how to improve targeting and job conditions for potential employees. It has led to ideas like experimenting with schedule flexibility in order to improve employee retention, as well as a growing awareness of the need for upward mobility within the industry.

The strategy evolved as the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce was working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on a new project that centered on understanding employers' needs first, and working backward from there. Kentucky is one of three states that adopted the program on a statewide level, focusing on high-demand industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation.

In the midst of that implementation, the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP) came forward to join the project: Laurie Mays was hired as the Equine Talent Pipeline Project Manager.

“I'm a facilitator; it's a heavily employer-led initiative,” Mays explained. “I connect a lot of dots, but it's what the employers want to tackle. We help from a business and a project management aspect of that.”

Mays began by creating several different collaboratives, one of which involved Thoroughbred farms–ranging from family-owned to the Godolphins of the world–taking a hard look at their own assumptions about recruitment strategies. 

“A lot of the equine employers do a lot within the equine business realm, but not a lot in the greater business world in terms of learning from and understanding different things from other types of businesses,” said Mays. “They weren't in tune with local career centers, extension offices, etc. – and thus they were missing those opportunities. 

“So many workforce struggles are the same, irrespective of industry, and we can learn a lot from each other. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, but to create more of a power in numbers type of thing.

“I think I've pushed a lot of them out of their comfort zone, outside of the equine silo. The greater business world needs to know that the equine industry is there, that they have a lot of infiltration into a lot of these other industries.”

Scheduling

One of the biggest things Mays heard at the beginning of the project was that employees were leaving due to a lack of flexibility in their schedules. The idea of moving to a five-day work week, as opposed to six, was floated, but it was not immediately popular.

Most farms said that it was not financially feasible to add enough staff to switch to a five-day work week. Mays worked with them in an exercise to compare the cost of switching to the five-day week versus the turnover cost of having to train new employees.

“Out of the 11 facilities that did that exercise, all actually fared better financially if they went to the five-day work week,” said Mays. “A lot of them said, 'I just assumed that it was more expensive,' but they had never taken paper-to-pencil to actually figure it out.”

A couple farms piloted a five-day work week program, and did, in fact, find that staff stayed longer with the option for a more flexible schedule. One farm in particular increased wages with a rotating calendar schedule. The farm wound up paying individuals less overall, but employees were able to have two consecutive days off which rotated – every 5 weeks they had a complete weekend off.

“Obviously we've had some pushback discussion with some farms,” Mays said. “Several people said, 'Well, if the employees aren't passionate about wanting to work in this industry, then they need to go somewhere else.' Well, they are.

“In my opinion, the five-day work week will not be an option that they can ignore for much longer, but it's a culture shift. I tell them: 'The way you've done it is not working, so we need to think outside the box.' We've had some great progressive farms, and when it works for them other farms will try it, but it's not been an easy sell.”

How Many?

Since the equine industry is based heavily on relationships and word of mouth information transfer, there isn't a good handle on agriculture data because the state has never had to collect it before.

The Thoroughbred Farm Collaborative worked to develop a data collection project to obtain concrete data detailing the state of the Thoroughbred industry workforce. 

“We want to dial down to what their needs are: how many people do they need, and why are they losing them?” Mays said. “We need to get past any assumptions that the employers may have.”

The data collected from the survey, which is currently in the process of being analyzed, will form an industry baseline to enhance existing projects and identify new programs and needed implementation of initiatives. It will help the collaborative determine where to focus additional resources: whether that be involvement in K-12 school systems, community colleges, vocational training programs, or even the department of corrections, the foster care system, people coming out of recovery, etc.

Upward Mobility

The Thoroughbred Farm Collaborative also recognized the need to understand the wishes and concerns of their staff to assist with recruitment and elevate their facilities. The collaborative formed a subcommittee committed to researching, understanding, creating, and implementing a farm management leadership program based on employee feedback. 

The long-term goal is to educate and support upper management to ensure they are good leaders, helping create a positive workplace culture, and allowing better places to work for the populations coming through newly formed pipelines within the industry.

One popular topic has been the massive number of students that come out of four-year equine-specific programs each year, because those students are not typically interested in filling the positions the farms desperately need. 

“We are working to facilitate open conversations between employers and educators, trying to solve this issue from both sides,” said Mays. “Obviously it's a slow process for that, and the mindset of “what is education” has to change. It used to be that experience/time in was valued above all, but we have to start realizing that people that have gone through a four-year degree may not have the experience, but their catch-up time is much, much quicker. 

“That's not been the way that farms have recognized experience in the past. Part of it is also that the industry 100 percent understands that they have not done a good job in creating and maintaining career pathways. As employers, they don't do a good job of helping them to move forward – not out of a mindset that they don't want them to, they're just not used to it. The reality is that the majority of people are not going to remain entry-level grooms for 30 years.”

To that end, the various collaboratives have worked to develop career-pathway documents, split into different industry sectors. They begin at entry-level positions, detailing average annual salary, education or on-the-job experience required, etc. 

The career-pathway documents are available to view here

“At the end of the day, we can't just rely on passion for the job, because the equine industry is competing for the same people as all these other industries,” Mays said. “You have to be a competitive employer: you're not hiring a groom, you're hiring a future division manager.

“It's really hard to grasp, because we've become so desperate to hold onto the people that we have. I try to use this as an example: we have implemented a training program for grooms to get their Commercial Driving Licenses. Yes, the farm may lose a groom, but then that person is a very experienced person who is then transporting your horses. At the same time, that's a great recruiting tool for you, because the grooms have an opportunity to learn and progress to a higher-paying job. Turnover isn't as scary if it's planned.”

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Two Parts To The Equation

It is also important to educate future employees about the opportunities in the equine industry. 

To that end, KEEP brought Annise Montplaisir into the fold. Her co-developed grassroots initiative Amplify Horse Racing has, since 2019, been working to fulfill its mission to provide an entry point to the Thoroughbred industry for youth and young adults.

Montplaisir's position with KEEP as the Equine Education Coordinator complements both that and Mays' position, helping to bridge the gap between employers and potential employees. Amplify sponsors monthly virtual seminars about different industry careers, a podcast along those same lines, free educational tours focusing on careers and understanding what goes into the industry, and a developed mentorship program for young adults.

“Amplify showcases job progression and industry pathways to newcomers through our virtual and in-person programming, which enlists the help of existing industry professionals to speak about their current careers and the job pathways they took to reach that point,” Montplaisir said. “Additionally, one of our goals with the mentorship program is for mentors to discuss career pathways with mentees and help them develop an understanding of the current working environment, hours and pay in the industry. 

“On the flip side, we also invite mentees to share their expectations for the kind of working environment, pay and upward mobility they want and need from a job. Hopefully that kind of dialogue will be helpful to employers and encourage more innovation within the industry.”

Next Steps?

Due in large part to Mays' and Montplaisir's work, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has recognized the vital role played by the state's equine industry over the past three years. Mays has since been made a full-time employee of the CoC, as opposed to KEEP, showing that the state government understands the value of continuing her work within one of its signature industries.

“This initiative has been around for three years, and it has grown a lot,” said Mays. “However, there are still a lot of farms that don't know what we're doing, or maybe are skeptical of what we're doing.

“Word of mouth is really what spreads it around. We have an open-door policy for any farm that wants to be involved, and getting buy-in from the farms really comes from each other.”

For more information and how your farm can get involved in the equine workforce initiative, check out the website here

The post Help Wanted: KEEP Helping Kentucky Farms With Strategies To Improve Employee Retention In A Tough Labor Market appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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KET Showcases Thoroughbred Industry Jobs In Careers In Demand Series

To help address Kentucky's ever-changing workforce demands, KET has created a new video and accompanying resources that showcase Kentucky's thoroughbred industry and provide information for those who might wish to pursue a career in the field.

Developed with the help of the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Workforce Center, and The Race for Education, the video and supplementary resources—part of KET's In Demand series—offer a roadmap of potential career pathways in the horse industry and include helpful tips on getting started, whether through internships, apprenticeships, or a state university or college program.

Additionally, the resources offer an overview of thoroughbred jobs, including detailed descriptions of the work expectations, employee qualifications and average annual salary ranges.

“The thoroughbred industry is looking for qualified and dedicated employees who have a passion for the industry,” said Laurie Mays, the Equine Talent Pipeline Management program manager with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Workforce Center. “For those with horsemanship abilities, there are hands-on positions that work directly with horses. But there are positions in other areas as well, everything from landscaping and maintenance to finance and office work. There really is something for everyone in the industry.”

Generating $6.5 billion annually, Kentucky's thoroughbred industry is a cornerstone of the state's economy. Kentucky is home to some 54,000 thoroughbreds and leads all states in annual thoroughbred breeding, accounting for more than half of all mares bred in North America in 2019, according to Bloodhorse.com.

“Even at a time when it is successfully growing, the horse industry has faced labor shortages,” said Elisabeth Jensen, executive vice president of the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), a nonprofit agency that supports the Commonwealth's horse industry. “Nearly 80,000 Kentuckians work within the industry, and we want to introduce these jobs and careers to a new generation of Kentuckians who will build on this current success and ensure that we remain Kentucky's signature industry.”

KET's In Demand series, which initially debuted in 2019 in a partnership with the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet (EWDC), highlights career pathways in Kentucky's fastest growing industry sectors, such as advanced manufacturing, business & IT, construction, transportation & logistics, and healthcare. The series is designed to help job seekers get the information they need as they transition to new employment.

“As with all our educational materials, KET strives to support learners of all ages as they work toward their future careers,” said Tonya Crum, KET's senior director of education. “This series provides a glimpse of what working in the thoroughbred industry is like and also furnishes useful data to aid in the decision-making process. And raising awareness of various jobs in Kentucky ultimately helps job seekers choose a path that matches their interests.”

For more information, visit KET.org/horseindustry.

KET is Kentucky's largest classroom, where learning comes to life for more than one million people each week via television, online and mobile. Learn more about Kentucky's preeminent public media organization at KET.org/Education, on Twitter @EducationKET and on Facebook @EducationKET.

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KTFMC Meeting: Labor Crisis in the Thoroughbred Industry

LEXINGTON, KY-The ongoing labor crisis in the Thoroughbred industry was the focal point of discussion at the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers' Club's monthly meeting, which was held on Tuesday and brought in a large audience for a discussion on the talk.

A panel of five industry participants and educators was on hand to give their perspective on the history of the issue and how the situation has worsened over time. They also spoke on projects currently in the works that have potential to bring in skilled labor and shared their thoughts on the best methods for effectively recruiting a new generation of workers.

“We had a board meeting and discussed what would be relevant for this meeting and this is a topic that pertains to every farm right now,” KTFMC President Courtney Schneider said. “You hope that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's an issue that needs to be addressed and we need to be educated about what we can do to bring in new people and keep them in the industry.”

“Our goal for the club is to refocus on issues that are important for farm managers–be it health and disease, operational issues or the bigger challenge of labor,” KTFMC Treasurer Gerry Duffy said. “It's an issue affecting every farm and everyone you talk to. Some people are in a desperate situation. Not only are you changing how you do things due to the absence of help, but it's putting an extra burden on the people you do have. It's not sustainable and we need to really get in front of the issue to try and solve it.”

Fasig-Tipton

Chris Baker was the first member of the panel to speak. The Chief Operating Officer of Three Chimneys Farm briefed the audience on the state of the issue when he first joined the industry through an entry-level position as a groom in 1986.

“It was a different time with 50,000 foals on the ground, the market was strong and input and labor costs were relatively low,” he said. “But even at that time, when labor was more abundant than it is today, I can still remember lamenting about finding the next group of people coming up to do this. The problem of identifying, recruiting and retaining a workforce isn't a new one, but it was less of an issue then.”

According to Baker, the connection with the horse–or lack thereof–is a main cause for today's limited employee pool and poor job retention.

“Finding help seemed easier [in 1986] and I think some of that was because we were less removed from an agrarian society. When you look now at the composition of the workforce, with a lot of Latinos, many of the people who have immigrated here are less removed from or are coming from an agrarian society. I think that's a big part of it–the connection with the horse. Without that, it can be hard to make sense of what you have to do and the sacrifices that need to be made in order to have a career in this industry.”

Baker emphasized that in order to recruit a strong, skilled workforce, finding the right person to fit the job is crucial.

“If you're going to come to work in the Thoroughbred industry, you probably have a different realistic financial ceiling than if you were going into medicine or finance,” he explained. “So why do you come to the horse business? It all comes back to the horse. I think if we can put the horse first in all we do, make people aware and make that focus on the horse as part of your recruiting, you're going to get the kind of people you want who are doing it for the right reasons.”

He continued, “We need to focus on a fair wage, a good work environment where people and horses are treated with respect, because that's part of making people feel like they're a part of something special, and then we need to train, develop and encourage so there is infrastructure in place for people to grow.”

Frank Taylor, Vice President of Taylor Made Farm, also shared his experiences as an employer. Taylor Made has several programs that Taylor said have been key to keeping their operation fully staffed.

This year, Taylor Made has started a pilot program called the Taylor Made School of Horsemanship. Created in partnership with Shepherd's House, a transitional residential drug addiction treatment center in Lexington, the program set a goal to bring in five trainees every 90 days. The workers spend their days on the farm and then return to the Shepherd's House every evening, where in addition to food and housing, they are also provided with counseling services.

“We have one barn set up where they are all working together and we also have a director there, someone who is good at teaching,” Taylor said. “I think it could be huge in the future. It's such a win for everybody. Obviously it's a win for society, it's a win for the horse business and a win for Taylor Made, and if we can give these people second-chance employment and help them get on their feet, I think we can do a lot of great stuff.”

While the project is still in the beginning stages, Taylor said he envisions future expansion.

“When you give these people a second chance and they are fully recovered, they become an example for everybody else,” he said. “For people dealing with addiction, one of the things that keeps them going is helping other people. So our hope is that we grow this and help a lot of people, who in turn help a lot of other people. We want to take this, get it perfected and show it to other farms. This has a lot of potential and we could envision 50 to 60 people a year graduating from this program and going out into the industry.”

Taylor said that his farm has also been a part of the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program for four years.

“This program has been a godsend,” he said. “The thing about these guys is they're coming in and they're grateful and they love what they're doing. They can do two times as much work as the average person, maybe three.”

The Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP) Foundation and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Workforce Center has joined forces to launch the Equine Workforce Initiative in an effort to address the shortage of equine workers on a state level. Laurie Mays, another member of the panel, serves as the initiative's Equine Talent Pipeline Project Manager.

“We are in year three of this initiative,” she said. “We bring employers together and give them a safe space to discuss their struggles in terms of workforce development. We look at things like what skills go along with specific positions and how many people an employer might need in these positions.”

One problem her team has encountered, Mays said, is that accurate research on employment in the equine industry is difficult to pinpoint quantitatively due to the broad scope of data the state agency has to offer on employment in agriculture as a whole.

“One of the things we're doing is trying to get hard data for the needs of the industry,” Mays said. “This information and data can feed into our state's statistical agency so we can have a better idea of what our true needs are. This gives us a better way to talk to training programs when we can show them the actual number of positions we need to fill.”

The program at Blackburn Correctional Complex currently has seven graduates working in the industry. | EquiSport Photos

The Equine Workforce Initiative is in the process of developing several other programs that could prove to be valuable resources for employers. In partnership with the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and the Blackburn Correctional Complex in Lexington, Mays and her team are working to create meaningful connections between inmates who have undergone training on the farm and potential employers so that graduates of the program have a job as soon as the time comes.

“As of yesterday, we've placed seven people in Lexington at farms and vet clinics and it's going very well,” May reported. “We've heard great feedback from the employers who have hired them. We're going to look at doing an educational tour for employers to meet the instructors and the gentlemen, see the facility and learn more about what they learn.”

Savannah Robin serves as the internship coordinator for the University of Kentucky's Equine Program. She joined the panel to speak on the growing population of higher-education graduates seeking a career in the equine industry.

Robin shared that seven institutions in Kentucky offer an equine program. At the University of Kentucky, 300 students are in the program at any given time and on average, 89% come from out of state.Each student is required to complete an internship in order to obtain their degree at UK, and Robin said that on average, 21% of these internships focus on horse and farm management. However, only 9% of the UK Equine Program's alumni base currently works in that same field.

“We need to figure out how to tap into that 21% and help retain them within an industry than can provide them with leadership experiences,” Robin said.

Katie LaMonica, the Charities Manager for Godolphin, closed out the panel by reminding the audience about the upcoming Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards.

“We are heading into the sixth year of the TIEA Awards,” she said. “If we're looking for ways to reward and recognize our staff, this is a great way to do it. This year, all seven award categories have a sponsor. Our nominations are now open and we also have a new award. The Support Service Award is for your maintenance crew, gate grew, night watch team, farriers-people who don't necessarily work on the end of the shank, but they keep you going.”

The audience present at the meeting consisted of a diverse group of both well-established and up-and-coming industry participants, with UK Equine students and Kentucky Equine Management Internship (KEMI) members on hand. During the 'Q and A' session at the end of the meeting, much discussion was brought forth on the topic of work-life balance and the incoming generation's emphasis on the subject.

“Millennials and Gen Zers get beat up sometimes in terms of their work ethic, but the values of their generation won't disappoint you in what they can bring to the workforce,” Robin said. “These students need different things. They need different things than what I needed when I graduated. They're looking at work-life balance early on so that they don't burn out and can go on a long time within a career and be sustainable within that career.”

Baker and Taylor agreed that better working conditions and increased job flexibility are areas they could see evolving in the future, but said that participation in the Thoroughbred industry would always require hard work and sacrifice.

Baker said, “Do we need to adapt and provide opportunities to broaden the people that come to this business for a career? Yes. But on some level, I think the people that do the best, go the furthest and accomplish the most are those that embrace the lifestyle and the sacrifices that come with it in their personal life.”

“It is a lifestyle and it's not a job,” Taylor echoed. “If you're getting in the horse business and you want to be successful, it has to be a lifestyle. If you're going to get in this business, you better love it and be dedicated to it.”

“It's a matter of figuring out a way to make our industry available to the incoming generation who, quite rightly, doesn't want to work seven days a week,” Duffy said in conclusion. “We have competition from other industries who are paying more and making variable work times and conditions available to people, but behind that there's some great work going on here and some great initiatives. We have to keep the conversation going. We're here to get a discussion going and not necessarily present the answers, but just to get the industry talking and collaborating. As an industry, we need to come together and try to solve our issues together.”

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