Once you have a substantial farm running with many fields and lots of equipment, you need hired hands to keep things going, keeping you from being overwhelmed, or just allowing you to do only the work you like to do.

But In the small farm days when you are getting started, you have many empty hours available because you can get all the work done on your initial field long before what you planted is ready to harvest. Here are some thoughts on keeping your payroll down by making good use of your hired hand(s).

Only hire one helper

Obviously, the cheapest way to go is to do everything yourself, but this can be very boring. Yes, you have more than enough game time, but you probably want to do other things than sit on a FS2013 tractor. The best option is to hire only one worker and have him do the cultivating/plowing then seeding, then harvesting, one after another, while you do the grain hauling to market and spraying. NOTE: what you pay a hired hand is somewhat offset by the fact that you don't need to buy seed or fuel for him. Your worker will never have to stop what he's doing to get a refill.

Put your hired hand on your fastest tractor

The cheapy Kramer tractor seeds at 5 MPH. The Argon 3 (red) tractor seeds at 7 MPH and the Buhrer tractor seeds at 9 MPH. This means using the Buhrur will cover 80% more of your farmland for the same amount of paid time for the hired hand. That's a huge savings on your payroll.

This equipment speed issue is why it doesn't make sense to hire more than one worker early on. Since you only have one fast tractor, your second hire working at the same time on a slower tractor would be costing you more than if you simply wait until one hired hand is done then move him to the next job, still riding that fast tractor. You've got plenty of time for him to do all the jobs that need to be done before your crop ripens.

When collecting grain from the harvester, take it to the silos, not the market

Normally you will hire a worker to run the harvester while you use the wagon to collect the grain. Don't go off to deliver the grain until the harvester is done, because you won't be able to get back quickly enough and the harvester will be idle waiting for your return - with the worker being paid to wait! You can get to the silos and back in a flash, ready to ride alongside the harvester, collecting grain as your hired hand keeps moving along. When the whole field is harvested, then you can take your sweet time hauling from the silos to the place that pays the most for your grain.

Be wary of obstructions

If you leave an object on your field, when the hired hand reaches it, he will stop and wait until the obstruction is removed while being paid for the entire time. This is money down the drain. It's even worse if one hired hand obstructs another, they you are paying two for doing nothing. Frequently check your hired hand to see that he is moving along and not blocked. Even equipment at the end of a field can halt a worker as he is trying to turn around at the end of a run down the field. For example, the original equipment Buhrer tractor can wrap itself on a tree while turning around and be immobilized until you free it. Hired hands will terminate their employment when they finish a job, but that can only happen if they reach the end of the field.

Always have your worker move up and down the field "the long way"

Turn-around time at the edge of a field is dead time as no work is being done when turning. This means if you have a field that is longer than it is wide, have the worker go up and down the field, not across it, because you want him to do the work in the least number of passes through the field. Think of an extremely narrow field - 100 feet long and 15 feet wide. It makes more sense to have your worker make one or two passes of 100 feet than many passes of 15 feet. Even if the field is almost a square, choose the longer dimension.

Don't get distracted

Steam has a nice interface to allow you to go off and comment or jump around the Internet while playing, but be careful because you can get occupied away from the game and your worker may well be drawing pay without doing anything productive (see about obstructions above).

Consider yourself the foreman on the farm. You've got to keep a constant watch on operations and the crew (even if it's only one hired hand) that mans the equipment, working it efficiently and jumping in when someone gets in trouble.

I calculate that a hired hand costs $33 per minute of game time, that's $1980 per hour. That's big money - get the most from it!