BY MARK BRADLEY
 

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Growing Your Business is a new Landscape Trades column featuring business management experts writing on the topics that matter to landscape and horticulture professionals.

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It's tough to find good people. It always has been, and in the landscape industry, it’s even harder. For over 20 years, I was fortunate to grow a business to more than 500 crew members at our peak. How to keep those people was among my top concerns.

And I’m not alone. We recently polled 450 landscape business professionals and 84 per cent said finding and keeping qualified labour is their biggest challenge. For business owners, you’re only as good as your people. You get new business, and you need reliable, quality teams to deliver. But if you struggle with finding, training and retaining great people, you’ll never succeed.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this way too often with business owners across North America. Way too often owners are so caught up in the next job or growth stage that they forget critical components when hiring and retaining employees.

So, what are the common trends I’ve seen that relate to you?   

1. Sell a career, not a job: It’s easy to place an ad for a crew worker or to find a team leader. But to be successful, you must showcase not just a job, but a long-term vision for the work you do. It’s not just about cutting grass. It’s about making the lawns of customers better, being outdoors, and doing great work. And if you do this well, you’ll see your financial earnings grow exponentially each year through increased employee loyalty. If you can position open roles as careers, and have examples of employees who have moved up the ladder, you’ll be much more successful in attracting and retaining talent.

2. Invest in training, and don’t stop: Make training part of your employee onboarding and annual staff development process. Yes, it’s time consuming, but in doing so, you demonstrate a commitment to your employees’ careers, and you can be confident your teams know exactly what to do and how to do it well. Companies that fail or falter hire people and expect them to know what to do. That’s a recipe for failure. Invest in training. You won’t regret it.

3. Be beyond competitive with pay and benefits — It will pay for itself: Do you pay the market rate? Or could you pay a couple of dollars more per hour and still be profitable? Do you offer a retirement plan, health insurance and time off? Pay is what most companies promote, but the more diverse your “all-in” benefits package is, the more you’ll stand out to potential candidates.

When I owned a landscaping business, my team leaders earned well above the local competition. We paid well, took care of them with great benefits and hearty bonuses each year, as we did with our crews. The result? Our average crew lead or foreperson was with us for more than 10 years, and our crew members stayed an average of more than five years. This allowed us to continue to deliver for our customers through happy team members. It’s a simple formula, but it works.

Is it hard? Sure. You must understand the economics of your business and what you need to pay to be competitive — and what this means to your pricing structure and mark-ups. But if you’re consistent and rigid in your pricing structure, you can be successful in offering leading benefits packages to your employees which will drive retention.



4. Demonstrate a clear career path: I can’t tell you how important a career path or ladder is, no matter how big or small your company. New employees want to know how their career will grow. And with this growth, what will come? More money? Bigger titles? And when?

To do this, you must have consistency in processes. Job descriptions, career trees, job pay bands and more. If you can paint the picture to prospective employees of where they will be in three years — and deliver on it, you’ll be in a great spot.

5. Build a family: Lastly, and this may sound cliché, but remember, your crews and teams are like family. The closer you get, the harder you work, and the more you achieve. Landscaping (and snow removal in winter) is tough. It’s not a nine-to-five job. It requires early mornings, late nights, and sometimes, sacrificing weekends. Successful businesses learn this quickly and work to create a family environment where you support each other, know each other, laugh, celebrate and even cry together — because you can only be as good as the collective team. This gets harder as your company grows, but having a family-type environment is very important.         

It doesn’t take much. Host a holiday party. Give birthdays off. Offer free lunch on Fridays. These little yet important gestures matter and will go a long way toward your future success.

Talk to any consultant in the landscape business or other industries and they’ll tell you there are more tips to finding and retaining top talent. And all are applicable without a doubt. But don’t try to boil the ocean. Focus on the details. Focus on your people. Contractors across North America already know this, but sometimes we all just need reminders, especially because we work so hard.

Give these five tips a try. You’ll see your business grow, and you’ll see happy customers. And most importantly, you’ll see committed and engaged workers. And with that, your future will be brighter than ever.
 

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Mark Bradley is CEO of LMN (Landscape Management Network) and former CEO of TBG Environmental.