The Middle Management Dilimma Part 2

The other task at hand is to develop managers the old fashioned way, up through the ranks. When looking inside, we find the bulk of our labor force is comprised of Hispanic workers, and frankly many companies are not doing enough to ready these workers for management positions. The result is that these positions today are hard to fill. Tomorrow, they may never be filled, and that will quickly put a cap on growth.

Call it lack of foresight or vision, if you want. Whatever the reason, though, companies that fail to develop managers from their Hispanic ranks are setting themselves up for failure. It is not entirely their fault, either. Training Hispanic workers to become managers is difficult, expensive, and frustrating, especially in view of the cultural differences. These employees do not have the same incentives to become leaders that we had 20 years ago, and all too often they believe that the risks associated with becoming managers far outweigh the rewards.

Our job as managers and owners today is to break down some of the cultural barriers and truly put forth an effort to encourage and train our Hispanic workers to be leaders. Those of us in the landscape maintenance business already have a clear understanding of how important Hispanic workers are to our companies and to our industry. Without their hard work, we would be very hard-pressed indeed to survive, not to mention grow. We will be no better off tomorrow without their leadership.

Some pundits are quick to point out that the industry will eventually find a way out of this dilemma just by default.I am not confident, because I know how difficult the road may be. Training tomorrow's leaders will not happen by itself and it will not be easy. The time to act is now.

The Middle Management Dilemma - Part 1

Those of us who have been around the landscape management industry for years have noticed a rather disturbing trend. It is becoming more difficult every year to fill middle management positions. There are many reasons for this, including the law of supply and demand. Competition for these positions has increased dramatically, and two-year and four-year colleges are turning out more students interested in building a career in landscape design than they are turning out students interested in landscape management.

Our paths are clear. We have to encourage students to take a serious look at landscape management as a career opportunity, and we have to continue to develop managers up through the ranks.

Regarding students, I believe one of the challenges is overcoming a misconception about landscape management - that it does not offer the opportunities or challenges that, for example, a similar position in landscape design does. The truth is that students who aspire to be account managers in our industry have tremendous growth opportunity and, with the right training, they can earn their stripes quickly. It behooves all landscape management contractors to work with their area schools, including high schools, technical schools, and two-year and four-year schools. We need to encourage students to look at landscape management as a career opportunity and help schools develop appropriate curricula for their programs.

Are your clients aware?

We are not unlike most full-service landscape management companies. We offer a diverse line of services through several different groups. Offering so many services is a tremendous advantage, but only if clients and potential clients are aware of them. One area where we can definitely improve is communicating more effectively with our clients. We need to make them aware that, in addition to landscape management, we also offer aquatic management, design build, public infrastructure, irrigation management, and snow removal services, to name a few of many.

It is sad but true. Many clients that we have done business with over the years are still unaware of our diverse service offerings. As a result, we have missed out on some business and growth opportunities. How is this possible? The answer, I suspect, revolves around the word "assumption." Our clients assume that our offerings are limited to what they experience in dealing with our firm. Our managers assume that a client is already aware of our many services, and as a V.P., I assume that both clients and managers do not hold these assumptions.

I am attempting to throw all of these assumptions out the window. All of our clients will receive a letter thanking them for their business and outlining our full-service offerings. Then, every time I have a chance to meet with them personally, I again will mention these services. I will also ask all of our managers to do the same. This is less rocket science and more marketing 101. After all, we should be promoting our companyevery chance we get.

Create those operating plans, now

It is so easy this time of year to focus on wrapping up the year without paying enough attention to what is right around the corner - 2012. No matter what size of company you operate or operate within, creating operating plans and following through on them is critical to continued success.

With that said, we go through a month or more of creating a variety of plans for the coming year. We like to start in October, and by year's end, our plans and goals are in place and set for the coming year. We enjoy having the opportunity to work with our clients on their plans too, as their plans relate to our services. Yes, I know a zillion or more books have been devoted to the planning topic, but bear with me a moment as I briefly describe our three-step operational planning process.

Step one:

Review the past. To understand where you want to go, you need to understand where you have been. Where were our sucesses, challenges, and failures? (I rely heavily on notes I have jotted down throughout the year.) Elicit feedback from employees, clients, and vendors. This feedback is critical to formulating your plan. What your clients want and what you think they want may very well be two different things.

Step two:

Critique the business. Look at strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Brainstorm this within your team and pick the top two or three in each category to focus on. For example, one of your company's strenghts may be its multitalented staff, while one of its weaknesses might be an inability to take advantage of diversification opportunities. So, you would discuss ways to more effectively cross-sell your services.

Take a close look at your competition as well. Indeed, your competition may be your biggest obstacle in the coming year. Determine how you can increase your compettitive advantage. Are you abreast of new trends and technologies? Are you investing in training? These are just a few examples of ideas your group may come up with.

Step three:

Establish an operating plan. Steps one and two culminate in the third step, coming up with an operating plan for the new season. Three may be about the right number of goals to set for your company. Two or three goals are attainable, while more than that may not be.

For each goal, create an action plan and create a path to an end result for each goal. Monitor progress regularly. Make changes if necessary. Hold each other accountable as you strive to attain the goals.

While all of this is taking place, we're also preparing business plans and budgets and working on long term strategic plans. When you think about it, having downtime in this industry, or any industry for that matter, is a luxury few of us have. The time we spend planning may be just as important as the time we spend delivering on the plan.

H2-B Part 2

We must start recruiting earlier, when students are in their high school years, and follow through with a sustained recruiting effort at two-and four year schools. Describing career paths and growth opportunities within our industry becomes an important part of our message to students and to other prospective employees both inside and outside of our industry..

Recruiting though, is only half the story. Training and retention are important in their own rights, and they complement one another. By placing more emphasis on training employees for mid-and upper-management level positions, we are also scoping out career paths for them, defining new challenges, and keeping them interested in working for us and our industry.

All service industries seem to be in a tug of war over a very limited labor supply. All we can do is keep the pressure on our legislators, put out best foot forward with young recruits, and keep up a sustained recruiting effort all year long.

H2-B Part 1

If there is a silver lining in the H2-B cloud, the failure of so many landscape management companies to get their workers year after year brings our labor crisis into full view. We don't simply depend on guest workers to get the job done. We depend on them for keeping our companies and our industry viable. Without them, our current customers suffer, and growth comes to a screeching halt.

This is a case of demand outstrpping supply - labor supply - and if we don't fix it, our industry will miss an opportunity of a lifetime..

I believe the industry can approach the crisis from several vantage points. First and foremost, we need a guest worker program that will ensure an adequate supply of field workers. The current H2-B program has a proven track record of supplying legal workers. We need an expanded version of that program, or something like it, to meet our labor needs. What we don't need is a mishmash of regulations that will make us quasi enforcers of new, improved immigration legislation.

With that said, I don't believe we can pin our industry's future entirely on H2-B, in large part because the crisis extends beyond the field. Our industry also needs upper and middle management people. Owners and managers need to be proactive and place labor issues on their yearly strategic-planning agendas. Filling our labor requirements, including recruiting, training, and retaining employees, has to be part of any business plan and any long range strategy.

Employee Retention - Part 2

Among other retention strategies, we acknowledge and reward employees for exemplary performance. Account managers and field supervisors carry around various gift cards, which they can give to any employee "for a job well done." Upper management also strives to get out of the office and into the field at least once a week, to interact with employees and let them know that the company truly cares about the work they're doing.

Providing employees with thorough job descriptions and making sure they understand our expectations of them keep unwelcome surprises to a minimum, and we try to address issues in a fair and timely manner.

We like to have fun, too. Company outings, parties, and celebrating special occasions and anniversaries are tremendous stress reducers, and they demonstrate employee appreciation.

Again, our company has been fortunate to have a solid employee retention rate. Part of this success comes from having a good name and reputation within the industry, and part comes from having an overall strategy designed to find abnd keep the best talent available.