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.

Employee Retention - Part 1

Over the years our company has been fortunate to attract and retain good talent. Not to say we have all the answers, but allow me to share some of our retention strategies with you.

For us, retaining employees starts day one by giving new hires a thorough orientation. We want to make them feel welcome, comfortable, and needed before we begin training them and putting them into the field. Part of this "welcome wagon" approach includes having nice digs. Our office and shop areas are neat, and our properties are nicely landscaped. We want our clients landscapes to mirror our own and vice-versa. We offer a pleasant working environment for employees. I know this makes a difference, because I have worked in less attractive surroundings.

We want our employees to take "ownership" of their positions and feel valuable. We do this by soliciting ideas from them and sharing information. We also invest a great deal in training and education. The key here, of course, is to give our people a chance to grow their careers with us, which implies, we prefer to promote from within, and we do. Well trained, skilled, and tenured employees add directly to greater field efficiencies. This in turn is passed along ultimately in savings to our clients without sacrificing job quality. Providing value to our employees and our clients is sustainable when you continually invest in them and truly care about their future, regardless of current economic conditions. More to come.....

Employee retention key to providing good service!

First and foremost, I expect our employees to be honest with us and our clients. A dishonest employee throws a 'monkey wrench' into our culture and our operation. I have a myriad of other expectations that we have of all of our employees, as well. Humility is important. Being confident in what we say and do and remaining humble at the same time is important to us. I also look for employees who are friendly, energetic, eager to learn, and respectful of clients and fellow workers.

As a leader in our company, I have very high expectations, but I am also a realist. Finding employees who meet all of my expectations is just as unrealistic as thinking that I am the ideal employer. I strive to set a good image, and always strive to be neither confrontational nor impatient. I believe that our employees deserve the same mentoring standards that I was so fortunate to have as I was coming up in our industry. With proper mentoring and coaching, our employees will fully understand and deliver what we expect of them.

We strive to be responsive and respectful at all times, not simply when it is covenient. We want our clients to enjoy the experiences and interactions they have with a first day employee, all the way up to the president of our company. The expectations we have of our employees as it relates to customer service and interactions with fellow employees and the general public are all the same. Be honest, fair, and respectful.

We retain our employees because of the principals I have talked about. This ultimately translates to providing our clients excellent service, at a reasonable price, with people they enjoy working with. By abiding by these simple truths, we keep good employees who deliver good service. Clients and employees alike enjoy the experience and want to work with us because of it.

Our industries clients can have both!

Raising our industry's level of professionalism has been, and will continue to be an ongoing battle. This is especially true today, as cost savings in dealing with vendors has become increasingly important to many of our industry's clients. Many people have "jumped "into the landscape maintenance arena as new construction has dried up. This has driven the price point, and with it in many cases professionalism and job quality down.





Why? For starters most anyone can mow a lawn and plant a flower or two. Not many of us dare repair an electrical circuit or suddenly fancy ourselves as indoor plumbers. In addition, there are no apprenticeship and journeymen tradesmen steps to take before you can become a full-fledged landscape contractor. Instead it seems that a pickup truck and a mower are all that are needed to line up work and begin having clients and potential clients compare the professional contractors to what is essentially our lowest "uncommon denominator."





The perception is that 1) what we do is a commodity and 2) that anyone, including an uninsured out-of-work, factory employee, can provide the same level of service as a degreed horticulturist with 25 years of experience.





All of us like to work with professional people, whether it be a fellow employee or a vendor. As a professional contractor we have the same desires. We have enjoyed the relationships we have established for many years with our clients. It hurts us all to receive a cancellation letter due to being "beat" with a lower price, without having the opportunity to sit down and discuss the budget constraints many of our clients are under.





All of my professional colleagues in our industry are more than happy to sit down and work with our clients to come up with a budget that works for all, while preserving a professional image on the outside of your particular complex. In this time of vacancies and empty store fronts, one of the first things people look for in considering a lease or rental experience is appearance, both of the landscape, and the individuals, trucks, and trailers associated with servicing and preserving that professional image. We want to live and work in nice places.





By sitting down with us and discussing your particular needs, you will find with professional landscape companies that we can save you money and continue to provide sound, quality service. We are here for the long run. The low price competitor, many times will not perform as they promise, and eventually cost you more money to manage than any savings you may have gained short term. We do understand your individual situations, and are more than willing to help!

What's the difference?

As a contractor, do you provide maintenance or management services? Here are just a few examples of what landscape managers do. They:

> Invest in their employees by providing training and education, a safe working environment, and listening and valuing their ideads and opinions.

> Create Relationships with clients and employees and identify their needs and goals.

> Plan for the future by anticipating clients' needs, for next week or next month, but also for the next several years.

> Treat clients as individuals by avoiding applying a "cookie cutter" approach to every client's property.

Landscape managers are also:

> Committed.
> Consistent.
> Interested.
> Responsive.
> Flexible.

If you already conduct business as described above and call yourself a maintenance contractor, then you are probably selling yourself short. If you don't do these things, then you are selling the industry short. We at Terracare Associates want our industry and our fellow contractors to be perceived now, more than ever, as professionals. Operating like a manager and providing "management" services go a long way toward that end!

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 and managers. Offering so many services is a tremendous advantage, but only if clients are aware of them. We cannot assume that they all even view our web site, or our marketing materials. We have a long term client that just discoved we offer aquatic management services. We have offered this for years, but did not communicate it well obviously. Now we may be able to do some of their needed aquatic work. Do not assume, with all the social media now available that your clients will know what you offer as a service. There is nothing like good old verbal communication. Funny, I say this as I am communicating via social media isn't it?

It is sad but true. Many clients have done business with many of our firms over the years and are still unaware of our diverse offerings. As a result, many of us 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 see on their properties. Our managers assume that a client is already aware of many of our services. I sometimes assume that both clients and mangers do not hold these assumptions at all, because we communicate them well, right?

Throw these assumptions out the window. Send your clients a letter thanking them for their business, and letting them know that there may be other areas in which you can help them. Better yet, have a client appreciation event and tell them personally. Have your managers continue to reinforce what we do and how we may be able to add services they may be looking for. This is less rocket science and more marketing 101. Add value to your clients, and it will add value to your firm.

Sustainability begins at home - Part 2

I do not dislike turf grass, especially since our company does quite a bit of mowing, and again, turf grass in the proper application offers many recreational and ecological benefits. It is the large expanses of turf grass that needlessly suck up huge amounts of potable water, synthetic fertilizer, and fossil fuels to power the equipment needed for its' maintenance requirements that are what I have issue with. As I have the opportunity, I speak to clients and homeowners about alternative landscapes that may include native and edible plants, along with water saving drip irrigation systems.

I must admit, our company may not generate as much revenue maintaining an edible garden, as it would mowing the same area numerous times per year. However, our company is saving our clients and non-clients alike money, and giving them an opportunity to pay more than lip service to sustainable practices. Our soil in Northern California for example is generally very rich. Much of the area in which we work was agriculture land prior to it being caught up in the development of sprawling communities. Our company has an opportunity to return some of that same soil to productivity, while reducing client reliance on water, chemicals, and other costs mentioned previously, that are associated with maintaining turf. Every day I read about sustainable practices. It is easy to talk about, but what are you really doing? As a company we want to be on the forefront of this renewed movement, and we want to do what we believe is right for the small part of the planet that we touch. Many companies and individuals are doing wonderful things with sustainable landscape practices. I applaud them! For me, there was no better place than to start right at home. Join me, would you.

Bill

Sustainability begins at home!

I use the word 'decorative' to describe my front yard, 95% of which is now edible. I consider all of the fruit trees and many varieties of the vegetables, herbs, and other fruit bearing plants to be very colorful and even 'ornamental' if you will. Even the four foot strip of tomato varietes that replaced the turf along the sidewalk add color and interest to my landscape.

I want my neighbors to see what I am doing, and even pick fresh fruit and vegetables should they choose, as they pass by. They have taken me up on this notion often. I did not create this edible garden simply for myself. I want to share the bounty with all! My child is gone, so why did I have grass in my front yard for her to play on anymore? Was it to simply mow, edge and water every week? Was it to simply 'go with the flow'? Not very good reasons in my view. I removed what I term my 'non-meaningful' turf last November. 'Meaningful' turf examples in my humble opinion being turf that people use in parks, athletic fields, and at home where kids can play. For my 'new' garden, I added 40 yards of organic compost created from our companies' landscape maintenance trimmings, drip irrigation, moss rocks, and broken pieces of oak that I pick up on my weekly forays into the hills that surround where I live. I wanted to create a 'semi' natural setting, and to set an example for those who might wish to consider a sustainable landscape alternative to unused turf. You see, I was promoting sustainable landscape conversions at work, but not practicing what I was preaching at my own home. Let's say I had a 'physician heal thyself moment' as I was mowing my lawn last Fall. 'Food for thought'

Bill