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.