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.
