How to hire and keep good help
The key to running a successful lawn care business starts knowing how to hire and keep good help. Your employees are the heart of your business, and often the ones doing the work and interacting with customers. It can be tough to find good employees, especially in an industry such as lawn care where employees can choose from any company or trade to work for.
While finding good employees is half the battle, retaining good employees is another issue a lot of lawn care businesses run into. In a day where competition is always on the hunt for good employees, you want to ensure that your top talent stays with your company.
So, how do you actually hire good help and keep good help? Let’s explore!
Three ways to hire and keep good help:
Use the right hiring tool
You want to recruit new hires on the right forums where you will find the talent you’re looking for. Many lawn care companies go to job sites such as Monster.com or Indeed. Another place that might work is LinkedIn. You want to use a job hiring service that will allow you to properly set parameters so you don’t get anyone who has mowed a lawn before applying, especially if you’re looking for skilled trade workers for more advanced lawn care jobs.
Have a good job description
Be thorough in the job description so that when you do hire someone, they will be qualified and will fully understand their role. Don’t hire someone for a head office job and then have them out driving around equipment – they won’t stick around long! Also, if the job requires things like quoting and invoicing, or using specific tools, you want to ensure the people applying have the experience required.
Call references
Always, always call references and get a good background check on employees. In lawn care especially, employees often move around a lot so you want to make sure that they have a good track record. If they don’t have a solid employer, ask for client references.
Three ways to retain good talent:
Create a company where people learn and grow
Ask your employees about their career aspirations – what do they want to learn? Where do they want to be? If they want to gain management experience, allow them to shadow managers or take on one person to manage. If they want to move up the ranks or learn a new lawn care skill, provide opportunities for that. Millennials especially always want to be learning and growing, and many employees love to teach, so it’s a win-win.
Have competitive salaries
To hire and keep good help you have to know what the competition is paying and make sure that you’re matching it. Either with your salary wages or with your benefits, you want to ensure that you aren’t lagging behind the competition and losing your star employees.
Create a positive work environment
Don’t be the company where management is never seen or heard. Make sure you spend time with your front-line employees and your top of house team. Ask people how they are doing, have monthly or bi-monthly team meetings, and have the type of working environment where people feel valued and heard.
A little goes a long way
It really doesn’t take much to create a positive, strong team. Hire people who not only have the right experience but are also the right fit for your company. Personality can’t be taught, but skills can. Teach your employees and help them grow. Find new employees that will contribute to a positive workplace.
It’s easy in lawn care to have teams out and about and not have a lot of face time with you, so make an effort to have team events and show everyone that they are a valuable part of your company.
