7 Bad Habits Outdoor Living Businesses Need to Eliminate with Employees Today
—
The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
Originally published on December 28, 2015. Updated on March 6, 2023.
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Change isn’t always easy, but it’s a necessary part of growth. There may be aspects of your lawn, landscape, or outdoor living business operations that have worked in the past, but to advance, they need to be elevated or changed. If you have business tasks and processes that are not contributing to your company's success, you may be holding on to bad habits that aren’t serving you anymore, especially regarding your team.
Bad Habit #1: Wasting Time with Inefficient Recruiting Practices to Find Green Industry Employees
The average length of the hiring process is 36 days, and talent acquisition professionals spend nearly 13 hours per week sourcing the right candidates for a single role. Simple math shows that with the hiring process taking about five weeks, spending 13 hours per week recruiting, this equals 65 hours spent for a single hire.
You likely spend much of this time hopping between one website to the next as you view candidates on multiple platforms, such as Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster, and others. Save time using the CrewRecruiter application tracking system (ATS) platform, which features all your candidates across all platforms into a single dashboard. Automating processes and the ability to respond to and sort applicants make the process easier and more efficient. Multiple users can access the account and rate applicants, allowing you to make better hiring decisions.
Bad Habit #2: Dealing with Bad Hires for Your Green Industry Business
If you have an underperforming employee who has a negative attitude that affects the entire team and doesn’t respond to your feedback or show signs of improvement, it’s time to let them go. Bad hires drain your finances and put a strain on human resources.
If you lost every employee you have and had a chance to rehire anyone you want, who would it be? Let go of people you wouldn’t hire again. It’s common to rationalize keeping on a bad hire, but keeping them on does more harm than good.
While the cost of a bad hire is approximately 30% of their annual salary, investing more time and money into an employee who is disrespectful, unreliable, or not a team member will not help your business either. It will likely hurt the morale of your top performers.
Avoiding Making Bad Hiring Decisions
Consider what factors made this employee a poor hiring decision. Did you provide feedback promptly? Were they a bad culture fit? Were they uncoachable? Use these experiences as a learning opportunity to avoid bad hires in the future.
Bad Habit #3: Following Skill-Focused Hiring Practices
Leading lawn, landscape, and outdoor living companies make hiring decisions based not only on skill but on attitude. Team players with a positive mindset are coachable and trainable, but highly skilled employees with poor attitudes are difficult to work with. This concept is especially true when hiring younger employees who may not have extensive experience.
While finding a highly skilled employee with a fantastic attitude is the ultimate goal, it may feel like chasing a unicorn, especially in a tight labor market. Finding qualified employees is difficult right now, making it an excellent time to hire for attitude rather than skill.
Hiring for Attitude
Several successful entrepreneurs run their businesses by this philosophy, including the late Herb Kelleher, who was the CEO of Southwest Airlines. In an interview, he said, “We will hire someone with less experience, less education, and less expertise than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude. Because we can train people. We can teach people how to lead. We can teach people how to provide customer service, but we can’t change their DNA.” Hire for attitude, train for skills.
Bad Habit #4: Useless Training for Your Crew
Get smart with training. Don’t send your employees to useless training just because it’s winter and work is slow. Employees understand training covers topics you care about, so consider this in reverse—training you don’t invest in means you don’t care about it. Make strategic and intentional decisions about what employee training you choose to invest in.
Soft-Skills Training
Consider outside-of-the-box training topics, such as customer service training, for your foremen and crew. These employees are at the frontline of customer perception, and soft-skills training for these team members is often overlooked. Considering 61% of customers would drop a company after just one bad experience, ensuring your employees have excellent customer service and people skills is essential.
Stanford Research Institute International conducted a study that found 75% of an employee’s success comes from soft skills, while only 25% comes from their technical skills. Investing in soft-skills training not only helps your business, but these skills will help your employees develop skills that will help them throughout their careers and lives.
Safety First Training
On-the-job safety is always a worthwhile investment, and you can find free training sessions on various topics. Financed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA) offers free virtual workshops for training and education on various safety topics, including electrical hazards, ground operations, and aerial lift safety.
The National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) offers a free Safe Company Program to NALP members. Safe Company members receive training manuals for various topics, safety webinars, and a free safety advisor. They can also display the Safe Company logo on their website.
Bad Habit #5: Being Stingy with Your Employees as a Lawn, Landscape, and Outdoor Living Business Owner
With a recession on the horizon, inflation rates rising, and an uncertain economy ahead, being generous with your employees may not feel like a priority. However, ensuring business growth during an economic downturn requires talented employees who are happy in their roles—investing in your top talent helps ensure they are.
Offer Higher Pay for Your Crew
You get what you pay for. If you want high-performing employees, you must be willing to pay what they’re worth—because if you don’t, your competition will. 63% of people in a recent survey reported leaving their jobs last year because their pay was too low. Being a penny-pincher is an admirable quality, but not when it comes to investing in top talent.
One of the first objections you may have to this concept is that you can’t afford it. Employers with the highest morale and productivity tend to prioritize differently. 40% of companies surveyed state that they are increasing employee salaries in an effort to prepare for a recession. The top two actions companies are taking are increasing prices for products and services and reducing other operating expenses, which more than 60% of the companies surveyed reported doing.
Consider Better Employee Benefits
Two-thirds of workers say benefits are an important part of how they view overall compensation, and 75% say that their benefits factor into their decision to stay at or leave a job. Offering health care benefits and 401(k) programs is a great place to start. If you plan on adding benefits, survey your team to find out what benefits they are most interested in and go from there.
Rewards and Recognition for Good Employees
If re-prioritizing your spending isn’t an option, and you truly cannot afford to increase pay or benefits, you can show your generosity in other ways. A study reported by Harvard showed that people with leaders who expressed their gratitude for them were 50% more productive than those who were not shown appreciation. People need to feel appreciated and know they’re making a difference. A simple thank you can go a long way.
Other ways that outdoor living businesses can reward their top-performing employees are offering extra time off, gifting a gift card to a local restaurant, hosting a summer BBQ, or taking the team golfing on a work day. Just keep in mind that your employees work to earn a living, and any benefits beyond pay are perks but may not be of utmost importance to everyone.
Being stingy with your employees may save money, but you’ll miss out on the many benefits of being a generous employer. Happy employees lead to higher retention rates, productivity, and increased revenue, sales, and engagement.
Bad Habit #6: Withholding Feedback for Your Outdoor Living Business Employees
98% of employees who receive little to no feedback are disengaged from their work. Telling your employees how you feel about their performance makes them feel more secure in their position, and when they feel more secure, they’ll do more for you.
A good rule of thumb is to praise in public and “punish” (offer constructive criticism) in private. If an employee isn’t performing as you expect, you’ll do them a favor by offering your constructive feedback—they can either improve or go somewhere else, and you’ll both be happier.
Some top firms find that checking in with employees more often makes feedback more effective and keeps the dialogue going. Prepare before you meet with the employee so you can provide helpful feedback, offer solutions on how to fix your concerns, and share how they are contributing to your company's overall goal. Follow up after a period of time to find out how they’re progressing. Feedback goes both ways, so ensure you are open to receiving it and create a culture that values feedback, so everyone feels comfortable giving and receiving it.
Bad Habit #7: Doing Everything Yourself as a Landscape Industry Business Owner
You wear a lot of hats, and carrying this weight forever isn’t sustainable. While your excellent work ethic has brought you success this far, pivoting is essential to scale your business. A recent survey found that companies that delegate well produce approximately 33% more revenue. It’s time to delegate tasks to your top performers.
Before you begin handing over tasks, ensure your goals are clearly defined. Determine which tasks are high value and require your attention and which are low value and could be completed by someone else. Remember that entrusting tasks to your valued employees will give them a sense of purpose and responsibility, increasing morale.
Delegating appropriate tasks and responsibilities will make your process more efficient and increase productivity overall. People tend to do more and do better when given responsibility. Empowering your team provides the possibility for career growth and increases motivation—which has been shown to make 87% of employees less likely to quit their jobs.
