How to Retain Employees in Landscaping Companies

How to retain employees in landscaping companies

I worked at Tussey Landscaping for 15+ years, starting as a laborer on the crews, and eventually working through roles of Service Tech, Crew Leader, & Marketing Director and eventually started SynkedUP. I was never an owner at Tussey. Today, I hang out with a lot of contractors through my work on SynkedUP. People know my history with Tussey Landscaping, so in our conversations, this topic often comes up: How do you retain employees in landscaping companies?

Honestly, I find it hard to articulate. I mean, I know that yes, I did work a long time at a company. I stuck around and loved doing it. But why?

And I’m not the only one. I can count 6-8 others that stuck around for 10+ years (and counting) at Tussey.

I was recently on one of Jim Wertz’s sessions with his coaching group sharing my perspective on this. I spoke from the heart, but after hanging up, I was like “Man! I rambled a lot. How can I articulate this more succinctly?”

So I asked some of the Tussey crew that have been there for 10+ years. They had some good thoughts.

Now, no promises that I’ll get this succinct! 😜 But I’ll try.

Picture a quadrant of Respect, Autonomy, Money, and Opportunity. All 4 are needed. Remove any one of those 4, and you have the risk of them leaving.

Mutual respect between owner and employee

I think it starts here: respect flowing both ways. As owners and leaders, you want respect. But as employees, we want it too…

It plays itself out and makes itself evident in countless ways. But here are a few signs that mutual respect exists.

Signs that an employer respects their employee

• If owners really want to retain employees in landscaping companies, the owner has to be interested in the employees’ wellbeing
• Pay that allows for a comfortable life, home ownership, raising a family, owning decent vehicles, financial stability, and potential, or a communicated path for growth if the employee wants it
• Caring for what the employee thinks, asking them for input on company issues and decisions
• Work demands and pressures are being held in check, allowing for a work/life balance
• Investing in their skills and education
• Expressing appreciation and pride in their work
• Providing good tools, clean work environment
• Company-sponsored fun, activities, etc.
• Good, simple, clear incentive programs, rewarding performance that helps the company achieve its goals
• Helping them achieve their dreams for their career
• Providing info, systems, and processes, unlocking the ability for the employee to do their job well
• Allowing autonomy, an owner that does not insist on being the bottleneck and doing everything important themselves
• Giving space to fail (but in the same breath, when failure happens, leading out on a respectful, candid conversation on how we can improve or what can we learn from that failure, all without assigning blame – that’s how you retain employees in landscaping companies. Just asking how can we get better, or what can I do to better equip you to get better)

And signs that the employee respects the owner or leadership

• Asking for feedback on their work and performance
• Communicating when they don’t feel like they have the info, tool, etc needed to succeed. They know if they don’t succeed, the company won’t succeed
• Discretionary effort. Going above and beyond, because they take pride in their work and the company’s reputation
• Taking care of the company’s resources, equipment, & tools. Taking pride in putting your best foot forward.
• When you have employees referring their friends to the company for jobs. An employee that doesn’t respect the company they work for won’t do that.
• Caring. Caring for how customers feel after wrapping up a job. Going the last 10% on the clean-up, detail, and client experience. Caring that they’re working as efficiently as possible, with as high quality as possible. Which manifests itself in employees making suggestions on how to improve. Don’t ignore those suggestions! They may not all be good suggestions that turn into action or change but try to understand the root and motivation behind the suggestion and make sure they feel heard and their opinion considered.

A couple of other things that came up when I was asking others what they thought: If the owner gets a loaded brand new pickup every other year for his daily driver, yet his or her crew is only making $25-$35k/year, that’s not respecting the crew or their value. It’s perceived that the owner is putting themselves on a higher pedestal than the employees.

Or if the owner takes all the time off they want, but then gives the employees hassle when they need to take even just an afternoon off, especially for legitimate reasons, the employee will feel as though the owner doesn’t care or respect them. Work is the only thing that matters. The owner doesn’t care about the rest of their life outside of work or their overall well-being.

Another common thread I’ve heard from employees that DO have a great relationship with their owner and company and are sticking around for the long haul is that “the owner wouldn’t ask me to do anything they wouldn’t do themselves.” When the owner is visible on the crews, gets right in there on the worst rainy day, or when the owner helps find a better solution to a messy situation that they wouldn’t do themselves, that speaks volumes.

When I look back, Steve Martin, the owner at Tussey was really good at each of those things. He always kind of took the approach that a rising tide lifts all ships. As the company grew and did better, so did the employees.

Pay

This is a bit of a tricky one. Yes, employees want to be paid well, but it’s more than just good pay. I think Respect, Opportunity and Pay are a 3 legged stool. If you cut off the Respect or the Opportunity leg, the stool falls over. And throwing more money at it won’t solve the problem if you want to retain employees in landscaping companies.

That said, you can’t say money doesn’t matter. I think at a basic level, an employee that is 10+ years, should be a master at what they do. Anyone that is a master at what they do should be able to afford home ownership, provide for a family, have reliable vehicles, and have the financial margin that affords them time off and hobbies. Their life and income should be so good, that “Why would they want to go out on their own or change jobs?” It’s easier to grow with your company!

Now, speaking to employees, anyone can live beyond their means. You can make a million dollars a year and still be broke. Living within your means is a basic personal financial responsibility.

I think another thing that is really valuable is an incentive program that rewards employees when the company does well. Tussey Landscaping does something along the lines of

• bonus, when the company hits it’s breakeven number in revenue
• another, higher bonus when the company hits its sales goal for the year
• a percentage of net profit for any sales above and beyond the sales goal

There’s certainly not any one right way to do this. But this model Tussey has I think is effective. When I was out there, running a job site, and had the option of working an extra hour or pulling some logistical miracle to wrap up a job a day earlier than scheduled, I did. Because I knew that created another entire day, the next day, of production for the company, which accelerated the company hitting those milestones that year.

Having a bonus program that is shared across the entire team also promotes a team and peer-moderated culture. This is one way to retain employees in landscaping companies. If you happen to be a slacker, your colleagues won’t be your fans.

Opportunity for retaining employees in landscaping companies

It depends on how hungry the employee is, and how aggressively growth minded they are. Something I think that can make an employee leave, even when respect, good money, and good culture do exist, is when an opportunity greater than what you can or are willing to provide presents itself. I mean, in a way, that’s what happened to me. I left Tussey and started SynkedUP (with Tussey’s owners as my partners) because of the opportunity. I had amazing bosses, great culture, pride in my work, financial stability, all of those things, but I still ended up leaving my role at Tussey, because of the opportunity that the SynkedUP dream and vision provided.

Not everyone would have jumped at that opportunity, there was massive risk in all of that too. Everyone’s risk tolerance varies. Everyone’s hunger or ceiling for opportunity varies.

And I think that’s where the multi-decade employees come from. The person that inherently has the work ethic, takes pride in their work, wants to grow, feels like they have autonomy, their opinion matters & feels like they have a voice in your company. But they aren’t quite willing to sacrifice the good life they have as your employee and take on the unknowns and risks of entrepreneurship or job change.

I do think you can have 10+ year employees that are not motivated by more opportunity. They just want to fill their role, do well at it, get incremental pay increases, have a good work-life balance, and they’re happy. Businesses need those people. But those people also won’t be your movers and shakers, innovating, coming up with ideas, solving big problems, and working with you as the owner to improve the overall company. They are more “go-with-the-flow”, steady, hard worker type of people.

Another key element in the opportunity discussion is: if the owner allows themselves to be the bottleneck in their organization, it limits the opportunity for the employee. As the owner, you are the ceiling. Employees can’t jump over you as the owner, and grow past you.

So if you are the kind of owner that insists on doing anything important yourself… well… Don’t be surprised when your best employee leaves. You’ve got to get past the “if I want it done right, I need to do it myself” mentality. That’s a small-minded mentality. And to the employee, it screams that the owner doesn’t trust me. A good leader would be asking “How can I provide the vision, training, systems, and processes to ensure it gets done right?” This is a must if you want to retain employees in landscaping companies.

How Do You Get 10+ Year Employees for Yourself?

It starts with hiring the right people. You know that old saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink”? The employee has to “want it”. You can’t turn a deadbeat into a model entrepreneur. Intrapreneur is a play on words for someone that isn’t an owner/entrepreneur but has the owner/entrepreneur mindset internally in the company

That said, before you go labeling them as a deadbeat, it is AMAZING what humans will do when they sense that someone believes in them. Fathers rise up to challenges they never thought possible because their spouse or kids believes in them. A son and daughter mature and steps up to the plate tremendously when they have a parent or mentor that believes in them. Employees transform, when they sense their leaders have a vision for them and the owner believes that they can do it. Even owners rise up and grow their self-worth and leadership abilities when they sense that their team believes in them and the company’s vision.

If you’re hiring people that are warm, vertical, and can fog a mirror, well… don’t blame them when it doesn’t work out. Blame your vetting process.

Do they have a work ethic, or can they learn what a good work ethic is? Do they have a sense of dignity and pride in their work and abilities? Do they want to get better? Do they want to grow? Can they take critique and feedback? Do they do what they said they would do?

Hiring

These are all basic human character qualities. If those exist, amazing things happen. If you’re not finding those people, look harder. Those people are in high demand and usually aren’t walking around filling out job applications.

Yes, those types of people may seem to be diminishing in society, but they exist. I know of a business owner who’s the best employee left. Then, for a number of weeks, he was back out in the field covering for his now gone employee. He was on the phone with his business coach one day, claiming he can’t find anyone.

His coach asked him “Is this the biggest problem in your business right now?”

“Yes.”

“How much time are you spending on solving this problem since it happened?”

“Maybe an hour a week.”

“So you’re telling me that you are spending 1 hour a week on your business’s biggest problem?”

……silence…… then “Uh, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

He got off the phone and focused on “his biggest problem” and within 3 weeks had found an excellent replacement. Maybe even better than the one that had left.

I did seek the input of Tussey employees, and even my own SynkedUP employees when writing this. But I do want to say, I know I am only one perspective. Humans are complex beings, and there are many ways to find success in the pursuit of having long-term, loyal employees.

Conclusion

What do you find works for you? What’s your take on what I shared? What would you add or change? Leave me a comment or reply and chime in, and add value to this thread for the rest of us to learn from.

I want to close off with an invitation. We are having our Contractor Summit event here in Altoona PA on Sept 21 & 22. An awesome networking event, with incredible speakers on team building and business processes, touring the Tussey operation and a job site they recently completed. Steve and Matt, the owners of Tussey Landscaping are leading a session on building a solid team and culture.

I want to invite you out here to PA, and let you see the Tussey shop, yard, and business. Pick the brains of Steve and Matt, talk to the Tussey team, and the SynkedUP team, and network with each other.

You can register right here. Hotels are filling up, and some of the discount room rates are ending this weekend, so get on it.

Your future self will thank you. So will your spouse, your kids, and your team.

The best investment you can make is in yourself.

Weston Zimmerman

SynkedUP co-founder, CEO, past Tussey employee, foreman, grunt worker on the crew, you name it