High Maintenance

Maintenance crews on the move jump from one account to the next – mowing, trimming, pruning, blowing. Front yard to back, space to space – soon, a neighborhood seems more like a life-sized Monopoly board where contractors make their way from Baltic to Boardwalk, working to “pass go” and collect $200 dollars by the end of the day.

But swift players don’t always round the board with more money in the bank. In the maintenance game, productivity and speed aren’t one and the same. And if employees aren’t motivated to play the game without dragging their heels – without tending to quality and timing their progress – no one will win, pointed out Kurt Bland, maintenance division manager, Del Conte’s Landscaping, Fremont, Calif.

“Make employees realize we can’t do the job without them,” he emphasized. “Fifty to 60 percent of a maintenance budget is spent on labor. If you’re working on keeping your mowers happy all the time and you’re not worrying about your labor, then you’re denying 50 to 60 percent of what you do.”

MAIN INCENTIVE. Jerry Gaeta realizes that without his hardworking crews, the most high-tech mowers won’t deliver results. This is why teamwork is the root of the incentive program for The Good Earth, Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

“I wanted a system that would reward everyone in the company, not just the field foremen and their laborers, but also the account representatives, the receptionist…” he listed. “The whole support team needs to benefit.”Besides basing kudos on camaraderie, Gaeta wanted a long-term system that influenced workers to stay with the company – one that prompted employees to maintain equipment and one that was tied into the estimating system and not dependent on a certain net profit figure. “The crew thinks about hours,” he explained. “You can’t say dollars because they sometimes don’t understand that.”

So, 11 months ago, Good Earth integrated an incentive program into its operation that so far has nipped 7 percent of its labor costs. The crew hustles in the morning and doesn’t stall when servicing properties. “They are conscious of their time in the morning and their time coming back, and that’s where a company loses money,” Gaeta described. “The foreman doesn’t have to be responsible for working hard – everyone has a stake in it.”

Here’s how it works: Gaeta figured a dollar value for each work hour. If he estimates a project will consume six man-hours and the crew finishes it in five, the money from this extra hour (75 percent of the hourly wage) goes into a pool. He subtracts 10 percent each quarter for equipment maintenance costs, which motivates employees to care for machines, and leftover money from this allocation is distributed at the end of the year. At the end of each quarter, employees receive a part of the pool.

“The split is based on your hourly rate, so it will benefit the people really pushing the crews,” Gaeta said, adding that employees can increase their yearly pay up to 15 percent simply by being efficient. As the owner, he does not take a portion of the pool. When employees leave the company in the middle of the season, their portion of the pool is set aside to split with loyal employees who stay on board all year. “This encourages long-term employees. When crews stay together after a year, they are more productive.”

However, implementing a system based on man-hours requires knowing exact production hours. No guesstimates. “That’s where most people make their mistakes,” Gaeta related. “They try to give incentives without knowing how they are costing it out.”

Before Good Earth put the plan in place, Gaeta spent four months timing each task so there weren’t estimation discrepancies. He broke out recorded yearly hours into quarters and noticed certain quarters had too many man-hour savings – in some cases, too many hours were allocated to a project, he explained. This would result in hefty bonuses one quarter and skimpy ones the next. Working out these production hours before implementing the system ensured realistic expectations for substantial bonuses.

Doug Collinson, president, Collinson Brothers Landscaping, Wharton, N.J., also bases bonus dollars on saved man-hours. The Compass System he adapted for his company compensates employees at time-and-a-half pay if they finish a project early. For example, if a property is estimated at 40 man-hours and the crew finishes it in 30, they have 10 hours to get a head-start on the next job. Since they are increasing the company’s productivity and profit through this efficiency, the crew earns time-and-a-half for these 10 hours. Collinson distributes this bonus monthly.

“The whole premise is that you are selling hours and time and you are not selling a product or a service,” he explained. “It gives the guys incentive to get done with one job and get on with the next, therefore not having to work overtime or 50 or 60 hours per week.”

For some, whittling away these long work weeks is a bonus in itself. Jake Silvas, president, S & S Landscaping, Greensburt, Pa., said his four-day workweek not only cuts overtime, but also builds morale. “A four-day workweek is an incentive to stay on schedule and get the job done in the allotted hours,” he said.

The company erased nearly half of its overtime, he added. Routes are scheduled with geography in mind, crews know when and where to go as soon as they arrive in the morning, and most of all, they know the hours allotted for each project so they can meet these goals.

At Del Conte’s Landscaping, the goal is to exceed a 6-percent net profit, and if the company reaches this mark employees share the benefits, Bland noted. “The first $100,000 dollars above and beyond that 6 percent net profit will be given back to the employees,” he said, adding that though some businesses motivate their employees based on hours, Del Conte’s high wages please its employees.

While dangling the carrot of a year-end bonus in front of crews, Bland says showing employees how each aspect of the business affects the bottom line keeps them considering efficiencies on a daily basis. “If there is a broken irrigation head, I will hold it up at a meeting and say, ‘This is one more expense that takes away from that 6 percent so that we can give you guys the bonus,’” he related, knowing their work directly affects the company’s financial health and, in turn, their bonuses.

SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT. An incentive system fades without employee support, so from the beginning, key managers should form a communication funnel, filtering to crew members information, examples and reasons they should trust the plan.

This isn’t always easy at first. Gaeta’s operations manager, David Schwartz, remembers when the first quarter bonuses were far less than employees expected.

“We got a lot of, ‘Well, this isn’t a lot of money,’” he recalled, adding that the first quarter the landscape department was 300 hours over budget, which drew money from the pool and deflated bonuses.

Gaeta remembers presenting these checks at a company meeting with donuts, coffee and awards and explaining the bonuses to employees. “My management talked to key personnel and explained to them what happened, so they were our front line to help communicate with the laborers,” Gaeta said. “It was very positive. I had several people tell me they weren’t working for the incentive and it was a reward for doing the job they already understood.”

Hashing out specifics with employees is crucial to getting them to buy into an incentive plan, Schwartz added. Taking the time to answer questions can dispel uncertainties.

“When we first presented it to everyone, it was a lot,” Schwartz admitted. “I would say that 50 percent of the employees didn’t understand [the program]. When you get down to small percentages it can make you dizzy. But as it develops and they can see where they are making money in a job, their view changes.”

Collinson saw attitudes shift when his employees gained confidence that they could finish jobs in the estimated hours. At first, they were worried that set schedules might be unrealistic and bonuses difficult to obtain. However, when he provided crews with specific route sheets and work orders for each job, they knew the essentials for each project. “Keep the crew informed so when they get out there, there isn’t any guesswork,” he emphasized.

Collinson also supplied the group with scenarios. “We tracked hours on some of the jobs with the Compass System without judging them on their performance for bonuses,” he said. “Then, we said, ‘With this job you were given X man-hours and you came in under that amount, so you were making the system work without realizing it.’ Until they saw it could be done, they were hesitant to buy into it.”

And until everyone buys into the plan, no one will prosper. The owner, managers, foremen and crew members – including those who work in the office or maintain equipment – must see the benefits in the program, Bland added. “If you send one message and it stops at a certain level, then it’s really pointless,” he said. “Whether the owner of the company or a manger or a supervisor, we all have to be on the same page.”

The company presents goals and budgets to its employees, and everyone is constantly reminded of the reward – the dollars that they will find in their checks if the business beats a 6-percent net profit, Bland said. The message appears in the company newsletter and is repeated at weekly training meetings. “You have to build this culture – the big picture of it. You make this culture and the people feel like they are so important to what you’re doing – that’s the greatest incentive a person can have.”

CHECK, CHECK. Once employees realize the tie between productivity and extra pocket money, speeding past “Go” might seem more appealing than spending the extra time for finishing touches. In the pursuit of efficiency and profit, owners must make sure their crews aren’t sacrificing quality for quantity.

Silvas checks quality on each property by going through a checklist that is divided into a two-part form that clients sign. Team leaders walk the sites with customers upon completion of installation projects to ensure their satisfaction with the results. These managers meet Monday mornings to review works-in-progress, noting details that demand attention. They check in with maintenance crews daily and address issues within a day or two, he explained. In the office, Silvas or the operations manager assesses man-hours to record daily progress and amend future schedules.

To supplement daily communications, visual aids uncover a property’s pluses and problems, he added. “We have digital cameras and take pictures that we bring to the Monday meetings,” he said. “We point out the good and the bad and the ugly and the beautiful – it’s a good tool. Taking the pictures, taking them to the meeting – now you can show 10 people what is going on vs. one person that was at the job.”

Bland uses similar tactics in weekly crew meetings. A weekly slide show doesn’t hide cracks in quality, but it does motivate employees to deliver value and not just move their mowers like pawns to the next account on the board. “No one wants to see their picture on the slide show for being problematic,” he remarked.

Besides, positive results prevent returning to jobs for clean-up work, Gaeta noted. His employees know that not following through with job requirements means they will have to return to the property to fix mistakes. “If they slow down on quality and make a lot of extra time savings, the next week they have to clean it up and lose the hours,” he pointed out. Now, crews approach jobs and quality issues with a team attitude.

However, without the tools – the training and communication – to deliver quality service, employees are set up to fail, no matter the intricacies of the incentive system. After all, players need rules before they can play fairly and enjoy the game.

Bland said regular site inspections – both random visits and upon project completion – keep employees on their toes, but the high-energy training meetings motivate them to practice perfection in the field. Upbeat music welcomes employees to weekly meetings, which are set up like a class-room to promote a learning environment.

“If you are teaching someone and it’s not an interactive process, then they won’t stay involved,” he noticed. “There is a term: experience learning. Reinforce what you’re trying to teach and add to it an experience of some kind.”

Bland’s in-class “experiences” center around images of projects so he can point out the pros and cons. He involves employees with hands-on teamwork exercises like building a card house, and they fill out worksheets and take a test at the end of each session. “The second to last page, they have to sign a line saying they understood what they were taught and in the future they will be held accountable,” he said. “We take a copy and let them keep the rest of the notes, and I file these papers.”

S & S Landscaping sends crew members to pesticide training or horticultural classes at the local department of agriculture, providing them the opportunity to create a career for themselves. Jennifer Ranalla, human resources director, said this piques their interest and refreshes their field knowledge.

Employees who aren’t motivated don’t produce, and incentive programs that reward complacency miss quality. Incentives might not compete with the “Get Out of Jail Free” card, but supplemented with a solid estimating structure, open lines of communication, and ongoing training, companies can ensure employees give 100 percent to that crucial 50- to 60-percent labor figure.

“You don’t find good people, you make good people,” Bland concluded. “People are not born caring about whether their job looks better than the competition – you have to build and train the person and you have to continually invest in them.”

The author is Managing Editor – Special Projects for Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at khampshire@lawnandlandscape.com