HOW WE DO IT: Developing Foremen at Designs by Sundown

It has been said that a company is only as good as its people.
 
At Designs By Sundown, much of our mandate as a full-service landscape company is based on the importance of hiring, developing and nurturing the right individuals to manage our teams.
 
This starts with recruiting experienced foremen and empowering them to manage and build their own teams. We seek foremen with a minimum of 10 years of trade experience and five years supervisory experience. The challenge, though, is how do you find these qualified individuals?
 
Newspaper ads, trade organization Web sites and industry publications are good sources for recruiting quality foremen, but recently we have been successful posting jobs at Web sites such as craigslist.com. A benefit of posting job openings on the Internet is to gauge whether the respondent is Internet savvy and to seek those individuals who possess strong communication and written skills. This is important since our foremen act as project managers and must communicate well with vendors, clients and co-workers. We also have  plans to integrate project management software to improve day-to-day operations that will require computer skills.
 
In addition to the Internet, we rely on our employees and trade partners to get the word out when we are looking to hire a seasoned foreman. Their referrals normally provide us a list of qualified candidates. We have even hired foremen when we didn’t have a position open. They contacted us and their qualifications were too good to pass up.
 
The interview process is critical in selecting a foreman. This is our chance to determine if the applicant’s personality, work history and skills are a solid fit for the requirements of the position and our particular culture. Additionally, this is our opportunity to assess how well they conduct themselves in a professional situation. Our questions focus on making sure candidates share the same core values, performance expectations and passion for the industry as our management team. We ask questions such as “Why do you want to work for us? Have you managed our type of high-end residential projects? How well do you manage crews?” How they respond allows us to determine if they will be a good fit for our company. “Exceeding our clients’ expectations” is the primary motivation behind everything we do at Designs By Sundown, therefore all employees, in particular our foremen, must exhibit this level of pride, business and personal ethics and focus on customer satisfaction.
 
Sound selection is critical because our foremen build and supervise their five- to six-person crews. Why do we build our crews in this manner? When mutual respect is developed between the foreman and his or her team, the result is increased productivity and less turn over. Our productivity increases by about 25 percent with a crew built by a foreman compared to a crew where the foreman inherited the workers. The crews are familiar with foremen expectations and the foreman has accountability for his/her hires. Less turnover of crewmembers equates to more time on job sites. We don’t want our foremen spending large amounts of time hiring and training new crews. 
 
Once hired, it is our responsibility to empower foremen with continued training and to give them the leadership tools to be successful in the field. Annually, we budget about $1,500 per foreman for continuing education and training. This involves both in-house training, which includes bringing in experts and training on equipment, skills and safety, and industry training through associations we’re affiliated with.
 
Once we’ve hired a quality foreman and he or she has become an asset to our operations, we do our best to retain them. We don’t want to develop “free agents” who become targets for recruitment by our competitors. We pass along positive comments and present our foremen with motivators such as rewards for above-and-beyond efforts and performance-based incentive programs. When possible, we compensate foremen using an above-the-industry pay scale, which includes base pay and bonus opportunities. At Designs By Sundown, many employees earn additional compensation based on their work performance and by increasing their skill set.

Co-authors Tracy Olson, marketing, and Gene Gillespie, vice president of operations, work for Englewood, Colo.-based Designs by Sundown. They can be reached at tolson@designsbysundown and ggillespie@designsbysundown, respectively, or at
303/789-4400.
 
Advancement is another way we acknowledge a “job well done.” We promote from within because it reinforces our commitment to our employees for their hard work and dedication.
 
Developing quality foremen is the cornerstone to building a sustainable and successful landscape business. Everyone is a winner when you build and nurture a quality team of skilled employees. – Tracy Olson and
Gene Gillespie