Eliminating Employees

Sandra Benton
Photo: Landscape service prosSandra Benton’s goal for 2010 is to keep her people working. Early fall, Landscape Service Pros let go 12 employees in its irrigation construction division – the first manpower cut the company has made since business began to decline in 2009.

Industry peers in South Florida feel her pain. “Their trucks are parked, and they are having to let go of people,” says Benton, president.

That doesn’t make this decision any easier to implement. “It’s tough – really tough, Benton says, knowing that the irrigation division manager struggled to reduce a loyal workforce.

But Benton doesn’t expect the economy to look brighter in her region next year. This uncertainty creates real budgeting challenges. Landscape Service Pros must be nimble and decide what expenditure cuts to make if the company’s plan to grow its maintenance division doesn’t take off as planned.

Landscape Service Pros

Principal: Sandra Benton, president Location: Tamarac, Fla. Established: 1998 2008 Revenue: about $9 million Customers: 95% commercial, including common grounds of housing communities; 5% residential Services: landscape construction, irrigation and maintenance Employees: 66

Benton has invested in a subcontracted salesperson to stoke the maintenance business, which has increased from 30 percent of the overall business last year to about 45 percent this year. “We knew all this was coming so we were focusing on gearing up the maintenance division, hopefully being able to transfer employees (from landscape construction),” she says.  

In 2008, the company finished at about $9 million. But now, Benton says, the company’s billings were at $4.7 million.

During 2009, Benton cut back the budget by reducing the company’s simple IRA contribution from 3 to 1 percent, and she’s considering ways to reduce phone expenses and other operations costs for next year.

Plant material prices are down now, which was a help when the company purchased materials for deals done last year. Another positive: “The large equipment we have is already paid for,” she says.

Looking to 2010, Benton may have to consider dropping health insurance.

Benton will focus on marketing, and she has worked to earn certifications that make the company attractive for large construction jobs.

 

The author is a freelance writer based in Bay Village, Ohio.

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