Perfecting the spring kickoff

Does your team know the plan ahead? Spring is an opportunity to set the tone for the season, rally the troops and share the vision for where the company is headed. In the past at K&D, we would charge right into the busy season without any formal get-together or meeting. Before we knew it, we were in the dead heat of summer. Then one year, we decided to have a spring launch meeting, and it made a huge difference in engagement and retention. For the last eight years, we’ve made a point to have a celebratory spring kickoff. Let’s dive into some of the components of a great spring meeting.

A spring kickoff will be different for every company. Your team may want to use it to welcome seasonal employees to the group, or for training with new equipment or products you will be using. It’s also a good time to introduce new projects or accounts your sales team landed over the winter. This event can last an entire day at some operations or it could be a 30-minute check in at others. If you do snow removal, it may be a fun way to transition your team and equipment to more favorable conditions (think “ceremonially” taking the plows off the trucks). Whatever you decide to do, make it creative and fun.

Keep the tone positive, this isn’t the time to talk about mistakes or issues. It’s all about confidence and excitement. Plan what you’re going to say and prep your leaders in the company to say a few words as well. Paint a picture of what success looks like this year and in short, explain how you are going to achieve it. The goal is for every person to walk away from this conversation excited to be working at your company and dedicated on staying there. I recently spoke with a candidate who is leaving a company because they didn’t know where the organization was headed. A start of spring meeting could have helped secure that team member by providing a clear vision of the path ahead.

This may be hard if you have multiple branches spread out over many regions; however, then I encourage you even more to get the entire team in one place. Take some time to go around and announce every production team member and introduce every office/support team member. This helps connect the two areas of the company that can often become distant and puts names to faces for those that may not see each other often.

K&D just had our spring kickoff and I am already seeing a difference in the way people interact. I am hearing buzz words like “culture,"“labor variance” and “vision.” The team really grabbed onto the message we shared, and I believe employee engagement is at an all-time high. It may seem like one more thing on your to-do list, but I promise the time you spend will be paid back in increased production, improved retention and happy employees.

Raise the bar is a monthly column by Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, written to help improve professionalism in the green industry.