Keeping Equipment In Good Shape

However, if a worker can view a piece of equipment as his and his alone, is he more likely to take better care of it? Erich Heinrich, owner, Avalawn Landscaping, Cincinnati, Ohio, thinks so, and he has created a hand-me-down equipment "ownership" practice at his maintenance company that gives his employees a sense of pride in maintaining "their" own equipment.

OWNERSHIP HAS ITS ADVANTAGES. Each time Heinrich hires a new worker, the equipment hand-down process commences. Heinrich will purchase new landscape equipment, such as a trimmer, blower, rake, pitchfork, pruners, and even heavier equipment like a walk-behind mower. He uses those tools for about a week himself to break them in and make sure they operate properly. Next, Heinrich begins the hand-down process, starting with his foremen and continuing on through the rest of his employees with each person passing his equipment down the line to the next worker in line of job position and/or seniority all the way down to the new employee. During the brief transition period that Heinrich is breaking in the new equipment, the new employee will start out using back-up equipment.

Heinrich said this practice allows a new worker to learn how to operate equipment while using the company’s oldest machines, saving Heinrich from repairing or replacing newer equipment due to common rookie mistakes. The practice also gives all of his employees a sense of ownership in their equipment and, consequently, the business.

"They really treat it like their own equipment," Heinrich explained. "They’ll sharpen the blades if necessary, change the oil and clean under the mower deck. Some of my mowers that are four-years old look almost brand new.

"I’ve got an employee who has one of the mowers. He has these two flags tied to the back of it marking it as his lawnmower, and nobody touches it," Heinrich continued. "He keeps it clean. He changes the oil. He really thinks it’s his lawnmower."

Heinrich said the primary motivation for keeping equipment clean seems to be bragging rights over other employees. "I don’t give them any bonuses for keeping equipment clean," he noted. "They just do it themselves." Regardless of the reason, he is happy to see clean, operable equipment at his shop day in and day out.

OWNERSHIP CAN HAVE ITS "PROBLEMS." "About two weeks ago, I came to the job site to make sure everything was okay, and they were running a little behind, so I grabbed a pitchfork to start throwing mulch. The guy whose tool it was flat out looked at me and said, ‘You know that’s mine,’" Heinrich remembered. He chuckled and told the employee, "Keep in mind you may think that’s yours, but I still paid for it."

Heinrich said that type of exchange is common, especially when he uses his employee’s trimmers because they don’t want him to use all of the trimmer line they spent so much time winding. However, he likes to see that sense of pride and ownership among his employees. "Obviously it’s my stuff, but I’ll call it theirs. I’ll say, ‘David, go get your lawnmower,’" he noted.

Heinrich also mentioned that employees sometimes get so attached to a piece of equipment that they don’t want to hand it down. "An employee will say, ‘Erich, I’ve had this thing for four months. It runs perfect. I’m used to it. I would rather keep this one than take the new one,’" Heinrich said. In those cases, he doesn’t force the employee to give up the equipment; instead he just offers to hand down the newer piece of equipment to the next employee in line.

FOR THE EQUIPMENT’S SAKE. Having employees responsible for specific equipment helps Heinrich identify employees who don’t take care of equipment - something that is not as easily done at companies using common equipment for several workers. "If they break a shovel, I can replace it. If they break two shovels, then I know they’re obviously doing something wrong with the equipment and not treating it properly," he explained. "I can nip that in the bud before they start using everybody else’s equipment and breaking that also."

Heinrich recalled an employee who continually overheated his mower. After he bought that employee a new unit and it failed the same way, Heinrich discovered that the employee was leaving the unit’s choke on continuously and was doing the same thing with trimmers and blowers. "With my system, you have one guy breaking one piece of equipment instead of one guy breaking everybody’s equipment," he said.

Using the same equipment every day also can lead to identifying mechanical problems before they lead to unit replacements. "The guys get so used to using a piece of equipment that they know what it’s supposed to sound like and how it’s supposed to run. If there’s any slight problem, they usually catch it early enough and ask me to look it over," he explained.

While employees are individually responsible for their equipment, Heinrich picks a piece of equipment every day to use. "That way within a two-week span, I’ve used every piece of equipment down at the shop so I can keep a good inventory of what’s working and what needs to be worked on," he said.

Buying new equipment each time a new employee is hired could lead to higher costs for his business, but Heinrich said he seldom has equipment sitting around because he buys only what he needs. "It may cost a little bit more," he expressed, "but in the long run it doesn’t because I can’t remember any piece of equipment I’ve had that has been broken by neglect."