Pressing on

See April’s edition of Lawn & Landscape for a more in-depth look at how the three Turnaround Tour companies are doing. The issue goes live Monday!

Keep climbing. In the past, Paul Welborn would have taken the lead on assembling his company’s career ladder. But not this year, as he continues to learn to delegate at Lawn & Pest Solutions in New Albany, MS. He’s put his lawn managers is charge of creating the steps a technician has to take to climb the ladder.

“A year ago, I would have put a lot of the information together and had them look at it and see what they thought,” Welborn says. “Now they're building out that information and I'm giving my feedback, which is the way it should be.”

Welborn has learned through the process that his managers are more than capable of taking on the responsibility, and saves him the headache of one more task. Allowing managers to assemble the career ladder has provided teaching moments Welborn says.

Making headway. Frank Leloia Jr. feels his business Custom Landscaping and Lawn Care is making stride to improve.

“The biggest factor that we’ve worked on so far has been HR related issues,” he says. “Harvester Steve has been working with our operations manager, Syril, to make sure we are fully compliant. Tackling HR has been great.”

The business has also done some hiring recently, which will help streamline operations and allow the company to better delegate tasks.

Before the new hire, three employees were contributing to heading up the department.

“Now, with the hire we are more streamlined. We’ve essentially decluttered our organization chart,” Leloia says.

Remaining calm. David Hawkins Jr., of Hawkins Landscaping, says his employees are doing everything they can to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Of course, he adds that these measures are all things they should’ve been doing anyway: wiping down trucks at the end of the day, creating wash stations around the company yard and washing hands before lunchtime. But there’s only so much he can do to prevent the spread of germs and fear at his own company – clients are going to be equally concerned about the virus as well.

“We just talked to them and we’re taking everything that we can do,” Hawkins Jr. says. “We want to keep our people safe. We’re one big family and try to do the right thing, which is not panic.”