Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
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Suggest you join the BOG. Within there you'll find some specific threads about this and some templates in the archive.
Re your point about 2 weeks snow, if they are on a full time contract, then it's you're responsibility to pay them, rough with smooth etc, otherwise it is a causual / zero hours contract in all but name. Try and have other jobs they can do on such days etc cleaning / servicing kit / tidying store / vans / yard etc.
Alternatively look at
https://www.eldirect.co.uk/employment-contracts.html
and adjust for your own needs. Also has lots of H&S stuff from same people:
https://www.hsdirect.co.uk/product-information/method-statements/ga...
Federation of small business will have everything you need
Although FSB is one aspect I'd recommend, don't forget LJN's BOG with its peer-to-peer mentoring and available docs. It is a unique way of helping fellow members. It gives access to knowledgeable people that have been in similar situations. Easy to take for granted, but so many have benefited with the support LJN provides and gone on to create valuable business relationships.
For an employer the FSB is a great safety net and in my opinion worth every penny.
Looks as though you want the best of both worlds James - staff contracted to you, but with the option of laying them off when it's convenient...............which is exactly what I wanted when we went from two to four! However, we bit the bullet(over 20 years ago now) and with better management, plus pricing in say 10 days inclement weather, spread over the year, we have rarely had the need to lay anyone off. Make sure you get your costings right and don't go wading in offering top wages and then find the 28 days holiday entitlement hits you hard! We have a two week Christmas compulsory break(8 days min holiday), which helps.
What really makes a big difference tho, is running Landscaping and Garden maintenance together. Essential when as you say "...some material don't arrive.....", the guys just nip off to cut some grass etc. With maintenance there's ALWAYS something to do!
I agree with Colin, we are primarily a regular maintenance company (our bread), but carry out small landscape works too (jam). But it does put a strain on maintenance when landscaping works run over into scheduled maintenance time, so it works both ways. It also helps that my right-hand man is both a competent horticulturalist and a landscaper, which is very rare.
Have you looked into annualised hours? I am about to, for my new recruit, so would be interested in others' views on this too, if it comes up.
We operate annual hours contracts, with accrued hours totalled on each months pay slips and balanced against 'paid' hours (annual hours/12). When we get to the end of the year if the employee has worked more hours than contracted they get a lump sum payment to make up shortfall in pay, and if they have worked less hours this is written off. For me, I can calculate my running costs throughout the year, and the employee has a stable guaranteed income irrespective of weather and time of year.
Sounds fair, Ray, the only thing that worries me is the possibility of paying out lump sums just before winter, when I need all the cash flow I can hold on to. When does your year end, in this respect? How would you accommodate this arrangement if someone joins at the busy time i.e. now and your year ends at the end of 2017, when they are likely to have accrued hours? Or does the year run from when they start. Sorry for all the questions!
How do you deal with and control the write off element ?
Hi Catherine, we run contracts to April/May so there are accrued hours/monies to carry the winter months. We assume there will be 40 working weeks over the season, and at any given time should an employee decide they wanted to move on the funds are in the bank. Contracts are all reviewed annually as necessary in respect of remuneration.