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I've considered this for years. Seasonal seems to be the key, not enough time in "summer", not enough work in "winter". If you can't keep your staff in winter then they leave, and unless it suits the individual, they won't be back next year.
If you work all year round, like myself, consider offering a discount to those clients that will let you arrange jobs for the winter months. The jobs can be booked in summer (when the phone is ringing off the hook), with an offer that they could save money if you can do the work "off-peak". Unfortunately, there are many drawbacks to landscaping in winter; mainly the weather, and lack of daylight hours but if you can shape the flow of work then it may help.
If you don't work in winter, then you're asking a lot of commitment from an employee to wait out a few months of the year, then start back in March/April. Chances are whatever they find to do over winter won't be as seasonal.
There's plenty of advice on this forum about finding the right sort of employee which is the most important thing, you need someone who is flexible in any case, and maybe willing to work more hours in summer and less in winter for a set wage?
Good luck and I hope you find a solution. Rob
Worth reading this thread to the end as the 'seasonal' work issue gets discussed....
Thanks all for your advice. I guess I have got a little ground down by the seasonal issue over the years I have been running the business. I like working out in the elements but now often envy those who make a living in businesses that are not at the mercy of the weather! I will certainly be reading up on more of these discussion threads to glean some more good advice.
cheers all.
Starting off with some of the obvious choices;
- consider LJN as a medium to advertise your needs, especially if you use Pro membership and leverage the exposures LJN gets
- word of mouth - get the need known to as many as possible
- online job websites - I have used with varying degrees of success
- trade or Hort colleges, especially if they cater for 'mature' students ( unless you are looking for apprentices etc - again there have been some useful discussions on LJN)
- Trade publications - if they target your likely candidates
- local agencies ( but absolutely do negotiate on fees)
- specialised recruiters - ie Anders Plus, HortiRecruitment, MorePeople etc
If you want to offer year work as an employer, you will need to ;
- work with clients to allow year round works
- diversify within our market
- offer a totally differnt set of services for 'winter'
I am really not being clever or smug, but the last few years winters have been more profitable for us than summers when we had drought bans (!) stopping planting, turfing etc.
Thanks Gary,
I really appreciate the advice from yourself and others on the site. It certainly helps to be able to discuss it with people in the same boat which would be pretty much impossible without sites like this. I'll definitely look into some of these ideas.
Cheers
Dan
Gary RK said:
We have a skill set shortage and general malaise amoungst certain sections of the population.
We ran an advert and received more 'qualified' candidates from abroad than we did from our own population. A whole differnt topic, but shows that EU migration may not be the issues many feel it is, just look at C4 last night ( Benefits Street). .... There...rant over ;-)
Hi Dan Id put a +1 with Brian's idea, why not give oaklands a call and see if they have any students finishing this year who want a job, there should be 2 or 3 id guess.
Have you also thought about subcontracting? maybe another idea you could follow through with another small landscaper, just have a written agreement put in place that jobs you win are yours and he works for you and job he wins are his and you work for him. (Just an idea)
2013 was a problem year for us with staff, we had a settled team for about 4-5 years and then due to stuff going on in their lives working for us did not seem to be so important! However we have after "kissing a few frogs" found a good team but I have had to change the business so we can offer year round work or you just don't get anyone good enough. We do the 52 weeks a year contract with customers now and this works well especially with one customer where we have to get all major works done by April before they use their property. We found this year advertising in the local paper but buying a box advert drew out better people.
Dan I feel your pain
The only thing I can suggest (as it is what i have done) is to hire people who are willing to do other tasks, I use my assistant to help with paper work, book keeping, blogging etc, but we also have a design business which helps in the winter months, we also do some leafleting in the winter to try and drum up more business, it isn't popular, but it is all part of the job description and when it is a choice of pay or no pay it is amazing how jobs get done.
We also garden all year round which helps, lots of mulching, leaf clearing and in the warm weather weeding goes on and on. digging over veg patches, planning planting for the spring, etc
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