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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I think we all get too wrapped up in what we are delievering - whether it be hard or soft landscaping, maintenance etc and sometime forgot how we deliver especially if staff are involved.
I've tried to find a way to provide a financial bonus etc, but it is so hard to be objective and come up with measurable goals to achieve it.
I normally make sure I give praise when due, be considerate when personal issues effect the guys, look to reward by training (double bonus that one - good for the employee and good for the business), we do a few lunches (ie finish early have a meal, chat and discuss things) and try to do something that's a laugh - current vogue is gokart racing - we did one recently - 2 hour le-mans type race - £99 per team + food/drinks. Such fun.
It would be good hear what others do to reward effiecient & productive staff.......
Why not embed the video code into your intro above just think of the video section as the host?
The idea of lunches, go-karting, paint-balling, barbeques etc is good and something i'll need to find the time to do more of - this I can do and appreciate that the benefit will be that their acts of looking-forward-to and reminiscing-about will buoy the mood to a good level.
This seems an obvious approach however, though not as obvious as a cash reward, and I am sure it is effective but only for short periods before and after the event. I am also looking at ways to improve their daily work: what perks can we affordably include in the job that will inspire a person to not only love the job but love the business (my business)?
Also instead of telling him what to do all the time I used to ask him how we'd do it to see if he was thinking it through instead of just turning up for the £.
Wherever possible I'd get him involved in new things even if it was simply half an hour using a tool or machine he wasn't used to just to keep his brain sparking.
Not had one yet though who's as passionate and fussy as me but I guess all those people are running their own show?
and on a friday if we've done a whole week (neither guy is full time so they don't often do full weeks for me) we'll take a longer lunch and i'll treat them both to fish and chips.
I quitely identifed who I could trust and gave them the brief/job spec etc. Explained expectations/timescales and said - go do, go manage, go solve any problems.
I resisted sticking my oar in unless I could see massive problems. In a way, each team was a little business unit. It gives them room to grow, take decisions and be responsible for the success (and also any failures). It has helped us, as I can safely delegate and they know 'the boss' is not always on their back. However, the key is accountability and they fully accept that....
I've looked at supervisory training and maybe something that gets done when funds available. I also got some articles about rewarding staff (a little US centric) but you can pick good approaches from what the larger businesses do in the USA. I believe their business models and approach are so in advance of ours.
Over here, the large landscape/grounds maint business tend to treat their staff as 'pure labour' to be employed at the lowest possible rate, totally dispensable and often considered the lowest form of life. This especially true when these companies are tendering (under outdated, ill-conceived rules, lowest bid wins) public contracts.
I agree about your 'pure labour' idea: is it really that fair to ask a man to break himself shovelling earth for 9 hours a day for £50 or £70....is £90 even fair? The supporting argument is that it is a purely economical equation...but given that even the economists can't run the economy properly - do we/should we conform to these rules?
It seems to me that most of these progressive ideas currently come from the creative industries, or at least the creative side of the economic and technological industries. Google, Skype, Facebook etc all seem to have staff that LOVE working for them...since we are in a creative industry (in almost every semantic of the phrase) and struggle with very traditional labour vs management, labour vs economy conundrums - is there perhaps a radical 'new-way' of looking at how we do this. I certainly find the traditional business model very difficult to work with - it seems we have to conform to "how it's done".
My comment about the US was particularly focused on the Landscape Industry (go look at their various associations ie PLANET - http://www.landcarenetwork.org - the green industry hub).
The structure, support, business methods, staff training, certification, bonus schemes/staff rewards, trade journals are ALL well ahead of the UK industry.
Take a look at the US - there are at least 20 magazine titles ranging from landscape maintenance, hard landscaping, irrigation, greens care, etc, etc. As well as covering the latest plant, machine, latest legislation they ALL cover business - ie how to do it and improve. Most of our mags I've ever seen just regurgitate Press releases etc. Ok, the US is a larger market, but still........
OK, not every approach would work over here, but in the US it does work. Landscapers are taken seriously, their work is respected, they are more organised and possibly more rewarded.
Off topic, but the existing organisations in the UK (excepting LJN !) pale into insignificance compared to those in the US............
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