Always Improving
Landscaping is a dynamic field. New cultivars are created, new equipment is produced, and new techniques are developed to improve and modernize your outdoor spaces. In order to stay on top of these developments, we’re constantly training our team to meet the challenges of landscaping in the 21st century.
Technology is one area that continues to advance an improve at an enormous rate. Phones are now computers in our pockets, laptops are more advanced and lighter than ever and the technology in the vehicles we drive is ever expanding. You may be wondering how technology can help us, a professional landscaping company grow in the green industry. For a complete summary of how we are taking advantage of today’s technology, take a look at our previous blog post “There’s An App For That?”
By investing in our crews, we invest in our customers
When we cross-train our team members, we prepare them to grow their own careers, and provide a more seamless experience to our customers. An informed work force is a productive work force. By providing as much training as we can to our team, helps us win together as a team. Continuing education no matter the topic helps our team make decisions relating to their jobs, quicker and more effectively. All of this tied together results in faster communication with our, and quality results when a job is finished.
Today’s Student is Tomorrow’s Teacher
One of the truly remarkable things about Frederick’s Landscaping is the generations of landscaping leaders we’ve produced. We’ve trained individuals who now work in a variety of positions across the green industry, and much of the current upper management team at Frederick’s began their careers here, out in the field. We understand the responsibility and need to bring team members up along with us, creating opportunities that have a profound impact in their lives. By bettering themselves, they better the company and can open up new opportunities whether it be an earned pay increase, or taking on a higher position within the company.
Training in 2020
Early this year we assembled all our crew leaders to train them on SingleOps, our new operational CRM software system. This system gives our crews more information where they need it, which is at the job site.
Also this year we decided to share some of our company financials with our crew leaders, which we have never done in the past. We are hoping that seeing some of the costs associated with running a successful business will help our employees realize how decisions can affect the company positively or negatively. Something as simple as leaving a hand tool on a job site can result in hundreds if not thousands of dollars in unbillable hours (lost revenue) when you figure in the number of times a tool is left on a site over the year, number of crew members going back to retrieve the tool, and total labor for each retrieved tool. We are training our crew leaders in financial literacy, by teaching them how they can manage their resources, and time to establish their own production goals, for the betterment of the company.
