How to Hire & Retain Lawn & Landscaping Employees: 5 Steps

Are you looking to expand your lawn care and landscaping business, but struggling to find and retain skilled employees? Hiring and retaining quality staff is crucial to growing your business, serving more customers, and providing more services.

Know what type of employee you’re looking for

The type of employees that you plan to hire should always depend on the type of support your business needs most. 

If your main goal is to take on more jobs, start by hiring field workers. If you’re stuck between choosing temporary or permanent employees, here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

• Permanent employees should be considered If you’re looking for a long-term team member that is willing to grow their skills and help you build your business. Although they cost more in wages, permanent employees can actually save you more long-term because it takes time and money to train and hire new staff each year.
• Temporary employees should be considered if your business is growing fast,  customer requests are pouring in, and might need as much help as possible to get the job done on schedule. This is where a temporary or seasonal employee comes into play. In lawn care, you often see the need for this type of employee during the busy season of Spring and Summer, or potentially in the snow season depending on your location.

If the type of jobs your business accepts requires a specialized skill set, it is important for you to be able to outline and describe the skills needed for your potential hire. 

If you are thinking of when you should hire office staff – keep in mind that a majority of work with smaller businesses can be optimized through lawn care software. Software can automate your job schedule, and keep your crews organized and your customers informed.

When you have a team of several field workers and plenty of customers to manage, this is when you should begin to hire back-end staff to manage your inbound calls, monitor invoice payments, and handle customer service issues.

Create a job description for your position

After understanding what your ideal hire would look like, you can create a job description to promote exactly what skills, experience, and traits you need. 

Here are some points you can include in your job description:

• Summary of position: This includes the purpose of the job, and how the position coincides with the goals of your business.
• List responsibilities: Outline the tasks that will be expected for the position, this could be dealing with customers, operating heavy equipment, or managing multiple landscaping jobs per day.
• List key skills: If the position you’re hiring for requires a specific skill set, be sure to list those skills to ensure you get the best possible applicants.
• List qualification: if you want previous lawn or landscaping experience, or experience operating heavy equipment or dealing with customers, this is the place to put that information.

Promote your job opening on multiple channels

Advertising your job openings through a variety of channels will help you reach more people, and improve your odds of finding the right candidates. 

Employment boards like Indeed, LinkedIn, and Craigslist are great places to start. You can also post your opening in social media job hunting groups where people trade job leads or are looking for work in the area. You can even utilize community bulletin boards that display job vacancies nearby (like “Help Wanted” signs at local businesses).

If you need someone immediately and don’t have the time to complete all the research yourself, you might think about partnering with a staffing company that has access to thousands of potential employees and is experienced in hiring them.

Be sure to take advantage of your company’s social media pages and your website to promote new openings as well! This is one of the most affordable ways to get the word out about your new position.

Hire the best personalities

After you’ve got a good list of new resumes, prepare for the interviews by having a list of questions ready. You want to be sure to ask the same questions to each candidate to be able to fairly compare skills and choose the right person.

Here are some interview questions to help you find the great lawn and landscape workers to add to your team:

• Tell me about yourself, including your background, interests, and hobbies. 
• Explain your prior landscaping and lawn care experience. 
• Why do you believe you are the best candidate for this position? 
• What kind of landscaping or lawn care tools do you have experience using? Have you used motorized tools like mowers, snowblowers, electric clippers, chainsaws, sod cutters, and pruning saws before? 
• Describe a time when you planted greenery, laid sod, or sowed grass as directed by a landscaping plan. 
• Do you have experience with door-to-door sales? 
• Tell me about the time when you sold a service to a new customer. What tactics did you use, and what was the result?
• Tell me about an instance when you had to handle a challenging client or coworker. How did you respond to the circumstance? 
• Have you maintained a good driving record and a valid driver’s license?

If the job position requires specific skill sets, be sure to add in questions to test that knowledge. You could even do a field interview to see their skills at work!

When considering a potential employee for the role, here are a few things that they should be able to provide. These include:

• A valid driver’s license
• Background check results
• Criminal history report

After you’ve done your desired interviews, and completed the background checks, you can then proceed to hire your new team member!

Provide quality onboarding and training

The key to retaining employees is in your onboarding and training. When a new member of the team arrives, you want to make sure that you have key documents and procedures prepared so their first days of work have clear guidance and they feel comfortable in their new role.

 Some of those procedures include

1. Onboarding:
   1. This includes introducing the team, providing an overview of the company and the services offered, and filling out required forms: Income Taxes, SSN, IRS Form I-9, etc.
2. Training:
   1. This includes an overview of lawn care specific field work, service sales, company software training.
      1. Cross-training your long-term employees can be a crucial step to building a great workforce. Download our free training checklist here:
3. Assigning a Mentor:
   1. It is crucial that your new employees have someone they can instantly report to for questions or concerns in their new position. This will elevate their experience and make them feel like a valued new member of your team.
4. Providing Work Materials:
   1. Be sure to pass out company hats, shirts, or other branded gear on the first day, or when their training is complete. 
   2. If you are assigning specific equipment to your new employees, make sure you have a document that records who got what – when, to ensure items don’t go missing without anyone to trace them back to.

If you have an onboarding procedure that makes your new employees feel fully equipped to tackle the new position, the likelihood of retention will skyrocket. Another advantage is to provide career development, growth opportunities, and pay advancements for long-term retention. Be sure to be upfront about these potential opportunities so they know there are goals to achieve in your company.