Maintain Quality at Your Landscaping Company
Our Spring is already off to a fast start, and like many of your teams, we have a wide range of experience levels on our crews. We have some team members who have been doing this job for 30+ years, and we have others in their first season.
At Grunder Landscaping Co., we're known for the high-quality work and the high level of service we provide. It's our Unique Value Proposition, or why our clients choose to do business with us. And over the years, we've learned first-hand how difficult it can be to maintain this as our team grows and changes. Keeping the customer's experience with us consistent, no matter which crew is on their property is hard but so important. We have two strategies for paying attention to the quality of work we're doing, and maintaining our high standards:
1. Quality Audits. Our Group Leaders have a goal of spending 30% of their time out in the field this year. These are the people managing our crews, and we want them out there to help our teams maintain quality and be more efficient. They're teaching team members new skills, showing them how to do tasks faster, and also regularly performing quality audits. They follow the quality audit process set up in Aspire, and take notes on anything that is or is not up to our standards. We then can review that information with that team so that they learn for next time, and can schedule a follow-up visit if it's necessary.
2. Don't Underestimate the Power of a Compliment. Give specific compliments about what was done well on a job site, and show your entire team pictures of work that was done well. Publicly celebrate the specifics tasks that were done very well, and show your team pictures of what a well-done job looks like. Set the goalposts up clearly so everyone can understand what the standards are.
It's of course good to also correct mistakes as you see them, but do that calmly and do it in private. Public shaming isn't a very good motivator or teacher.
As my own team works on growing our business, I'm excited this summer to head to R.P. Marzilli as part of the Field Trip we host in partnership with NALP. They're a large company serving Boston, MA that is known for their quality of work and craftsmanship. They are a much larger company than mine and have managed to maintain that quality every step of the way. I can't wait to see how they've done it, and take some ideas back to my team at GLC so that we can get better ourselves. I hope you'll join me there on June 23-24, 2022.
Talk to You Next Week!
Marty Grunder
President & CEO
The Grow Group & Grunder Landscaping Co.