When National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) CEO Britt Wood officially kicked off Leaders Forum 2023 in Maui, Hawaii, Wood remarked about how the event centered around connections.

“This industry really helps each other grow,” he said.

NALP President Mike Bogan, CEO of LandCare in Frederick, Md., (No. 12 on the 2022 LM150 list), remarked on how events like Leaders Forum have impacted his personal and professional life.

“I am a product of this association,” he said, noting he feels like he’s still getting more out of NALP than he gives as president.

Bogan told attendees the relationships formed at Leaders Forum lead to friendships and “informed the way I interact socially and inform our business decisions.

He said when he started coming to Leaders Forum, attendance was limited, and it felt like it was a secret.

“It’s not a secret anymore,” he said.

Finding purpose

Author Paul Epstein said it’s time for the attendees in the room to stop playing defense and start playing offense when it comes to recruitment and retention. He said there’s no silver bullet to recruitment and retention.

“The better we take care of our current people, the more people want to stay and the better we can recruit new people,” he said. “We need to give them a reason to believe we have the greenest grass.”

Playing with offense, Epstein said, means harnessing the power of purpose within an organization.

“If we want to attract the person of tomorrow, purpose matters more than ever,” he said.

Epstein led attendees on an exercise to discover attendees’ why – the reason behind each decision and action. (More on this in a future Landscape Management).

Recruitment and retention

Cole Weller, president and CEO of Weller Brothers Landscaping and Brigitte Orrick, director of recruiting and employee development at Davey Tree Expert Co., kicked off the second day of the Leaders Forum.

For the Weller Brothers, recruiting and retention are as much about how employees show up to work as it is about how employees talk about the business to family and friends.

“There’s no amount of boots on the ground things that we do to combat three or four employees chirping in the background,” he said.

Orrick said Davey Tree struggled with a high turnover rate of 55 percent. The company replaces about 800 seasonal workers yearly and constantly backfilling positions. She estimates it costs the company about $5,000 per person when a new hire leaves during the 90-day training period.

“The business didn’t believe how much it cost to lose early talent,” she said.

To counteract the turnover rate, Davey launched a prehire program at Welcome.Davey.com that walks new hires through preemployment paperwork, what to expect on the first day and goals for the first three months of employment.

“When we retain people in the green industry, we retain them for all our industry,” she said.

Orrick said turnover is now around 20 percent thanks to the preemployment efforts.

Keys to leadership

During a leadership panel, Steve Bromell, CEO of Pro Cutters Lawnscapes; Jennifer Jorge, chief operating officer of King GREEN; Rosco Klausing, president and CEO of Klausing Group; and Tim Portland, chairman and CEO of Yellowstone Landscape, shared their insight into being an effective leader.

Jorge said it’s hard to work in a family business and separate family and work. One thing she tries to do as she physically crosses a bridge on her way home from work, she switches to family mode.

“I encourage everyone to create boundaries when you’re going home for the day,” she said.

She said having that separation, especially at family events, is critical. She said sometimes when she’s not physically ready to leave work, she’ll turn around until she’s ready to hang up work for the day.

Portland said alignment is key as Yellowstone operates 58 branches. He and the Yellowstone leadership team work to get the entire Yellowstone team on board and aligned with what success means and what the team does to get there.

“I can’t be and don’t want to be in 58 locations at once,” he said.

Bromell said his wife once told him he needed to stop working with his hands and start working with his head. This meant treating people the way he wanted. He looks at the company holistically. Each employee has a critical stake in the reputation of the company externally and the internal culture. Being humble as a leader is a critical part of the culture at Pro Cutters.

“That humility keeps me in a place where I’m not reactionary, but I’m thoughtful,” he said.

Klausing said when he studied for his Landscape Certified Manager certification, Rod Bailey, a former president of the association, taught the financial management portion of the class. Klausing said he learned from Bailey to measure more than just the KPIs of his business. Bailey encouraged attendees to measure the number of marriages, births, homes purchased, etc., during a year.

“We take these leaps of faith when we feel stable at work, he said. “It’s not lost on me to measure your success based on the impact you have on others.”

More than just sessions

Attendees had a chance to learn a little more about Hawaiian and Polynesian island culture during a special buffet dinner and presentation. Guests got a chance to try huli huli chicken, poke, taro rolls, macadamia nut tortes and more.

Then, dancers lead guests on a virtual tour of islands in the South Pacific, including New Zealand, Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa and Hawaii.

On the last day of the event, groups of seven or eight competed in a Team-Opoly competition based on the popular board game. Teams participated in a high-tech scavenger hunt around the Westin Maui Resort and Spa property, photographing and filming their progress along the way.

While everyone took home the hilarious looks from onlookers at the resort, the winning team took home bragging rights.