Make the most of your mornings

February 23, 2021 - By Marty Grunder

Photo: Ivan-balvan / iStock / Getty Images / Getty Images Plus

Landscaping companies face a unique challenge to building a company culture: Their teams are only all together for at the most 30 minutes each day in the morning. That morning time is critical to building a culture where people want to work and keeping positive momentum going. Owners and leaders need do three things to maximize the time they spend with their teams during the morning rollout.

1. Be present. Being at the shop, interacting with team members and building relationships is important. Being present allows you to see firsthand what’s happening and notice opportunities for training or improvement. Many of our clients used the morning during this COVID-19 era to be present, take temperatures and make small talk with the team. Remember, you don’t always have to say something, but your presence and a smile on your face makes all the difference.

2. Reinforce the positive. Your external customer service will never exceed your internal customer service. In other words, how you treat your team will greatly impact how they treat your clients. Your team likely does many things well, but they’ll quickly feel defeated if you only point out where they fell short. Find reasons to compliment your team and use positive examples to teach on more often than you use negative ones. There is always something positive to say; be sincere, not fake, and catch people doing things right, not wrong.

3. Start on a high note. Don’t start everyone’s day by yelling and screaming, instead use trainings, encouragement and to-go snacks to help your team feel good about the day they have ahead. The teams at Grunder Landscaping Co. always appreciate cold drinks, beef jerky, sunflower seeds or candy to take with them for the day. We prefer to pass them out while doing a quick safety check as the trucks roll out or to drive around to visit the team on job sites. This isn’t something that you must do every day, and sometimes randomness makes a bigger impact. It’s amazing what $100 worth of goodies and energy drinks can do for morale!

A strong company culture is one of the critical building blocks for a company’s success. None of our suggestions are hard to understand or expensive to do, but they do require you to be organized, intentional and disciplined. Try implementing one, two or all three this week.

Grunder Landscaping Co. has had many years to improve how it builds a positive culture with their own team, and we’re opening up our shop to show you how we do it this year. Join us for our upcoming GLC Field Trip on March 17-18. There is limited space available to allow for social distancing and get you the one-on-one attention you need to move your business forward. Register here.