Team challenge

illustration: iStock.com/Pavlo Stavnichuk

A recent survey of lawn care and landscape professionals by Environmental Science, a business unit of Bayer Crop Science, revealed that lawn care operators (LCOs) are struggling with the same primary challenge as the larger green industry: lack of qualified team members. Here’s a look at some of the survey’s findings.

40%

Percentage of respondents who said “a shallow bench”—or not enough team members—is the challenge with the most impact on their business. This was particularly true for companies with 10 or more employees. Approximately the same amount, or 43 percent, of participants ranked “an unhappy fan base” as having the least impact on their business.

6/10

Number of respondents who say they have die-hard customers. Maintaining strong customer satisfaction doesn’t appear to be a key challenge for lawn and landscape companies. Others reported having fair-weather fans (31 percent) or noncommittal fans (11 percent).

27%

The percentage of time LCOs say they would prefer to tackle turf problems curatively. In reality, respondents reported they do so 37 percent of the time.

“It’s easy to understand why this preference for a strong offense is top of mind,” says Bayer’s Rob Golembiewski, Ph.D., Green Solutions Team specialist. “With the right product portfolio and the right strategy at the right time, there’s a lot lawn and landscape companies can do to reduce repeat applications, callbacks and other activities that increase costs in the long run.”

<$1 million in revenue

Companies with annual revenue below $1 million appeared more confident, with 62 percent believing they have “die-hard” customers. Those with annual revenue above $1 million appeared slightly less confident, with 53 percent believing the same.

Fun fact

According to the survey, the ability to build and operate a team likely comes second nature to lawn and landscape professionals. Eighty-four percent of respondents reported that they played a team sport in high school or college