Employee retention is something most landscaping businesses deal with. With the new year in full swing, your business needs the right tips to keep employees motivated to stay?
Below are employee retention tips that will help keep your business moving forward in 2021.
Review your pay structure
Pay is often a main reason for turnover in the landscaping industry. Employees tend to feel like they could get better pay with another business or have more opportunities to move up the ladder. In order to see whether your pay is competitive to what other businesses are paying in your area, you can check out The National Association of Landscape Professionals’ (NALP) compensation survey to get an idea of what the pay looks like for similar roles in your geographic area. Based on your findings, you may see that you need to up your pay some to be competitive with other landscaping businesses in the area.
Review the benefits you are offering
Benefits are another feature besides pay, that is important to employees. Businesses often require employees to wait a year before they can start receiving benefits. Consider lowering the eligibility for paid time off and holiday policies to start after 90 days.
Offer continuing education opportunities
If you want employees to feel like they have a path to moving up the ladder, offering a certification program can do that. This will allow employees to choose an industry certification of their choice. Upon passing the exam, offer them an increase in pay. This doesn’t have to break the bank either. Raising their pay by $1/hr should be doable. For the program to work, you need to come up with a list of certifications to choose from, provide all the study material and pay for the exam. If you have employees that are motivated, something like this will go a long way in satiating their need to grow with the company.
Make pay and promotions an open discussion
Asking for a pay raise can be nerve racking for most people. In order to take some of the stress out of it, make discussions about pay an open forum. This can look like openly communicating about promoting internally which shows employees that there are advancement opportunities for them in the company. When companies don’t make conversations around pay an open discussion, employees will be more likely to go to another company, even if it means they will only be making a small amount more.
Offer a referral program
Referral bonus programs typically payout when someone recommends a hire that stays on past a certain amount of time. This can be six months at many companies but offering more frequent payouts starting as early as 3o days will really provide an incentive for bringing quality people on. Besides benefitting the employee, the business hopefully is hiring someone that is a better fit.