Human Resources: Keeping the Vision, The Morrell Group

There really isn’t any industry called "the people business," but more landscape contractors are coming to realize that if they make people the focus of their efforts, particularly as managers, then the landscaping results they desire will follow.

For The Morrell Group, Atlanta, Ga., this realization occurred back in 1990 when the company was doing about $3.5 million in annual sales, according to Don Smith, president.

"That was a key point in our development, when we realized we were spending more time looking at equipment and trying to figure out what was the best mower or the best blower," Smith explained. "Instead, we should have been spending a lot of time looking at people issues and trying to improve our hiring and recruiting efforts."

At that point, the company moved an employee from operations to work full-time on human resources issues. Since then the company has hired Gail Havron, vice president, to oversee the human resources and training operations.

"In 1993, the company was getting to the point where operations were getting more complicated and we needed to develop a handbook and a 401k program while also formalizing other personnel practices," Havron explained.

In addition to having one person dedicated to hiring all employees, Smith said the company has benefited by having a person who is only interested in hiring the right employees.

"When you’re an operations person and you’re responsible for hiring employees, you may hire people that you know you shouldn’t hire, but you’re 10 people short in the field so you just want to put people out there," Smith related. "When that hiring responsibility is placed with a human resources person and hiring people is what he or she does all day, then you’re able to keep the hiring decisions away from the pressures of operations. As a result, the human resources person looks to hire the best person."

To initiate the hiring process, a manager communicates the need for an employee or employees to Havron in writing and she will start screening candidates.

"Too much time and energy is invested up-front in a new employee to only be able to keep them for a short period of time," Smith pointed out.

COVERING THE BASES. Due to its heavy reliance on Hispanic employees, The Morrell Group took an additional step to strengthen its human resources department by hiring Luis Herrera as its training manager and an overall liaison between Spanish-speaking employees and the traditionally Anglo management group.

Herrera started with the company as a crew person in 1991 and rose through the operations ranks before taking on the training responsibilities.

"I knew some Spanish, but we realized Luis could help all of our groups, so his role grew so he does almost all of the hiring of crew people," Havron explained, adding that 60 percent to 70 percent of The Morrell Group’s workforce speaks Spanish.

"Having a bilingual person on our staff is absolutely imperative," Havron noted. "Not only is communication easier because of Luis, but he provides the cultural knowledge and insight to managers that helps them understand why some of the Spanish-speaking employees react the way they do to certain situations. Someone who is American but speaks Spanish doesn’t necessarily understand why our Hispanic employees think the way they do, and that’s where Luis is invaluable.

"For example, a few years ago we had a problem with a lot of our Spanish-speaking employees going into the parking lot on payday and comparing their paychecks," Havron related. "From an American point of view, your pay is supposed to be very private, so this behavior was upsetting to us. Luis was able to help us all understand that this was a cultural difference because a person’s income isn’t as private in Latin cultures as it is to us."

"For Latinos, having someone who has moved into the American culture and can help us understand the differences between the cultures from a Latino perspective is also helpful," Herrera pointed out. "That can help me better explain the benefits of doing certain things certain ways to the Spanish-speaking employees.

"Plus, we have little problems on a daily basis, and a manager can come to me and ask me why someone would have said what they said or did what they did, and I can explain this from a cultural perspective so that the manager learns about his employees," Herrera added.

"There are also times when employees feel more comfortable talking to Luis because they know that he came to the United States the same way they came here and he has dealt with a lot of the same experiences they are having," Havron added.

The improved communication between Spanish-speaking employees and management has also resulted in a couple of policy changes that have pleased the employees.

"In our culture, Holy Week is a big celebration because the majority of us are Catholic," remarked Herrera. "If we had to work on Holy Friday, which Anglos call Good Friday, we just wouldn’t show up, and the managers didn’t understand why. I was able to explain the importance of this holiday to the company, and the managers respected that.

"So for that week, we worked Sunday through Thursday, and everyone was happy," he added. "It’s the little things like this change that really make a difference."

Havron also explained that the company revised its leave of absence policy to avoid punishing Spanish-speaking employees who wanted to return to their home country for an extended period of time in the winter months.

"Now, if our employees head home for 90 days or less and as long as they report back by the date they told their manager, they return to work at the same position and pay rate they were at before they went home," Havron said.

CATCHING THE TRAIN. When the company was looking for a way to encourage labor-level employees to take a more active role in their own career development and managers were growing weary of the fairly regular payday complaints of some employees, a training program was devised that ties directly into employees’ compensation.

"We did this about two years ago, and the goal was to develop a program that told the employees exactly what was required of them to get to the next level and eliminated any potential for favoritism from managers," Havron explained. "Prior to this program, everything was subjective and the employee would just tell his manager he needed more money. We were also vulnerable to having employees lured away by competitors offering an extra 50 cents an hour."

The company’s new program lists the required skills and responsibilities for every position from entry-level laborers to salaried senior supervisors. The first level on the scale is an unskilled laborer without a driver’s license, and that person earns $6.50 per hour. For an employee to advance from one level to the next, he or she has to take a specified company training class, pass a test and demonstrate the ability to perform the new skills in the field to their manager’s satisfaction.

In addition, managers consider an employee’s safety record and attendance when deciding whether or not they pass the test and get the raise in order to encourage employees in these areas as well.

The company’s work week consists of four, 10-hour days with Fridays generally being reserved for these training classes or making up work if one of the preceding days brought rain.

"Now, our employees understand what they have to do to advance, and they feel good about advancing because they’ve truly earned something," Havron pointed out. "In addition, the managers aren’t hearing as many complaints about money because the employees realize that if they want to make more money all they have to do is pass the class. And the company ends up with a better-trained workforce."

Havron also explained that not all of the levels of advancement in the certification program require the demonstration of a physical skill. One advancement level is contingent solely on an employee expressing his interest in assuming more responsibility to his manager.

"I think the training program has also resulted in a real decrease in turnover of our Spanish-speaking employees because now they see the job as something more than an opportunity just to earn money and they become more interested in doing a good job," added Herrera.