Power To The People: Commitment To Quality, Environmental Care Inc.

Environmental Care is quick to point to its system of hands-off management with its 20 service centers spread out over eight states as one of the reasons for its success.

STARTS AT THE BOTTOM. Personal accountability has been a part of the corporate culture at ECI as long as Bruce Wilson can remember, and it is something he has appreciated in his nearly 20 years as company president.

"Burt [Sperber, EII CEO] has always allowed me to do my own thing," explained Wilson. "In return, I think I’ve always allowed people to do what they need to do based on their own competency."

Maximizing the amount of responsibility shared through the ranks is so important at ECI that they have inverted the traditional triangular presentation of a corporate hierarchy that places the company president at the top. At ECI, Wilson places himself and the corporate staff at the bottom of the upside triangle, with clients at the top, followed by front-line personnel. "Here at the corporate office, we’re just support staff providing the service centers with what they need to be successful," Wilson noted. "Sending the responsibility up the chain makes the system more effective because those people at the top of the model are running the business. Without them out there doing their jobs, none of us at the corporate office would have a job."

STRUCTURED FOR SUCCESS. Conventional wisdom at ECI used to focus on controlling the size of the service centers and not allowing them to grow too large. "We used to think service centers were too large to manage at $3 million to $4 million," recalled Wilson. "Now, we’ve got them upwards of $10 million. We’ve gone more in the direction of these supercenters because it keeps our overhead down and takes better advantage of the managers’ talents. The bigger the service center gets, the more talented of an individual we need, but when you keep splitting the center up you dilute the management and usually replace the first manager with someone less competent to run a new service center."

The corporate structure is set up so the key position in the company is that service center manager. There are also five regional managers serving as liaisons between the service centers and corporate office.

"My job is to make sure the corporate mission is upheld and to promote the entrepreneurial spirit within each service center," noted Bill Arman, vice president and regional manager. In the service centers, each service offered is headed up by a service line manager, who then has account managers reporting to him or her. Reporting to the account manager are the crew leaders and specialists, who then oversee the front-line technicians. In addition, sales/client representatives generally focusing on one particular service line work with the service line manager.

"For account managers, we have owner’s manuals that we define as being a ‘book of business’ for each of them, just like service center managers have a book of business," noted Pam Stark, vice president, customer ser-vice and training. "So each account manager has their own clients, they project income, identify costs -- like their own company. That concept of ownership and accountability has been built into the positions."

"The pay structure for these positions is being structured so that it coincides both with the team and the individual performance," Wilson added. "So losing business directly affects them financially in order to make sure they work hard to retain business as well as add new business." Each service center manager is then given the latitude to run his or her service center as they choose.

Each service center has its own annual retreat where they create their vision for what they want to be and they develop a business plan for what they have to do to get there," Stark commented.

Once the plan has been assembled, the service center manager discusses it with the corporate staff. "We offer the service centers an outside perspective," Stark explained. "The plan is built around the corporate philosophy and the goal of being the industry leader in their market," Wilson said. "Meeting with them puts all of the corporate staff on the same page as far as supporting each service center."

FIELD TIME. Spending a day in two of the more successful service centers ECI operates makes it clear that shared responsibility is as much a part of their day as fueling mowers. "Our contact with the corporate office is limited," recognized Martin Schaefer, vice president and service center manager for the Los Angeles service center, which has annual revenues of about $5 million. "As long as we’re growing, the clients are satisfied and we’re meeting the company’s objectives and mission, then we’re left alone.

"I know that I’m the manager out here, and I’m responsible for what happens," Schaefer continued. "It’s up to me to get the job done."

"My goal is to take our mission statement and make sure we live by it and grow the business," echoed Rob Johnson, vice president and Orange County service center manager.

The responsibilities of the service center manager are comparable to those of most owner/operators, but without the headaches.

"A real advantage with our corporate office is that they take care of a lot of the support functions that the traditional owner/operator is responsible for, such as accounting and human resource functions," added Arman. "Those can be real challenging issues for horticultural people, so it enables the service centers to focus on keeping the customers happy."

In turn, Wilson explained that each service center is charged a portion of the corporate overhead costs, but the prices are figured to represent fair market value for what each service center would pay if it were an independent contractor.

The service centers don’t combine to cover 100 percent of corporate costs, however. "Some of the corporate overhead costs are viewed as a cost of doing business and an investment in the company’s future," Wilson noted, adding that service center facilities are corporately owned and leased to each center at a "very favorable market rate because the company has an upside on those facilities in the value of the real estate."

Wilson sees the role of the corporate staff as a key advantage for the service centers. "Most owner/operators are consumed managing daily events, so they don’t see the forest through the trees," he observed. "We aim for a focus where our managers delegate that day-to-day authority to their personnel and focus themselves on being leaders, visioning for the service centers.

"If you become too event-driven the business doesn’t keep changing," Wilson continued. "All of the energy is spent playing catch up and doing things you suddenly realize you should’ve been doing for two years. We try to focus instead on leap frogging the competition and anticipate doing things before they become necessary."

MANAGING MANAGERS. With so much autonomy and personal responsibility present in a service center, one of a service center manager’s biggest challenges can be keeping a harmonious work environment.

"Because there’s so much going on here, communication is a real priority," noted Johnson about his $8.2 million service center. "When we’ve got the communication going between service lines is when we’re being the most successful."

This awareness has led to a greater emphasis on developing account managers who are qualified to represent multiple service lines. "That’s out ultimate goal -- that all of our account managers could be multi-service line trained," Stark noted.

Weekly meetings are a regular part of the schedule within each service line. "We talk about scheduling, personnel issues, job review and other issues," remarked Kirk Hinshaw, Arbor Care service line manager.

Mike Carter, an interiorscape service line manager, explained that his weekly meetings focus on the status of key jobs and comparing the service line’s current status with the year’s business plan.

"All clients are important, but we categorize jobs in terms of level of demands on operations," Carter related. "We’re constantly checking to make sure those clients are happy. We also look at jobs we’re in jeopardy of losing and develop strategies for retaining them, and we get into sales to see how we’re doing financially based on our direct labor reports and the budgeted hour report worksheet."

WALKED THE WALK. When you have a company where the president started out as a spray operator, considerable value is placed on practical experience. Most service center managers got their ECI start as front-line personnel and worked their way through the ranks, although the process can be slow going given the company’s history of little managerial turnover.

"The managers’ experience in the front-line positions has been important because we know what it’s like in the field," noted Johnson. "Where we haven’t been successful has been where a manager hasn’t understood the operational side of a matter to know when to get involved and when to leave the manager to handle things."

Another important benefit of such experience among managers was pointed out by Dorene De La Garza, account manager. "That’s how managers learn and gain respect," she said. "Especially with the Hispanic employees who may not understand you very well -- at least you’ve got that experience in common."

ONE OF ONE. ECI does its best to maximize the benefits of having 20 service centers. One opportunity for this is the company’s Share and Compare program, through which several employees from one service center spends two days examining the operations and procedures of another service center. Then they prepare a report for the manager of the examined service center while at the same time noting new ideas which can be incorporated into their operation. However, service center independence is never questioned.

"I’ve always been taught that I’m one of one, and, for us, these walls and the people working within them are as far as Environmental Care goes," Schaefer remarked of the Los Angeles service center.

The author is Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine.