Taking It Personnel-ly: Commitment To Quality, Environmental Care Inc.

No green industry company is immune to the shortage of quality employees in today’s market. That’s true for Environmental Care, as well, but perhaps to an even greater degree. When a company employs 15 full-time workers, adding just three or four new technicians can result in immediate growth. For ECI, which employs 2,500 people full-time, a great deal more new employees is required to drive that same growth.

In response to these pressures, ECI has committed itself to developing a more proactive approach to increasing the size of its workforce, through both the recruitment of recent college graduates and the hiring of experienced green industry professionals.

SYSTEMS THINKING. "There’s a system in life called the ‘limits to growth system,’ and once we understood how it worked we could see that every one of our service centers and the company as a whole can hit that limit," commented Pam Stark, vice president, customer service and training. "There’s a constraint to the system that can prevent us from growing, and the system corrects you until you’ve overcome that constraint.

"we realized we would not be able to successfully grow our businesses unless we had qualified people," Stark continued."And Bill (Arman, vice president and regional manager) noted that in order to have qualified people you have to have training, to have training you have to have people, and to have people you have to be recruiting. There’s no way of getting around it if you want to grow."

"This led us to reenergizing our entire focus on recruitment, development and the retention of quality personnel," Arman agreed.

MAKING A LIST. Arman has become the point person for the company in this effort. "The service center managers have made it clear to me that the best thing I can do for them is to find the people they need to do their jobs effectively," he explained.

One of his plans has been to identify the company’s personnel needs for all of the service centers and break that down by service line needs and job position needs.

"Now we know our targets, and it comes out to about 80 new employees, or what we call ‘seedlings,’" Arman said. "In addition to that, we’re looking for about 30 ‘transplants,’ or people who have been in the industry for two to five years, and about seven to 10 salespeople." Even identifying your needs so specifically isn’t a guarantee of success, however. "As of the middle of October, we’ve hired 30 of those people, so we know we’re going to fall short," Arman admitted. "And it’s a continual challenge, because we’ll need that same 120 people next year, or more likely, that number will go higher."

The primary recruiting focus remains the two- and four-year degree programs.

"We usually send an alumni of a school back to that school to recruit and to develop relationships with key members of the faculty," Arman explained. "In addition, we help the programs by serving on advisory panels, donating equipment or establishing scholarship programs. So far, we’ve established these relationships at about 20 colleges across the country."

The more foresight that the service center managers have regarding their personnel needs, the more effective the program is, according to Rob Johnson, vice president and service center manager. "I have to look for someone I’ll need three to five years from now because it takes three years to get a person developed and familiar with the operations necessary to get the job done," he said. "If we don’t hire a person until the need occurs, then we aren’t operating too efficiently while they’re learning their job."

ECI resists the temptation to hire individuals based solely on their availability. "We want the right people with the right skills and personality to fit our team," asserted Arman, explaining that job candidates are given personality profile tests where their answers are compared to the answers of current ECI employees succeeding in that same job type. These tests offer insight into characteristics such as a person’s learning style and ideal work environment. They also help us get a blend of different people," Arman went on. "Human nature leads us to seek people most like ourselves, but if you get too many people like yourself you won’t have a balanced team."

THROUGH THE RANKS. ECI is a firm believer that the best managers are the people who learn the job as front-line employees.

"There’s a saying that works for us -- learn the business, and earn the respect of your future subordinates," Arman related. "We like to promote from within, but our opportunities have exceeded our ability to hire and train new managers, so it’s created the challenge of bringing people in at the managerial level."

"The problem is that in these instances there can be a perception that they haven’t worked their way up," warned Stark.

"In these cases, we develop a real conscious plan to get that person indoctrinated in the corporate culture and make sure they understand the challenge they’ll face," Arman added."They spend an entire day with someone in a similar position to what they’ll be doing before we hire them."

It’s more likely, however, that a new employee will work his or her way up through the system and advance to the account manager level in anywhere from 18 months to three years after spending about two months in a whirlwind tour of operations.

From there, employees move to a position called specialist, according to Martin Schaefer, vice president and service center manager. "This is where they work directly with an account manager who can guide and mentor them," he said.

"We also have a mentoring program that gets specialists and foremen together with account managers to go over things like reading reports and the practical skills that aren’t really covered in the company training manuals," added Frank Annino, account manager.

CATCH THE TRAIN. While hiring receives considerable attention, ECI devotes even more energy to training employees.

"Training is nonstop for us, and it starts with the first level of gardeners," observed Rod Curtis, account manager and training officer for the Orange County service center. "We want to get them out of the tunnel vision of thinking, ‘I am a worker, therefore I am.’ We expose them to the fact that there’s more to their job than just pulling a string and running a trimmer or mower."

"The program empowers people to think in more of a managerial role," added Lisa Smith, Arbor Care client representative.

Each operational job title carries multiple levels of certification within ECI, such as G1 through G4 for the four levels of gardeners. "The foreman is the primary trainer of the G1 to make sure they get through the certification process," Curtis commented.

"In fact, one of the categories in the foremen’s evaluation is how successful they are getting their gardeners through the certification process," related Johnson.

"Training the trainer is equally important because a lot of people aren’t accustomed to transferring information they have to another person," Curtis continued. "Account managers and foremen really never stop training. They use whatever opportunities present themselves in the field, so times when things aren’t done properly aren’t just a time for a reprimand " they’re a chance to make sure the employee sees why something should be done a certain way."

In addition, considerable technical or skill-related training is offered. "Since the service line manager is responsible for everything happening to his or her people, we like to have employees focused on one service so we can target their training," commented Michael Schmitt, Water Wise service line manager. "They’re receiving a continual, focused education as part of a specialized crew which works more efficiently than a general maintenance crew."

PLAYING IT SAFE. One can’t have a conversation with ECI employees about training without talking about safety as well.

"We saw some data that said 16 percent of the ECI accidents occurred to the eyes -- we created a company policy of everyone wearing safety goggles all the time since," recalled Annino. "I don’t think the importance of basic safety equipment like goggles ever sunk in until then."

"Safety is also the first thing we look at when it comes time for certification or a raise," noted Ramon Rodriguez, safety manager for the Los Angeles service center. "And every part of the training for G1 through G4 is tied in with safety."

At the Los Angeles service center, new employees are a chief safety concern, wearing orange vests on the job for their first 90 days. "That way we know who they are and we make sure they get the attention and training they need to get certified," said Schmitt.

Regular foremen and tailgate meetings are also used to address safety issues. "We always try to focus on the seasonal topics, such as working in the heat or driving in the rain," noted Curtis, adding that the busy summer months are the most important time to honor the company’s commitment to safety.

"The summer is more learn-as-you-go because it’s so busy," Curtis admitted. "So it takes discipline from the account managers and foremen to make sure we’re aren’t rushing employees through the system and asking them to do things they aren’t ready to do."

The company handles workmen’s compensation insurance in a way that service centers are rewarded for minimizing accidents.

"Safety is like our thirteenth month around here," explained Schmitt. "Those dollars are withdrawn from the service center at the start of the fiscal year, and if we control our accidents we’ll get a portion of that money back to put directly to the bottom line. That’s really something we all strive for from a profitability standpoint."

In the end, the personnel issue has become so dominant that Arman said it has even changed the type of industry he works in.

"We’re not in the landscape business anymore," he declared. "We’re in human resource development now, and we have a landscape business to test how well we develop those people."