Efficient Fall Clean-Ups

Efficiency is critical during the fall because it’s difficult to schedule fall cleanup. “It’s hard to anticipate exactly when the onset of winter will happen,” says Paul Perotti, president of Perco, New Haven, Conn. “And you have to get leaves cleaned before the ground is frozen.”

Perrotti says his company tries to increase efficiency by staying abreast of new equipment, but until they can control Mother Nature, they often run into a lot of overtime at the end of the fall cleanup season. “One control is to take on temporary laborers, which we do almost every year,” he says. In addition, he says the company constantly examines ways to boost efficiency. “Our operations managers meet with foremen weekly throughout the year to discuss efficiency and quality issues of the previous week. If there is a problem, they figure it out among themselves.”

Perrotti says the full-time employees are able to make a smooth transition between mowing and fall cleanup duties. To help temporary workers get up to speed quickly, they are placed on crews with experienced workers. “We make sure there aren’t too many temporary laborers on one crew,” he says.

In addition to keeping overtime down, efficiency is key because it’s the only thing Perco has to distance itself from the competition. “There really isn’t much you can do to differentiate yourself when it comes to fall cleanup,” he says. “All you can do is get the work done on time.”

One way Perrotti ensures the fall cleanup gets done in a timely manner is by using labor forecasting. “We look at the amount of labor hours we’ll have for fall cleanup and the number of weeks we have to get the work finished, and from there we calculate how many workers we’ll need,” he says.