GIE 2003: Tackling Employee Turnover

With a little extra effort in the hiring process, lawn and landscape contractors can significantly reduce turnover in their companies.

Lauren Spiers

Published November 10, 2003

Fla
Bob Losyk shared solid information on decreasing turnover by recruiting and hiring quality employees.

When any company’s hiring status includes the term “revolving door,” chances are, company managers need to take a close look at their hiring practices.

But what if that revolving door moved in reverse, bringing more and more quality employees to your doorstep? According to Bob Losyk, president and founder of Innovative Training Solutions, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., that type of employment situation is possible if business owners focus on a few basic points.

“The only way we can improve our companies is to listen to feedback from out customers and employees,” Losyk said in his Nov. 5 presentation “Turning Around Turnover: How to Keep the Best Employees,” at the Green Industry Conference in St. Louis, Mo. Losyk offered several words of wisdom applicable to hiring for the green industry.

Recruiting and Hiring Tips

In his Nov. 5 Green Industry Conference presentation on successfully beating employee turnover, Bob Losyk, president, Innovating Training Solutions, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., offered contractors the following recruiting and hiring tips:

  • Always be recruiting.

  • Spend more money on recruitment and hiring and compare that investment to the cost of turnover.

  • Be as creative with your advertising to candidates as you are with advertising to customers. Show potential employees what makes your company unique.

  • Evaluate wage and salary scales against your direct competitiors.

  • Post any open positions on the company Web page.

  • Don’t oversell an open position. Tell potential employees about the worst day on the job. This lessens the risk of hiring an employee who later quits because the job was not what he or she expected.

“The best thing you can do for your competition is hire poorly,” he says, encouraging lawn care and landscaping contractors to employ a variety of tools before making hiring decisions. For instance, in addition to an interview, Losyk advises performing and keeping records of background and reference checks for all potential employees, and also suggests using personality or IQ tests to identify individuals’ strengths and talents.

Additionally, Losyk notes the benefits of observing potential employees in action before making a firm hiring decision. “The cardinal rule that everyone has to remember is that a candidate’s behavior in front of you is very low in accuracy as a predictor of future job behavior,” he notes. “If you have a chance, try to observe candidates in a work situation. Another approach may be to have future co-workers of the candidate take part in the interview process and get their reactions, or ask interview questions that have candidates explain how they would react in hypothetical situations on the job.”

But while potential employees must prove themselves in an interview, Losyk says past or exiting employees are an important source of information, as well.
“It would be nice if we could just sit down with our employees who are leaving and ask them, ‘Why?’ but the truth is that employees are less likely to tell the truth when they’re face-to-face with their employer,” Losyk says. “But having employees fill out exit surveys before they leave can give you a good deal of information about what you’re doing right and where you need improvement.” Having employees rank their reasons for leaving a company (e.g., money, lack of advancement, problems with coworkers), is one easy way to identify rough spots without conducting an uncomfortable or accusatory exit interview.

Altogether, implementing these tips can provide a company with solid information about how employees see the organization. Armed with this knowledge, company mangers can start asking the right questions, hiring the right employees and using that revolving door to bring in new employees for a change.

The author is Assistant Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@lawnandlandscape.com.

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