Are you struggling to attract and hire your ideal candidates and, when you do, are they quitting in their first week? If you’re experiencing this, know that you’re not alone. After the Great Resignation in 2021, the lawn and landscape industry has struggled to bounce back and companies across the board are having trouble finding and retaining great employees.
Hiring nowadays is much different than it used to be; the baby boomer and Gen X workforce is retiring. By 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be a millennial. It’s time to switch gears, look at the hard data, and determine what to focus on that will help you attract, hire, and retain great employees for your business.
Attracting Potential Employees
The first step to finding great employees is attracting great candidates. Displaying your company culture, improving your company’s reviews on job board platforms, compensation and benefits transparency, and creating an employee value proposition are just a few of the ways that you can attract great millennial and Gen Z workers.
Company Culture
It is extremely common for the millennial and Gen Z workforce to look your company up online before applying to the job you posted. Mainly, they’re looking to see if your brand and company culture aligns with their values and ideal workplace.
Around 45% of job seekers consider company culture as an essential factor before applying. How are you exemplifying your company culture online? Showcasing your team collaborating together on social media platforms is a great way to help potential employees see what it would be like to work for your company.
Takeaway: Give a team member the task of taking videos and pictures next time you all eat lunch together or get together for a company party and share the results on social media.
Company Online Reviews
Another way that millennial and Gen Z candidates gauge how the position and your company will fit with their values is by looking up the reviews of your company on platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor. When is the last time you checked your company reviews on these websites, if ever? If it’s been a while, you’ll definitely want to take a look. This information is being searched by job candidates, so it’s important that you know what they’re finding.
If you find poor or no results, you’ll want to put some time and attention into turning these reviews around. The best way to do this is to ask your employees to leave a review. However, don’t mandate it. You want these reviews to be as authentic as possible. Let your employees know that a review will help improve the company by attracting higher quality job candidates, and leave it at that. Those who enjoy working at your company will feel compelled to leave a good review.
It’s important that you focus on both Indeed and Glassdoor, and not just one or the other. Indeed is a popular job board site, used for actually applying to jobs. Potential candidates will glance at your reviews while deciding whether or not they want to apply to your position. While Glassdoor does have a job board feature, it is mainly used as a way to see behind the scenes of your company. It is used by job seekers to get ratings on overall happiness of current and past employees, as well as specific ratings on the CEO, company culture, and more.
Takeaway: Search for your company’s reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor so that you know the rating and ask your team members for their help in boosting your company’s reviews.
Transparency: Compensation & Benefits Package
For the baby boomer and Gen X workforce, it was (and is) not common to be transparent about compensation. There has been a huge shift with the millennial and Gen Z workforce and, if you aren’t transparent, they likely won’t give your job opportunity a chance. In order to avoid potential employees breezing right past your job description, make sure you clearly list the pay. This can be a set amount or a range; either way, the transparency will help attract applicants. Whether you like it or not, current and past employees of your business will list your compensation on platforms like Glassdoor, so you might as well get ahead of the game and control the conversation about your pay rates.
Like compensation, it’s important to be transparent about your benefits package. Applicants are comparing many different job postings at once; stand out from the crowd by displaying all the perks they’ll get as your employee.
Takeaway: Ensure all your job postings list both the compensation and the benefits package.
Build Out Your Employee Value Proposition & Make it Public
Building out your employee value proposition (EVP) might take time, but it’s worth it! To attract the right candidates, you need to know who the right candidates are. Here are a few questions to help you thoroughly build out your EVP.
What is my mission and vision?
Who is my ideal candidate?
What are my deal breakers?
Display the answers to these questions on your job descriptions and the careers page on your website. This will help potential employees know exactly what your company stands for and if they would be an ideal match. This will also cut down on the frustration of weeding through unqualified candidates; if they don’t match your EVP, they probably won’t apply!
Takeaway: Set a meeting with your leadership team to come up with answers to the three questions listed above. Once you come to an agreement on all the answers, make sure all job descriptions answer the questions for the candidate.
Recruiting Potential Employees
Don’t drag your feet when it comes to the actual recruiting efforts. You’ll find better results with less effort if you start recruiting now utilizing an applicant tracking system.
The Time to Recruit is NOW
As a lawn and landscape company owner, you need to start hiring now if you want quality employees for the spring rush. February has proven to be the best month for recruiting for a few reasons. The first is that you will get more bang for your buck in ad spend. For $100 spent in boosting your job posting, you’ll see 50 applicants. Compare this to the average of 23 applications per $100 in April, and we know that now is the time to make moves in recruiting. The second reason why February is the best recruiting month has to do with your cost per applicant. In February, you’ll average $1.67 per applicant, compared to $5.16 in April.
Takeaway: Get a job posting up on an online job board TODAY!
Utilize an Applicant Tracking System
Finding the best candidates with little effort sounds great, right? Automate, automate, automate. Utilizing an applicant tracking system (ATS) will not only take a lot of the recruiting labor off your hands, but also improve your chances of getting the millennial and Gen Z workforce in the door.
45% of millennial and Gen Z applicants are using their phone daily to apply to jobs. Why not use technology to your advantage? Through an applicant tracking system, you can set up an automated SMS to send to every candidate after they apply. This message will say something like, “Thanks for applying. To set up an interview with a member of our team, please click the provided link.” This link will take your candidate to a calendar and they’ll set up their interview and be reminded of that interview days beforehand without anyone on your team having to reach out to them.
Additionally, this will speed up the application process for the applicant. If they were deciding between your company and another local lawn/landscape company, you likely reached out first and, therefore, are top-of-mind.
Takeaway: Start using an automated tracking system to take some of the recruiting workload off of your plate and speed up the application process for your applicants.
Retaining Your Employees
30% of your employees will leave in their first 3 months. This statistic might not surprise you if you have been struggling with retaining your employees once you finally get them in the door. Being clear with your expectations and creating a smoother onboarding process will help.
Clear Expectations
In your job description, you need to make it extremely clear what you are expecting from your employees. Miscommunication is a big cause of employee turnover; if the employee feels that the job is not what they expected, they’ll quit. So, how do you be as clear as possible for your applicants? Add these items to your job posting:
What does success look like in the role?
What does the day-to-day look like?
What does the career path look like?
Information like how many hours they will be working out in the sun or if they will be regularly lifting 50 pounds is very important for the candidate to know. If they are unclear about this and find out on their first day, you likely won’t see them for their second day.
Takeaway: List your biggest expectations for your applicants on your job postings.
Smooth Employee Onboarding Process
A smooth onboarding process improves employee retention by 82%. By creating a workflow for incorporating a new employee into the team, you will make the employee’s first day less overwhelming and much more streamlined for everyone involved. You can use your applicant tracking system to help you do this. Is there paperwork that needs to be filled out or items they need to remember to bring on their first day? Send an automated text reminding them about it! This will make the process run much smoother. While you’re setting up automated messages for your smooth onboarding process, go ahead and set up another one that tells the employee that you’re excited to work with them and that you’ll see them in a few days. This personal touchpoint goes a long way with the millennial and Gen Z workforce.
Takeaway: Create an employee onboarding workflow and automated text messages that will allow for a much smoother onboarding process.