Teaching Time Efficiency

Teaching employees more time-efficient methods of doing various landscape tasks is a way to increase productivity on the job, according to Rick Meinzer, owner of Cedar Hills, Utah-based Platinum Landscape.

Meinzer shares an example: “One day I was watching a new hire spread dirt with a tractor,” he says. “He would load the bucket, drive to a point, dump it as he was backing up, drive forward and then grade back again. He was taking two times as long as he should have to do the work.

"Instead, he should feather the dirt on the way up and then drop his bucket and grade on the way back. This is twice as fast and takes half the effort. We show our employees these tips and reinforce them when we are out on the job. It’s a factor of being willing to question what you do. Changes like this are simple, and simplicity isn’t always obvious but it leads to efficiency and profitability.”