ME &NEWS MY MENTOR UAC
Lessons in H2B
Surviving and thriving by Laura Guilmette, Unique Environmental Landscapes Our final two H2B workers arrived the last weekend of April, which marked the end of another chapter in the process.
Long, strange trip As previously mentioned, we initially had all applicants scheduled at the U.S. Consulate in their home country near the end of March/ beginning of April. It turned out there were 11 scheduled in Monterrey the day before six were scheduled in Guatamala City.
UAC MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2019
Just to provide further insight to the process, it goes something like this: the day before the 8:00 A.M. interview with the local agent from the agency in Texas, I started checking with our manager in regards to the applicant’s travels to the Consulate. For some of these guys it was up to a ten-hour ride. I needed to be assured they had reliable transportation and they would be in place at 8:00 a.m. for the appointment.
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Across the board, this went fairly smoothly except for one 9:30 p.m. phone call I received stating an applicant cancelled out as they were about to board the bus in their Mexican hometown bound for their 8:00 a.m. interview the next morning. Meanwhile, we had six applicants heading to Guatamala City who were eventually ALL denied at the U.S. Consulate. This completely caught us off guard. Not only was this a very costly day for Unique, it was back to the recruiting process AGAIN!
No room at the inn Then another situation surfaced: housing! The second wave of recruiting seemed to come to a halt and I found myself almost begging for potential workers from within our pool of employees as well as other landscape company friends. What was the problem? Through the process I realized there were many people who wanted to come to the U.S. and work, so why had it become so difficult? Well, I started getting feedback: there were “NO VACANCY” signs popping up at our employee’s houses. They were bursting at the seams. This sent me on a frenzy to figure out the housing situation so we could set up more interviews FAST. The time clock was ticking and not getting all of our visas filled in a timely manner could potentially create negative consequences for next season. The H2B workers are not in a position to rent an apartment of any type as they have no credit history in the U.S. Plus, they can’t commit to a one-year lease as they are here less than a year. We considered the possibility of purchasing a house, which could be used as rental for the workers. However, after learning of the
Laura Guilmette graduated from the University of Louisville with a B.A. in communications. She worked in advertising until she was recruited to work with the family-owned landscape business, Unique Environmental about 17 years ago. Like most business owners, she wears many hats including HR, marketing, sales, administrative and field work. Even though the H2B program has presented numerous challenges, she has enjoyed learning about it as well as overcoming these challenges.
