Me & My Mentor Renee Wright, SHRM-CP, Bloom-n Gardens

Engagement and retention

What is your company’s job value proposition?

by Renee Wright, SHRM-CP, Bloom’n Gardens Landscape

Q. What has the landscape industry realized over the years about employee engagement and retention that can help us today?

A. The answer is not wages, a signing bonus, or company vehicles. What is needed to attract, engage and retain employees is a purpose and mission for a company that is supported by values that the employee can truly get behind personally - otherwise you’re just offering employment.

These days, if you talk to anyone in the service industry they will say there is an labor shortage. This has seemed to be the case ever since the bounce-back of the economy after the 2008 housing crash, and recently made worse by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The employee shortage has to do with low unemployment rates, rising wages and, honestly, just a much smaller pool of qualified candidates coming through the door. That makes it a very large challenge for companies. If it wasn’t already hard to find a single candidate, finding a qualified and experienced candidate is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Since unemployment is so low and there are so many open positions for the small pool of candidates, we have to look at our companies and evaluate how well we engage and retain our current workforce. It’s not the early 2000s where we have a line out the door of potential new workers.

Job value proposition

When talking about hiring, employee engagement, and retention, we must look at our job value proposition. Employees are assets, not just workers. Every position on a payroll creates value for the business. Does the person who holds that position optimize that value?

When creating our job value proposition, it must connect to something in the company, and that’s not money. To engage, retain and get the value out of an employee we must connect them to more than just wages; we must have a purpose and mission they can personally get behind.

As we transition into a new generation of workers we must look at other industries and adapt the tactics as they did five-to-ten years ago to engage and retain our workforce. Money is not the primary motivating factor anymore. Below are four categories you can look at to address employee engagement and retention.

Renee Wright, SHRM-CP

Like many second- and third- generation industry members, Renee Wright seems to have been destined to find her way back to the family business.

Renee serves as the Human Resources and Safety Manager at Bloom’n Gardens Landscape LLC. Her route to the business included obtaining a degree in horticulture and business from Mississippi State University in 2011. During her time at MSU, Renee’s floral design team took home overall baccalaureate school awards from American Institute of Floral Design National Competition. Renee is also a member of the Young Professional Council (YPC) American Floral Endowment program that gives networking opportunities to young industry members and students.

Since graduation, Renee has been learning the landscape trade and pursing continued education in Human Resources, by earning her Society of Human Resources Certified Professional Certification.

Renee has a real passion for the labor industry and desire to make the landscape industry a viable career option for upcoming generations.

You would think that hiring and recruiting would be the first step in building a team, but in reality employee engagement and retention comes first. What is your internal brand? You need to create a positive culture within the company by creating bonds between employee and peers, bonds between employee and leaders, and bonds between employee and self, as championed by Jeffrey Scott of Jeffrey Scott Consulting. Listen to each employee, ask questions, stay engaged, strive for improvement daily, communicate and care about the employee. Your company strategy for success needs to line up with the company culture.

Money

When talking about retention and employee engagement, you have to talk about wages. When an employee considers leaving, your first idea might be to counter their new offer but that doesn’t always work. Larger companies might be able to just offer more money but that’s not always the case for smaller companies. You can use stay bonuses, or added benefits to retain your employees, but there needs to be a clearly defined support system for them that goes beyond the standard benefits. More money is not always the reason someone is leaving. The company culture might not be right. That’s why establishing your company culture comes before hiring. Keeping employees engaged and enjoying their job means not only showing them they are valued but also showing them their path upward. Workers in the corporate world want upward mobility and if you ask any green industry business owner they will tell you that employees worth keeping are those who are motivated for advancement and increased responsibility. That’s why it’s imperative to create career ladders within the company.

Communication

Communication from multiple people like managers, safety officers, human resources, and the business owner are essential. Regular communication will keep new and existing employees feeling engaged, part of the team and eager to stay with the company. When communicating with the employee it should go past the work the employee is doing. Consider the employee’s interests, find out if the employee has ideas to improve the company or is willing to provide feedback on the company. There are several key things you can do for effective communication: daily or weekly huddles, recognition activities, company events, and even one-on-ones. Communication is vital in employee engagement and retention and helps the employee buy into the company’s mission.

Employee retention - and in turn employee engagement - starts well before hiring. If we can maintain superior internal customer service, hiring will be easier because we will have created a culture people want to be in.

The University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has developed, in collaboration with the Center for Urban Agriculture, an online, live, interactive training program that allows pest management and Green Industry professionals to obtain continuing education credits (CEUs) virtually anywhere.

July 14 • Understanding insecticides and miticides for turfgrass and ornamental plants: Dr. Juang Horng "JC" Chong • Chemical and biological approaches to Botrytis management: Dr. James Faust September 15 • Industry update: Turfgrass: Dr. Shimat Joseph, Dr. Patrick McCullough, Dr. Alfredo Martinez, Dr. Clint Waltz • Industry update: Ornamentals: Dr. Bodie Pennisi, Dr. Jean Williams-Woodward, Dr. Shimat Joseph, Dr Mark Czarnota

Visit the Center for Urban Agriculture's website for additional information about the Center and all of our activities: ugaurbanag.com