Winning the Talent War i Landscape

by Meta L. Levin

It was no surprise to attendees at Neal Glatt’s iLandscape 2023 presentation when he told them, “Hiring workers continues to get harder and harder.” What may have been surprising was some of Glatt’s suggestions for solving the problem.

Glatt, managing partner of GrowtheBench.com, took a packed room through “Winning the Talent War” during iLandscape 2023, covering a variety of topics, including what attracts job applicants (it may not be what you think), untapped talent pools, screening job applicants, communication and a variety of other related topics.

At the time of Glatt’s presentation, there were 10.5 million open jobs in the United States with six million unemployed people. “The lowest ever recorded,” says Glatt. That there were more open jobs than people to fill them was a painful reality to landscape contractors. “Competition for workers is fierce.”

Understanding motivation will help in successfully recruiting and keeping employees, as would targeting untapped talent pools, says Glatt.

While many people believe that factors such as job security, salary, fringe benefits, work conditions, good pay, insurance and vacations increase satisfaction and removing them will make a worker dissatisfied, they are not necessarily the kinds of aspects of the job that will attract employees and make them happy. “Job satisfaction is the bare minimum,” says Glatt.

Instead, he says, look at factors that increase motivation. Think about the way you advertise your company and the work that it does to potential customers. Bring that same approach to recruiting workers. Tell them about the challenging and meaningful work, recognition, responsibility, decision making, sense of importance and personal growth. “Motivational factors help a job posting,” he says. “They are wildly different.”

For instance, you may extol the beauty you can bring to a prospective customer’s property and how much they will appreciate it. Why not recruit a potential employee by giving them the opportunity to bring joy to others through this work?

When candidates look at a job posting, they are attracted by how they perceive whether they fit in an organization and the job, how employees are treated, the prestige of the organization, development opportunities, the image of the organization and challenging work. “Sell people on what makes the place great,” says Glatt.

Do you focus on sustainability or diversity? “Discuss your mission and vision,” he says. For example, include such things as your corporate social responsibility initiatives, like charity, what you do to help the environment and your community, as well as your work toward diversity and inclusion.

Talk about it in exciting terms, using words that mean something to your target audience. As an example, he points (continued on page 38)