How To: Hire For Your Lawn Care Company
If you’ve just started your lawn care business or you have multiple years under your belt you understand the importance of being appropriately staffed - maybe you even build a “bench” of qualified applicants when you’re already staffed up. We understand hiring can feel overwhelming and that you want the best for your business and current employees. We put together some tips to help smooth out your hiring process and build the best team possible.
Where to Post Hiring Ads?
From our personal experience working with multiple lawn care companies, we’ve seen Facebook and Indeed bring in the most traffic. Facebook can be effective in a couple different ways. If you have a significant following on your page you record a simple video with your phone. It could be filmed during a project being worked on to showcase the type of labor being done. This will give people an idea of the type of labor that’s needed. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just get your message across. Don’t make wild promises about how easy the work is, but don’t make it sound impossible either. Promise a fair wage that beats the pants off air-conditioned work!
Facebook Ads - If you want to increase the amount of applicants, launching a hiring campaign would be very beneficial to drive more traffic. If you’re doing this in-house, make sure to be aware of Facebook Advertising Policies. It can be tricky to publish your ads without them being rejected. If you decide to make your own ads, videos work great along with gifs, Canva is a great place to do it.
Indeed - Being the largest job board in the world, it makes sense to use Indeed alongside Facebook. Plus, applicants can filter their job search to easily find your posting. Have your Indeed posting link DIRECTLY to your “Careers” page. Do not have them fill out the stock application questions and fill in their CV on Indeed only to do it again on your site. Reduce the friction in the hiring process, I know it sounds backwards, but we’ll back up our reasoning in just a second, keep reading!
Not only do we cover all aspects of Facebook and Google marketing for lawn and landscape companies, we also build and manage hiring campaigns. We’ll make it easy for you while sending the most qualified candidates your way. You won’t have to worry about advertising policies and having your ads rejected for minor compliance issues. We’ve run numerous successful hiring campaigns and can do the same quality work for your business.
Landing Pages 👉 Interviews
It’s VERY useful to have a landing page on your website to link potential employees to. This would be part of your “Careers” page. This is essential to saving more time and increasing your chance of hiring the right people. Your careers page will contain all the typical hiring questions (do you have a license, are you able to lift 50 lbs, can you legally work in the US, etc.) and should also include more personal questions.
Such as:
“Why do you want to work here?”
“Why are you seeking new employment?”
“What’s your best and worst quality?”
These questions can help you funnel who you’d like to see in an in-person interview. This is the end of the selection process and where intuition comes into play. Have a conversation with the applicant, get a feel for them, and get a better understanding of why they want to work with you. The busy season can be BUSY, but don’t let that cloud your judgement. An employee that is going to negatively impact the team, maybe the kind who costs you good employees, is much more of an issue than not having enough hands on a project. Trust yourself to make the final decision. It’s a learning process and you’ll only improve with effort.
Apply Marketing Basics to Your Hiring Process
As mentioned earlier and as backwards as it might sound, we need to “reduce friction” between seeing the job listing and applying for it/getting interviewed. This doesn’t mean to just hire anyone, but it’s not the time to be ultra selective at the top-most level of your hiring funnel. Honestly, if they’re willing to work (and feel trustworthy) they may be a good bet.
We’re not in a business owner’s market - jobs are a dime a dozen right now and employers HAVE to compete for employees. A lot of small business owners believe providing additional hoops to jump through will secure more serious applicants - that’s a mindset that works when you’re not fighting for every employee. Google can do that to winnow the field of six-figure-salaried software developer positions - it works much less effectively for entry-level labor positions.
Don’t:
Make people fill out a form to give them information already on their resume - pick one way to collect that information!
Assume years of experience = skill. You can give your employee the training necessary to build them up. This will build a whole new level of trust
Have a long and detailed job description. Having too many required skills gives people a reason not to apply.
Do:
Share your pay range. If it’s not in writing, it’s guaranteed little to no one will apply.
Have a short and concise application process. Make it quick and easy.
Acknowledge you’ve received their application and follow up with them. They may hold out for you before accepting a different offer.
The power has shifted into the hands of the employee, but it’s not all doom-and-gloom as it’s been made out to be. This is an opportunity to shift and change the way your company handles hiring for the better. While everyone else kicks dirt trying to bring back the way it used to be, you can be on the leading edge. Don’t stall the growth of your company due to employee shortages, because you don’t have to be fighting the same fight.
Have an Employee Handbook Ready
Each employee that is brought on should have a clear understanding of what the expectations are, the benefits for meeting said expectations, and the consequences for not. This document should state your company policies as far as uniforms, benefits, arrival times, who to discuss any issues or questions with and so on. Whatever you feel is important and believe needs to be communicated should be on this document.
Make sure the employee reads and signs the document and that it’s kept on file. If for any reason an employee must be terminated, this document can be used to lay out the requirements that were not sufficiently met.
These are the Tools You Need to Hire
Bringing a new employee on the team can feel overwhelming. They represent your business and your dream, but also you are an integral part of their life and their dreams. It’s a two-way street where balance always needs to be found.. that comes AFTER hiring, and it’s in your best interest to smooth out the hiring process.
Start with a “Careers” page and get your message on the most popular/effective job boards we mentioned. Keep your descriptions simple and be transparent up front. We need employees now more than ever but that doesn’t translate to sacrificing quality - just make a bigger pool to pull from.