What I would do to find employees right now

It seems no matter who I talk to, in any area of the country, finding quality employees is one of the top, if not the most pressing concern. 

With the first half of 2020 turning the world on its head, it has added even more confusion and uncertainty for employers. 

In the green industry, we have a disadvantage in that there have been 30+ years of parents, universities, and corporate entities heavily emphasizing the importance of going to college and not having to work with your hands or in a trade. In other words, there has been an outright stigma around being a landscaper or tree professional and that it should be viewed as temporary or back-up gig.

Social stigmas aside, as a whole the green industry has done a pretty poor job in marketing and recruiting efforts to fight off these claims. This leaves us with an uphill battle to say the least.

The Opportunity

Taking a more optimistic approach, the global pandemic has illuminated a unique opportunity in that while schools & universities must remain closed, landscape & tree care businesses are essential and are fully operating.

This means for the first time ever, heading into the Fall, students and parents are going to grapple with a major dilemma. Can we justify tens of thousands of dollars in tuition for “at-home” remote learning?

For most, your college years are half academics and a half learning to survive on your own and the social experiences. If I am an 18-22-year-old looking at my year ahead and realizing that the biggest thing I was looking forward to at college (living on my own away from my parents) is not going to be an option for at least the foreseeable future. 

If I am a parent of an 18-22-year-old and I am footing at least part of the education bill, I would really be struggling to find the value in the already massively overpriced college tuition. All so my child can sit and roll their eyes 6-8 hours a day on zoom calls at my kitchen table. 

To me, this presents us with a unique opportunity. Being one of the very few THRIVING industries throughout this pandemic, we now have leverage to start conversations and show why our industry has so much to offer a young person.

“But these kids don’t have any experience!” 

I know what you are thinking, “but these kids don’t have any experience!” 

No shit. 

Neither do millions of 22-year-old graduates whom corporations hire every Summer after graduation. If I were to guess, if we looked back at your career I would bet we could pinpoint an exact time when you had little to no experience, and someone took a chance on you. Return the favor.

The reason you can’t find qualified help for your business is because there is a true shortage in able-bodied, experienced candidates. There are not enough bodies to fill all the open seats. You can sit there and complain all day long about how you can’t find anyone, or you can get creative and start creating your own employees. Companies have been doing this for decades, it is time our industry caught up.

Corporate America is not hiring right now. CAPITALIZE on that. For the first time, maybe ever, we in the green industry are not fighting off massive employer competition.

How to position yourself

I am no recruiting expert but from my experience, the traditional hiring method of “if you post it, they will come” is not going to be very effective here. 

You truly need to get creative because the potential candidate pool is not aware that you even exist as a viable career option for them. This means it is our job to educate and shed light on why our industry is worth checking out. 

Think of yourself as a marketer crafting the perfect Superbowl ad to pique the interest of your potential candidates. 

Ask yourself these questions:

• What is exciting about what you do?
• Do neighbors and people driving by stop and watch your crews when they are on job sites? What piques their interest? Is it the equipment? the quality of the work? The finished product? 
• Why are you in this business? What do you like about working in this industry
• Ask your employees what they like about the company and about their job as a whole.
• What is unique about your industry? What problem or solution do you solve for your customers?
• Perhaps most importantly: What professional skills can be developed at your company?

Professional skills

The reason I think professional skills are most important is employers fall for the trap of constantly trying to sell the dream of a career to young people. If you actually took the time to understand millennials and the younger generation, you would realize that that is not something they value. 

Young people want experiences. They want flexibility and mobility. Instead of selling this career try selling your job positions as what Reid Hoffman calls - “Tours of Duty”. Young people think in one, two, and three-year increments. Speak to that.

Present your job as the opportunity to gain valuable professional experience and skills that will help them transition into whatever other work they may want to pursue.

There's no denying that one of the biggest pain points for parents and employers alike is that university studies can be quite theoretical and lacking real, practical life skills. The classroom setting can be a difficult place to give real-world insights for a young person.

Use this pain point as an opportunity to see how your job position can be like a co-op or internship - allowing the young person to gain real-world work experience quickly. 

How to approach them

Here are some ideas on how to market green industry opportunities:

Want to learn about teamwork and planning? Spend some time with a landscape installation crew and see what a true orchestra it is to get a complex project done properly. 

Need experience with risk management? Witness the art of tree pruning and removal. Get a front-row seat to the #3 most dangerous job on the planet. Learn how roping, rigging, safety, and strategy all come together to keep people & properties safe around the world.

Want to learn about people skills? Shadow an estimator or account manager. See how the very nature of the position is to read people, dissect their frustrations, and map out a scope of work that solves their problems.

Interested in project management and engineering? Go sit with landscape architects and hardscape professionals. You will learn about slopes, inclines, retainment systems, interlocking concrete and 

Interested in ecology and biology? Join a consulting arborist, landscape maintenance, or plant health care specialty company. These folks spend 10 hours per day walking properties, studying plant and environmental trends, and crafting up unique curated programs to keep plant material alive.

How about watershed and environmental protection? Work with an irrigation company. Learn how proper watering techniques and state of the art irrigation systems actually converse water and save millions of gallons of pollution each year with the right drainage structure.

Interested in technology? Many green industry firms are infusing technology into all sorts of aspects of their organization. 

• The office - scheduling, routing, organization
• The field - sensors, estimating and measurements
• Reporting & Imaging - drone operators, camera work, measuring, progress documentation
• Machine Operating - did you know a lot of machinery now are run by tablets and controls. Grapple saw trucks, stump grinders, ditch witch trenching, irrigation equipment, autonomous mowers. These machines all need smart, tech-savvy, technicians to man the controls and monitor.

Where to Market to them

Apart from the normal Indeed, Monster, Ziprecruiter job posting - using language and lead-ins as mentioned above in social settings would be very useful. 

Family & Friends

Do you have family members, friends, nieces and nephews or friends of friends with young people that wont be going to a full university this year?

Bring up that you are hiring at your company and are willing to train those business and professional skills to even those with little or no experience. Many industries have experienced massive lay-offs with the pandemic and you may get access to someone you otherwise wouldn’t.

Online Advertising

Young people spend an immense amount of time online on social media. This presents an opportunity to reach them through targeted ad placement. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn all have hyper-targeting abilities that allow you to showcase your ads to specific audiences that meet your criteria: age group, location, interests, etc. 

Maybe you create a high quality 2-3 minute video introduction to your company highlighting the exciting job opportunities you have available. 

Or you craft written text using lead-ins like mentioned above to captivate their interest or maybe their parents for that matter.

Service Industry

This next section highlights specific industry that have been devestated by the pandemic. This means many people in this space have found themselves without a job and seeking a fresh start professionally.

Restaurants 

The foodservice industry in particular breeds a certain type of personality and skillset. It provides someone like a waiter a high exposure to volumes of people from all walks of life. People are very particular about their food and a waiter is seeing people on their happiest days and sometimes their worst. This industry requires a waiter to be an active listener and detail-oriented. Waiters need to be understanding, flexible, and willing to think on their feet. 

One of the major drawbacks of the foodservice industry is the hours - typically nights and weekends. This can be a tough schedule that is hard to sustain for those with children or social lives for that matter. 

Gyms

Gyms and any other gathering place of active people presents a great opportunity to meet potential quality hires. Being that the work we do is physical and requires mental toughness, gyms do some of the screening for you. An active, regimented gym-go-er is typically someone of discipline and focus. 

If you are looking to hire a sales arborist or estimator that will be actively out in the field, walking, climbing, and bending down, it would only benefit you to have an employee who would thrive in that environment. 

Take notice of the time of day that they attend the gym. Are they going before work? If so strict up a conversation and find out more about what they are doing. You would be amazed at how many people hate their job and would love to have a job that keeps them outdoors and mobile.

Volunteers

Among the millennial population, there is a significant interest in eco-consciousness and the impact humans are having on the planet. Search your local community for groups that volunteer, clean up litter, perform maintenance on parks, etc. Within these groups, you may find personalities that 1. Enjoy the outdoors 2. Respect and strive to maintain green spaces. This can be a great launching pad for individuals to start a career in arboriculture or horticulture. 

 A good way into this group would be to join their cause and start volunteering right beside them. Lead through your actions and show this cause resonates with you as well. As these individuals start to see the impact they are making at their local level, you may be able to strict up a conversation about their long term goals to see if they have ever considered taking this passion and making it a career.

All in all, the take away here is to recognize the current economic environment as an opportunity and to position our uniqueness as an industry to compliment this. Your business is special, the work you do makes a difference in the world and it has tremendous value.

Help the general public better understand this and respect it!