I can't find employees.........

[troblandscape]

I currently have around 90 acounts about half of them I do complete maininence, on a the others I just cut the lawn. I have been trying to get a cutting crew together for the past two years. I can not seem to have found someone that I could trust to go out with my truck and equipment and do the tasks that I have assigned for that day. It seems in this bussiness the employees come and go. How is everyone else doing it ?? I am willing to pay the crewleader 14$ hr. is that to low...

[rvsuper]

Talk to LGF. He is in this program that hires hispanics, which are very hard workers IMO.

[gogetter]

Welcome to LawnSite. I think $14hr is good for a crew leader. You could do a search on here for hiring employees. You'll get ideas on how to screen applicants better, what kind of questions to ask them to get a better idea of the type of person they are and worker they will be.

By the way, where abouts in Philly are you? I'm in Yardley, Bucks County.

Good luck.

[fblandscape]

What are you offering besides $14 per hour? Can you keep them busy in the winter months? The winter is the best time to be recruiting, provided that you can keep the guys busy.

[Clayton800]

Hispanic help is the ONLY way to go

[Sean Adams]

$14 per hour....not bad at all. Finding the right "kinds" of people, then selling them on your mission, and training them according to how you want things done....sounds simple....but it's not. I would check into labor options from some of the associations.

[NC Big Daddy]

$14 a hour in my area is WAY to high. Crew leaders are topping out around $10 here. Money is not the only problem in finding a good employee........Do a search on this site and you'll find lots of information.

[bdemir]

you really want hard workers. Put down money on a 20k house in the city and give thema place to live and they will live there and work for you. Show them where to get groceries and shop for stuff like drug stores and show them where all the other mexicans live and you got it made. Other vise die in the mildering sun while every big company with good laborers drives circles around you and your competition.



OR you could bring in a partner and split some of the profit and 1099 him at the end of the year. This is motivating and gets people working harder. you will not be able to keep regular employess interested without some kind of set pay. Pay anyone by the hour and you will loose. You have to subcontract out labor to a partner and thats the best way to do it. Or they will milk the clock or not work long enough to get throught the job or show up and take breaks. This way you can go slow and they can go fast. Get it! you need to check their work so you need to go a little slower to be aware of things.



Bedros

[pilotcoplawnboy]

If you hire any hispanics just make sure atleast one of them speaks english and don't worry about the rest. Also make sure that the drivers of your vehicles are legal aliens and that they have valid driver's license. A mexican driver's license doesn't count in the US. I will have to admit that the hispanics are some of the hardest working people I have ever seen and don't complain about anything.

[ipm]

I agree $14.00 is extremly high. How are you going to ever give him a raise? If you can afford 14$ I would pay him 10 and give him a little bonus every month, or week. In your situation, I don't know.

Another thing I had a hard time learning is that, Employees are not going to perform job tasks like you. Everybody has their own style. That is where that bonus comes in. They do something you like, you give a kick back.

[Strawbridge Lawn0]

This year I will be bringing on a part timer for 2-3 days per week. Looking at paying about $8.00 p/Hr or about $130.00 p/week for 16 hours. This would require me to bring on about 4-5 new contracts this spring. Got 2 already so It appears to be time.

[rodfather]

Foreman $20

Employee $15

And my guys work their butts off.

[Tvov]

Welcome to the world of trying to find good employees! You are not alone!

I've had good luck using part-timers, especially guys with evening or night shift jobs. BUT, they're not full timers, if you are really looking to expand your business.

$14.00 / hr is low to middlin' around here for a foreman, but I agree with the earlier comment about starting around $10 - $11 and increasing that as time and experience add up. Don't start someone out at the top rate that you can afford when you don't even know if they are going to work out. If you get someone who is good, increase their pay quickly, but be careful that they don't come to expect constant pay increases. After the new employee gets "established", you should sit down with him and talk about future pay and increases.

[Gravely_Man]

Good workers are very hard to find. You need to pay them well and give them other incentives to keep them around. Once you find a good worker do whatever you can afford to keep them.


Gravely_Man

[MPhillips]

I don't think $14/hour is too high for your market at all. You really get what you pay for. Do the math and see what an extra $1/hour really costs you...a few thousand depending on how many hours they'll work. What's it worth to have someone who earns a good living working for you, and wants to help the business, shows up everyday, is good with customers, will learn new things and grow with you...you can't grow a business by yourself, and I don't think you can grow a business by trying to motivate $8/hour workers all day long either...

[Acorn]

WOW!!! $14/hour. Sometimes I don't make that much (on quotes that I screw up) Around here, labour is a minimum wage job starting at $6/hour and a crew cheif can make about $10-$12

Oh, and that's Canadian so about $3/hour US ;)

[MPhillips]

comparing wages in Canada and the US is apples and oranges. Labor is a minimum wage job here too...for the most part...supervision isn't though. And supervision is a broad job catagory with different responsibilites for different types of supervision...

[NC Big Daddy]

MPhillips I've got no idea where you work but in Charlotte $14 per hour is unheard of for a crew leader. Billable labor rates in this area run between $21 and $30 per man hour.
To retain good help money is just one of the tools you many need. Do a site search on this subject there are lots of good post on this subject.

[rodfather]

Originally posted by rodfather
Foreman $20

Employee $15

And my guys work their butts off.


You get what you pay for.

[MPhillips]

you really do

[LAWNS AND MOWER]

Originally posted by troblandscape
I currently have around 90 acounts about half of them I do complete maininence, on a the others I just cut the lawn. I have been trying to get a cutting crew together for the past two years. I can not seem to have found someone that I could trust to go out with my truck and equipment and do the tasks that I have assigned for that day. It seems in this bussiness the employees come and go. How is everyone else doing it ?? I am willing to pay the crewleader 14$ hr. is that to low...
One more reason why I decided to go SOLO 7 years ago. ;)

[troblandscape]

Thank you for all your replies.
I work in Montgomery County Blue Bell area
How do I go about finding hispanic workers

[boohoo]

Pay $12-$15 an hour. Foreman usually salaried around $28000+
all employees get minimum $1000 bonus after 1 year and a a percentage of profits at years end. If my crew dont turn up I am literally screwed and weighed against losing even one $5000 account it is far better to pay them well. All staff are treated as essential business memberss so they learn real early the importance of quality work and that this is not a dead end job. Pay peanuts you get monkeys.

[gogetter]

Being as I'm from aroung the same area, I will say that $14 is not extremely high for this area as some have said. I would say it is on the higher end but that's it.

I do agree with some others that I wouldn't start them at this rate. Start them out as a regular helper (maybe $9-10hr) and as they progress and take on more responsibility, then up the pay.

As far as what the one poster said about taking a partner and 1099ing him, I'm not sure how that would work out. Not sure how a "partner" can be a "subcontractor" at the same time????
There are certain requirements that one has to meet to be considered a subcontractor.

[troblandscape]

Thanks for the replies GoGetter!

[cp]

payup :blob3: :blob1: payup

LMAO So true, so true.....

[Hookset]

An hourly wage is not a factor in a good employee. I've had some wprk better for $6.00 hr than others at $10.00. I've raised pay in what I thought was a good employee and got less work. Wage is only a factor in retaining a good employee. I would run another company for $20.00 hr. Thats $20.00 hr clear no expenses.

[Hookset]

An hourly wage is not a factor in a good employee. I've had some wprk better for $6.00 hr than others at $10.00. I've raised pay in what I thought was a good employee and got less work. Wage is only a factor in retaining a good employee. I would run another company for $20.00 hr. Thats $20.00 hr clear no expenses.

[lawnworker]

About the partner being 1099ed, a partnerrship is nothing more then two sole proprieterships working together for a agreed upon share of profit or loss. One would not 1099 a partner.

[LAWNGODFATHER]

Find local mexican grocery stores, or resturaunts. Leave your number they will find you.

The H2B program is to late to get them here for the begining of the season.

The guys I got, I begged my hispanic trash man for over a year.

The start of this season he will be working for me and some guys from another large LCO around here.

[rvsuper]

LGF,
Do you have a translator or all of them speak english lingo?

[LAWNGODFATHER]

Don't need much english. They understand some.

I have a female who speaks fluent spanish, her husband also works for me. She is a driver of one of the mowing trucks.

In a few short weeks I learned what I needed to know in spanish to communicate with them

Only really need a few words.

There is a translater available that I tried to use the first day, but it wan't used much.

I also have a buddy wh speaks good spanish who I can call over the Nextel's to do anything I can't understand. I use it more to figure out what they are saying more than what I need to tell them.

If I need to correct somthing they are doing, I just point to my eyen and they can figure out they need to watch what and how I am doing something.

I guess the biggest thing you need to figure out with the guys who will be working with you is how to go about communicating with them. We figured our own ways out, some of the names I things I could not pronounce we made up our own names for them to make it eaier for them. When I used that made up name the guy who was with me told the others so they knew what it was also.

Just like anyone who works for you, they all need to be tough the ways you like to have things done. We all had a crash course in what to do, and I had to correct things at a later date, so I guess that was the way everything flowed. Now it is much easier to communicate to them what I need done even if it's just hand signals.

And many know from having employees' in this biz prior, not everything you communicate is done with your mouth anyways, heck half the stuff your trying to say is over a running engine and you use hand signals anyways.