Motivating your landscape team is a nuanced process that can reap high rewards for any growing landscape or hardscape business. On a recent episode of the Landscape Disruptors podcast, LMN CEO Mark Bradley takes over to interview Benji Carlson from Breakthrough Academy to discuss the impact of generational theory on a workforce. This discussion highlighted the relevance of identifying generational gaps and avoiding the unhealthy promotion of age-based stereotypes.
To avoid fostering potentially dangerous biases amongst your workforce, here is a breakdown of what you can do as a landscape business owner to consistently empower and motivate your landscape team – regardless of their age.
Bridging the Generational Gap with your Landscape Team
Modern day workforces are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of gender, race, and age every single year. And while accommodating diversity requires time and investment, these accommodations may be able to pay off in the long run.
According to a 2020 McKinsey & Company Study, executive teams that ranked in the top gender diversity quartile were 25% more likely to experience above-average profitability compared to firms in the bottom quartile. But managing a diverse workforce requires effort, patience, and education. A great place to start is with generational theory.
Generational theory, as Benji outlines in the podcast, is the study and comparison of groups of individuals born around the same time. You may be familiar with some of their labels. For instance, Millennials and Baby Boomers are both examples of generations of people.
Considering that Millennials are now the largest generation in the U.S. labor force at 35% of the workforce and Gen Z is beginning to enter the job market, it may not be uncommon for a landscape team to comprise three different generations. This degree of age discrepancy can bring a lot of benefits as well as some challenges.
Develop a Productive Work Culture
One of the biggest challenges with a multi-generational landscape team is the development of unproductive stereotypes. Social biases can be an unhealthy reality for any workforce. Negative, superficial attitudes of this kind can completely dismantle a landscape business’s culture. That is where Benji and his team step in.
The Breakthrough Academy is an LMN partner that offers high-performance business education with a contracting focus. How Benji and his team recommend overcoming unhealthy generational attitudes such as “Millennials are lazy” is through education rather than accusation.
Empowering your landscape team means developing a productive and collaborative work culture; one that promotes acceptance and not judgement. Talented people come in all shapes, sizes, and ages.
Invest in Landscape Team Recruitment
Everyone wants to develop a highly motivated workforce, but not every employee can foster motivation. Empowering your landscape team means hiring great people who are willing to give you their all every single day.
A simple way to do that is by investing in the recruitment of superstars who are self-motivated as opposed to allocating resources to motivating people who aren’t driven to work effectively or solve problems.
Once you have your superstars, however, the real skill is knowing how to keep them.
Provide Growth Opportunities
A great way to retain talent is through growth paths. Talented and motivated landscape employees are almost always looking for opportunities to further their career and their experiences. By providing these special individuals with leadership and growth opportunities like managerial promotion, you can retain these superstars for longer periods of time.
This type of investment is worthwhile when you consider the rare combination of drive and skill – and what that can bring to your landscape team for years to come.
Ultimately, empowering your staff requires an investment of your time, money, and company resources. But a motivated and collaborative landscape team is invaluable when it comes to facilitating financial success.
Hear from LMN’s own Chief Commercial Officer to learn more about how you can attract and hire superstar staff members to upgrade your own landscape team.
