Interview with Charolette Cascioli by Karina Sinclair
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. The original article can be found HERE. 

The demand for skilled workers in landscape and horticulture is higher than ever. HR consultant Charolette Cascioli joined the Landscape Ontario Podcast to explore different solutions for this growing problem — and shared her insights on attracting better candidates by broadening the prospective talent pool, the risks of ignoring company culture and how participating in ongoing training programs like those offered by LO can help strengthen the leadership skills needed to build a great team culture.  

From your perspective as a human resources professional, what do you think would help employers fill their vacant roles?

We really do need to be looking outside of our industry. That's one of the suggestions I always make to our contractors. I’ve heard some phenomenal stories of outstanding supervisors and lead hands that just came completel...

^{The original article, written by Randy Dombrowski, was posted on Green Industry Pros on January 13, 2025 and can be found HERE.} 

From site prep to specialized installations, the people you hire can either drive your project forward or increase risk. Here's how general contractors can help mitigate risk.

Every subcontractor you hire can enhance or derail your work. A focus on subcontractor risk management can be the difference between a profitable, well-executed project and one that suffers costly delays—or worse, injuries or fatalities.

A strong subcontractor risk management strategy is built on three key pillars: a thorough risk assessment, clear control measures and adequate insurance coverage. These components protect your workforce, property and equipment and ensure your project stays within budget and on schedule.

Key steps to assessing subcontractor risk

Before signing a contract, evaluate how your subcontractor will impact your project’s safety and bottom line. A thorough v...

As a landscape contractor, managing the financial aspects of your business is crucial to your success.
One of the most important, but overlooked, aspects of financial management is monitoring your cash flow.
By keeping a close eye on your cash flow, you can avoid unexpected shortfalls and ensure that you have
the funds to meet your business obligations.

In this article, we will discuss the five cash-flow mistakes that small business owners often make and how
you can avoid them. By implementing these strategies, you can effectively manage your cash flow and
set your landscape contracting business up for long-term success.

1. Neglecting to monitor your cash flow at least weekly
One of the biggest mistakes that small business owners make is not consistently monitoring their cash
flow. By neglecting to review your cash flow on a regular basis, you may miss out on potential problems
that could eventually drain your financial resources.

Monitoring your cash flow on a daily or weekly basis allows ...

Being a landscape/snow business owner is hard. There are a million things vying for your attention, and
it’s usually the most urgent that gets it. Meanwhile, your business keeps going – but is it growing? Has it
increased in value over the last year? The truth is that most landscape business owners have no idea
what their business is worth or how it’s actually doing. They’re usually fantastic technicians, happy to be
working IN the business, but rarely ON the business. But knowing the value of your business, and
understanding the steps needed to take to increase its value are critical for the growth and health of the business. It will increase profitability now and also make your business more attractive to potential buyers – whether you’re looking at selling now or in the future.

Let’s take a look at six pillars of business and identify some best practices and tools you can implement
fairly easily to increase efficiency, productivity and profit.

SAFETY
The health and safety of your staff i...

This week in our strategic planning series, we’re focusing on marketing and sales. This is often an area that we give little attention to. We generally focus on providing an excellent product or service – and we should. But if we don’t let people know how our excellent product or service will enhance their life, and why we’re the best choice for that product or service, we will likely not experience the type of growth we want.

MARKETING

Marketing can be thought of as all activities a business carries out to:

• Identify its target market
• Prepare promotional material designed to appeal to ideal client
• Communicate the material in a cost-effective manner
• Distribute the product or service to the target market

To be effective at marketing, you should be doing each of these four activities. If you have a great product or service but communicate it to the wrong market segment, the marketing won’t be effective. If you have great marketing material, but don’t deliver on what you’re adve...

A strategic plan defines who you are as a business and lists concrete actions to achieve your goals, so creating one takes time and thought. Let’s discuss the W’s of strategic planning:

Who should be involved?

Clearly the owner should be involved. And depending on the type of plan you’re creating, you might also want to include division leaders, administration, sales staff, operations management and a facilitator.

What should be discussed or decided?

The strategic plan meeting should identify or review the company vision, mission and core values, a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, company goals and objectives as well as an action plan.

When should you prepare a strategic plan?

A strategic plan should be created annually, reviewed quarterly and discussed weekly.

Where should the meeting take place?

It has been our experience that the most productive meetings take place outside of the office. We recommend booking an offsite location for a day where y...

Written by Jacki Hart, President, Consulting By Hart

Every now and then, something comes across your desk or into your inbox that is worth paying attention to. If you’re a contractor who sells services to your customers, which include labour and materials, equipment and overhead costs, then this article is worth your time to read. Unless you are either entirely recession proof in your market, or aren’t trying to improve profit in your business. But if you are working hard to figure out a way to be more profitable, read on.

Sometimes the most successful businesses have all of the cutting-edge technologies, software, apps, equipment and training. And some businesses have all of that, and still aren’t profitable enough to pay the owner well, build equity and an engaged, career-minded team.

Enter J. Paul Lamarche (JPL), and his industry-altering pricing system. JPL’s estimating and pricing system was officially adopted by Landscape Ontario in 2005. In 2010, he wrote the book: What the M...

If you’ve been in business for five years or more then it’s time to analyze the health of your landscape company. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) analyze specific systems, job functions, and the financial state of your company. You then take the results from your KPI and find new ways to be more efficient, bring new clients through your door, and improve employee performance, to name a few.

What are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)?

KPIs are measurements. They’re a performance indicator to test on all of your company’s systems. For example, you can perform a KPI in your operations department, or you can do a KPI on your profits and losses.

In a nutshell, KPIs evaluate the success of your green or white company or a particular system within your lawn and landscape organization.

A KPI’s results tell part of your company’s story, such as

• Your success at reaching specific targets within your company
•  What’s working and what needs to change in a select part of your business, such...

Being a landscape business owner is hard. There are a million things vying for your attention, and it’s usually the most urgent that gets it. Meanwhile, your business keeps going – but is it growing? Has it increased in value over the last year? The truth is that most landscape business owners have no idea what their business is worth or how it’s actually doing. They’re usually fantastic technicians, happy to be working IN the business, but rarely ON the business. But knowing the value of your business, and understanding the steps needed to take to increase its value are critical for the growth and health of the business. It will increase profitability now and also make your business more attractive to potential buyers – whether you’re looking at selling now or in the future.

Let’s take a look at six pillars of business and identify some best practices and tools you can implement fairly easily to increase efficiency, productivity and profit.

SAFETY

The health and safety of your staf...

The original article by Kate Heinz and updated by Jessica Powers can be found HERE. 

Organizational culture influences the success of your company, directly affecting the sort of candidates you attract and the employees you hold onto. There are several different types of organizational culture too; so you have to find the one that works best for you.

What Is Organizational Culture?

Organizational culture, or company culture, is defined as the shared values, attitudes and practices that characterize an organization. It’s the personality of your company, and it plays a large part in your employees’ overall satisfaction.

Having a strong organizational culture is important because it helps attract the right candidates and it keeps them engaged as employees. According to a 2019 Glassdoor study, 77 percent of adults would evaluate a company’s culture before applying to an open position, with more than half ranking an organization’s organizational culture as more important than compensati...