Tailgate talks are one of the easiest ways to engage your staff and promote a culture of safety. They are specifically designed to be a quick review of safety protocols and techniques your staff have already been trained on as a reminder to keep safety in the forefront of their minds.  

Tailgate talks create the opportunity to connect with your entire staff once a week and enable you to not only touch on safety topics, but also to talk about changes in company policies, recognize individual or crew-based achievements, and acknowledge birthdays or other important events. 

Here are 5 tips for creating engaging tailgate talks: 

• Preplan your tailgate talks for the season so you don’t need to worry about what your next topic will be. Create a tailgate talks binder sorted by topics and dates relevant to the time of year (ie. In April, talk about blower safety ahead of spring clean-up) and decide in advance who will be speaking on each topic.
• Keep it short. Tailgate talks should be arou...

As you move into the very busy spring season, it’s crucial that you as the owner be organized. 

Over the years I have tried different tools and strategies and have a few I’ve come to love and use regularly. Click the link below/ the resources link in our bio for my list of go to tips and tools.

• Always keep a notebook handy - Evernote is my preferred digital notebook. https://evernote.com/
• Use a planner. It doesn’t matter if that’s paper or digital, just make sure it’s being updated on the go so that appointments and meetings are not being missed. I love using Calendly for appointments. If you’re using paper - I would recommend the Michael Hyatt Full Focus Planner. https://fullfocusstore.com/
• Set a morning routine and stick to it. When you do the same thing every morning, it removes the decision-making from that part of your day. This allows you to save your decision-making energy for the business and avoid decision fatigue
• Work with a coach to help scale your business in a susta...

A new month means a new book recommendation! This month’s recommendation comes to you from our staff member, Jordan Robertson. 

Have you read Safety Walk, Safety Talk?

Author Dave Galloway absolutely hits the mark as he explains how safety is first and foremost about caring. Throughout the book Galloway focuses on the mentality of safety itself and leaders that want to create a culture of safety throughout their organization.

You’ll read in depth discussions on compliance vs. commitment, how to develop a safety strategy as well as the psychological aspect regarding why people make mistakes and take risks.

One of our favourite parts of the book is that each chapter ends with a "Safety Leaders Toolbox" segment which gives practical tools and tips to becoming a better safety leader using small things you think, say and do everyday.

Here are Jordan's biggest takeaways from the book:

• Reading this book changed my outlook on the idea of safety in the workplace and I believe it will ch...

Let’s talk about firing. Although it’s uncomfortable, there are times when it’s essential. At those times, it’s important that you are prepared and that you do not avoid it. Total Landscape Care posted a couple of articles a number of years ago that are still relevant today. Here is a brief overview of my takeaways from reading them.

Things to remember:

• “The goal is not termination. The goal is to gain the performance you want. If it comes to it, the termination should never be a surprise to the employee” - Bill Cook (President, Human Resource Associates)
• Know the laws and create a paper trail. All infractions must be documented. It doesn’t hurt to book a call with an employment lawyer if there are any questions around it.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Why do you want to terminate them?
• Have you terminated others for similar performance?
• Do you see anything personal in your reasons?
• Have you exhausted all other remedies?

Three things to avoid:

• Small talk. Be kind, but ...

With spring on the way (we hope!), hiring season won’t be far behind. If you want that hiring rush to go smoothly, set clear expectations, and keep great employees around, it all starts with strong onboarding.

And no—onboarding doesn’t end when HR collects the last signature. That’s just the starting line.

Onboarding is often treated like a box to check, but it’s a powerful (and frequently overlooked) opportunity. A thoughtful onboarding process introduces new hires to your company’s values and vision, lays out training and development plans, and helps them understand not just what they’ll be doing, but why it matters. Employees should spend time with HR, owners, managers, and crew leaders so they get a well-rounded picture of how your company operates and what success looks like.

Training should be baked into onboarding—and it shouldn’t stop once an employee is assigned to a crew. Ongoing training is proven to improve efficiency, safety, and employee retention. When people know how...

“The primary purpose of an incentive plan is to positively shape employee behaviour toward improving the company’s financial performance.”

Profit Works is a must read for anyone wanting to create an incentive plan that gets results. Alex Freytag and Tom Bouwer are huge proponents of Traction (the book we base our coaching program on), and you’ll notice how their ideas and advice works together with the EOS system. 

Throughout the book Alex and Tom will walk you through the why, how and what in order to create an effective incentive program for your company. There are clear do’s and don'ts in this process and this book breaks them down and provides straightforward instruction for the “do’s”. 

3 things stood out to me as I read this book:

1. Incentive plans will not make up for bad management. 
2. This is not an overnight process. As mentioned in the book, it takes time and intention to teach your employees how they, as individuals, impact the incentive plan and to provide tools for the...

Although mental health is not a new issue, the impact and responsibility we have as business owners is relatively new and how we approach it is not always clear cut. More information and  training is becoming available to us, but a lot of it is from larger companies with greater resources, which can be tough if you’re a small business. With that being said, I understand that one of your biggest challenges is the unknown and we wanted to share 6 simple suggestions:

• Check in often with your staff and actively listen to them.
• Ensure your staff know that their job is not at risk because they share their mental health concerns.
• Talk about mental health with your staff regularly
• Talk about the importance of enough sleep consistently
• Create a work/life balance - don’t contact staff after hours whenever possible
• Consider switching to 4 day work weeks.

I believe open dialogue around mental health and a willingness to understand where your staff are at will make a world of a differenc...

Did you know Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day because he wanted to reduce the number of decisions he made in a day?

As business owners, we make decisions all day long. We make them so quickly that we often don’t even realize we are making them. In fact, it's estimated that we make around 35,000 decisions every. single. day. Each decision we make requires time and energy and depletes our willpower. The more decisions you make in a day, the quicker you will end up with decision fatigue.

There are 5 simple steps you can take that will help with this:

• Reduce the number of decisions you make when you wake up (This is when wearing the same thing, eating the same thing, getting up at the same time can be helpful.)
• Once you are at work, make your biggest decisions first. 
• Delegate what you can
• Simplify your life
• Create a daily routine. The more regular the routine becomes, the more the day-to-day tasks can be done on autopilot instead of you needing to consciously decide to do...

Owning a landscaping business comes with its fair share of stress. That it’s seasonal and weather-dependent only adds to the stress of business ownership, making the ability to be nimble, flexible and resilient critical for success. But when we do not manage the stress we end up in burnout which, if not dealt with can quickly cause business failure. 

The TGC Academy posted an article a couple years ago talking about burnout and how we can avoid it. The author, Monica Allene, shared the truth about burnout (and I think many of us can relate): “I think on some level I avoided it in the early years with the power of youth (I’ve been doing this since my late teens). Then, as I got older, I avoided it by sheer force of will. Then, as I “matured” (chuckling a little here), I began to struggle with keeping burnout at bay, and I realized that something in my mind had to change. As I tackled my own mental state and began to focus on my body and spirit, I woke up one day and realized that my bu...

Atomic Habits has been recommended to me a number of times so it got moved up to the top of my reading list and it did not disappoint!

In some ways, it’s just really practical. Habits take time. The more often you do something, the more it becomes a habit - whether good or bad.

What makes this book stand out in my opinion is how James Clear says we are to achieve the habits we want. It’s not about motivation, it’s about systems. Small actions over time equal big results.

My 3 biggest takeaways are:

• It’s practical. The framework for creating good habits professionally and personally is easy to understand.
• In order to lead your team well, you need to have good habits. An owner cannot expect his/ her team to have good habits if they don’t model that behaviour themselves.
• It’s self explanatory. Following the methods of the book will allow you more bandwidth for greater productivity in your life and business. 

Right now is the perfect time of year to read this book as it's the be...