In my nearly 30 years as a consultant in the landscaping industry, I have visited well over 200 different landscaping companies. I have seen facilities that are impressive, ones that are efficient and then some that were just plain bad, too.
I’ve seen facilities that were built, bought and even rented. I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong way to handle this, it’s about what works best for your business.
I will tell you what we did, we built the facility we operate out of in Dayton, Ohio, 31 years ago. Despite my best efforts to think through what we would want and need in a facility as a 25-year-old, there were, of course, things I missed. We’ve made changes, done renovations, built additions and converted storage or garage space into more functional spaces.
In the WAM (World According to Marty) your facility needs to be three things: efficient, clean and functional. Here’s what we’ve done at Grunder Landscaping Co. (GLC) to make our facility all three of those.
Efficient
We have carefully thought out the flow of our yard so that it fits the way that we work. Trucks come in and out one way, we have two loading zones for plant material, a loading zone that can accommodate two trucks loading at a time for mulch, cobbles and compost, and then an area where we store and load larger, bulkier materials (pavers, boulders, etc.)
We compost onsite and have an area dedicated to that too. Each truck and trailer have an assigned, marked parking spot and team members have a designated parking area for personal vehicles.
Every member of our sales team, administrative team and all production managers have a workstation with at least two monitors (some have three) so that they can work efficiently at their desks too.
Clean
Cleanliness helps us to be efficient. We put things back where they go so the next time we need them, we can find them quickly.
Cleanliness is also about the message we are sending to our team about what matters. They’re on our property for around 30 minutes each morning, and in that time, we’re reinforcing our cleanliness expectations for their trucks, jobsite and person.
My thought has always been, “If I wouldn’t want to use our crew bathroom, why would they?” I believe the cleanliness of your bathroom says a lot about how much you value your team.
You’ll often catch our team washing off their muddy boots outside before coming into the office, walking around in their socks because their shoes are drying or grabbing the vacuum to clean up if they tracked in some dirt. You’ll see them taking the same approach to their vehicles and to the properties we work on.
Functional
You won’t find a fancy office if you come to visit us on one of our GLC Field Trips. Most of our office furniture comes from Amazon or discount office supply places, and we decorate the walls with pictures from properties we care for.
Whether you’re inside or outside on our property, you’ll find yourself in a space that’s set up for functionality first and foremost. We want to make things easier on ourselves and our teams.
If you’re contemplating building a new facility, buying an older one, renting or making changes to your existing space, I hope you give thought to how you can maximize the efficiency, cleanliness and functionality of that space for your team. I always recommend touring some of the facilities of other successful landscaping companies — learn from their mistakes and their successes.
I’d love to see you this fall at GLC if you’re looking for inspiration — come see me!
