Market Insights with Steve Wolf: How to Attract and Retain Top Talent

00:02
Rob Murray
Hey, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. I would say we have a very special guest on the show today, Steve Wolf from Wolf Works Market Research and Consulting Business. Steve, thanks so much for doing this.

00:17
Steve Wolf
Super happy to be here, Rob. Thank you.

00:20
Rob Murray
The reason I say we have a special guest is because I think we’re bringing a perspective to the audience that no one’s really had a chance to hear from. Steve does a lot of help with understanding, you know, the trends and what’s going on in certain industries from a market research perspective to kind of like glean insights of like what everybody’s doing so that people can understand if you’re doing what works, maybe you’re doing some things that don’t. And we had a chance to meet in Pittsburgh at sama and Steve was mentioning this research report that he did for the snow and ice workplace. And it’s all around what people are doing in the workplace to retain folks when it comes to benefits, safety, all this kind of stuff. It’s huge report.

01:03
Rob Murray
And so we’re going to do today is glean some of the insights from it. And Steve is going to help us understand a bit more in terms of what the best are doing and maybe give you some tips on how you can approach your workplace a little bit differently to keep people pumped. Cool.

01:19
Steve Wolf
Sounds great for your audience in the landscape industry who also works year round in the wintertime and does snow removal, I think this will be of interest. And if they don’t work in the winter, but may want to add that slice of their business, hopefully this is a window into some of the dynamics of the snow and ice removal and management.

01:40
Rob Murray
Yeah, well, and I would say even from going through the report and I appreciate you sending it over and it wasn’t easy necessarily to get through the whole thing because it is like a lot of information. I would say a lot of the trends and benchmarks that were in there are not necessarily just snow. Like we’re looking at how people are being treated inside workplaces and what’s working. So yeah, so let’s get into it. But before we do, maybe you can just give yourself a quick introduction and summary so the audience has a better context in terms of who they’re listening to and how you’re helping associations like sima.

02:09
Steve Wolf
Absolutely. Thanks, Rob. I’m Steve Wolf. I’m based in Live in work in Washington, D.C. I’ve been in the market research and marketing strategy field for over 20 years. I stood up my own shop. Wolf works about 10 or 11 years ago, I help a number of industry associations, in this case the really the professional trade association for snow removal. I also work across a lot of other industries. Healthcare, education, retail, finance, professional services. I’m a multimodal researcher, which is a fancy way of saying I run focus groups and one one interviews in addition to online surveys and other methods. And this is a great example because we actually ran some focus groups with snow and ice operators to delve into their workplace needs and those focus groups helped inform the design of the survey.

03:07
Steve Wolf
We did not design the survey in a vacuum at all. It was really hand in glove with operators in the field.

03:13
Rob Murray
Amazing. Okay, so let’s get into this. The theme of this whole podcast is around what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? And for the last three years it’s been staff. This is what they say anyway. Most common answer, can’t find people, tough to keep people. It’s switching a little bit now it’s tied, maybe with sales and marketing because the market’s soft, but it’s still a growth constraint. We look at some of the actionable learnings from the report. There’s some pieces in here around enhancing recruitment efforts and really looking at how they can improve the employee experience. Can you glean some insights in terms of some of the conclusions that came from this and what people might want to do with it?

04:02
Steve Wolf
Sure. The design of this report can hopefully fuel growth in a number of ways. First of all, hopefully helping firms understand the hiring environment and hire better, how to recruit and hire better, pay them appropriately. And once you have your workforce, it’s much more efficient and effective to keep your workers, grow them, train them, upskill them, rather than have them wash out of your organization and have to go back into the job marketplace anew.

04:45
Rob Murray
And so what were some of the things that came out of the report from your perspective that people were doing?

04:50
Steve Wolf
So first off, and a lot of the report is quantitative, it took an average of maybe 12 or 16 minutes for a snow and ice firm to respond to the survey. We’re asking them some, we’re asking them to open up the hood and reveal some fairly sensitive information like how many people they have and what they pay them. But we also had the chance for them to answer some open ended questions around challenges and workplace culture. We can get into the data in a moment, but I think one of the things that screamed at this survey is they have a hard time hiring staff for a number of reasons. At a macro level, candidates rule the ROOST in today’s labor market in their locality, they may have a hard time finding talent.

05:44
Steve Wolf
And you know, the promise of working in the snow and ice field is a difficult one. Snow removal is a tough job. It’s a tough sled. To use a winter analogy, not everyone is hired full time. Some of these firms also obviously work in the landscape industry and they might hire a worker to really work year round. But, but some snow and ice operators really just work in the wintertime. The work itself is seasonal. The amount of work in the snow and ice field obviously varies depending on the weather. Some winters the region in Michigan or Ontario or Boston gets hit with snow and there’s a lot of work too much for everyone to handle or handle effectively anyway where they’re burning up and in other cases there’s not enough work to go around. So folks are frustrated that they’re not working enough hours.

06:42
Steve Wolf
So long winded way of saying hiring is probably a real constraint. We asked and conducted a poll on average salaries and we can get to that in a moment too. But one of the big takeaways is we asked, are your salaries versus the past few years stable or on the decline or going up? No surprise because there’s, you know, it’s an inflationary environment the past few years, but really nine out of ten said their salaries are higher than even just a couple years ago. So firms are having to manage overall profitability with the pressure to pay their people more well.

07:22
Rob Murray
And I think this is something that’s really interesting too for everybody listening and we hear this conversation happen quite a bit. So there can be a bunch of low cost competitors in the marketplace that don’t necessarily have a lot of overhead. And so they come in at a low cost. And then there’s a pressure in the market for people to be competitive air quotes not to, you know, make their price, say 30, 40% more. So then because they can’t charge enough, they can’t pay people enough. Because they can’t pay people enough, they can’t get good people. And you know, this vicious cycle starts to go down where they end up, you know, understaffed, doing too much, wearing too many hats.

07:58
Steve Wolf
Sure.

07:59
Rob Murray
And so I think one of the things says here is that, you know, we do need to charge more so that we can pay people more so that we can keep good people to do good work. And I think one of the things that gets missed a lot. But there’s a saying that a players are free. And what that means is if you pay somebody, you know, say 20% more than the market rate. And they’re good. The odds of them being able to do the work of say two or three people is really high. And so I think we need to, as leaders, start to understand that paying the bucks for good folks will do a couple of things with our recruiting efforts.

08:35
Rob Murray
Well, one is we’re going to stick out and then we’re going to have more candidates and then we get to sift through and we got to get these hiring practices figured out. So I really appreciate you. You know, this highlighted because in the slide right now that Steve’s showing, it said 77% of management salaries or 77% of the respondents report significant or slightly higher salaries, which is, you know, three quarters of the people that filled out the survey. So then if we get back to this idea of recruiting, was there some highlights of what was working for people and like maybe what people aren’t doing and maybe they should consider.

09:11
Steve Wolf
There was. We, we asked where these firms recruit. Questions were separated by recruitment for management. White, white collar staff, who’s working in finance or marketing or in the office, essentially. Yeah, exactly. Regional, regional folks, account service, fleet management, C suite and the like. And then we asked about recruitment on behalf of, you know, crew shovelers, folks that clear sidewalks, equipment drivers, plow drivers and the like. Two, two very different audiences with maybe different strategies, different salaries and even salary structures. Namely, namely payroll or flat salary for management and typically hourly wage for folks in the crew. So a lot of answers are stratified by those two audiences. And we really wanted to canvas and poll how do they recruit management and how do they recruit folks in the field?

10:25
Steve Wolf
By the way, folks in the field, no surprise, are eight or nine out of every 10 employees, especially the larger affirmatives, their internal office staff is probably a little bit more efficient. Efficient. So on balance, more and more of their staff is out in the field clearing snow off of sidewalks and storefronts. Probably no surprise, the number one recruiting source getting into it is referrals. Why have to spend money in the job market if you can, if you can tap, you know, good advice from your current workers or your alumni workers. Social media is.

11:09
Rob Murray
Well, and sorry, just quick one before I go to social media, next one. And like some of the most successful folks that I’ve seen get referrals for staff, actually pay their staff to bring people in.

11:23
Steve Wolf
Right. They’ll pay. They’ll pay a recruiting bonus.

11:26
Rob Murray
Yeah. And for the audience listening a couple ways you might think about it is maybe you give Them a thousand bucks and they get 500 if the person lasts 90 days and they get another 500 if they last 12 months. Because like paying a thousand bucks to have someone come on for a year. Easy peasy, right?

11:46
Steve Wolf
And number one, you got a quality person because you trust. If you trust the referrer, the referee is going to be a solid worker and save all the money advertising the position out in the job market using a professional recruiter or others. So beyond word of mouth, really, what else are snow and ice firms doing? Social media posts. No surprise. Again, that’s really earned media and relatively free except for the effort expended when we get into paid sources. Things like job boards. Indeed. And LinkedIn. That’s common not only in this field, but in plenty of others. I actually do some work in the employment or job seeking talent acquisition field itself, so I would certainly encourage any listeners to take advantage of the tried and true sources. Tap your employees and their ideas as you suggest.

12:49
Steve Wolf
Rob, leverage social media if you feel the need because it is a good way to hire efficiently at scale. Use job boards, certainly use your own web presence in your career sites. But beyond that, if firms aren’t getting the traction they need in recruiting a number of sources, looks like they’re not being used enough in.

13:14
Rob Murray
Well, and just before you jump into this next section.

13:17
Steve Wolf
Sure.

13:17
Rob Murray
What I wanted to let everybody know. So. So Steve’s sharing a slide right now and if you know there’s a clip on video, you’ll see it. But more often than not, people are listening to this on a podcast environment. But one of the things I want to highlight here is that 41% of firms are using a careers page to recruit management and only 54% are using a careers page to recruit people in the field. That essentially says only half of the industry is has a careers page with relevant job postings. That is such an easy way to start bringing people in on a trickle effect by just getting this, getting a careers page dedicated. And I just think that’s it’s just a huge miss for everybody. And so if you’re listening to this, check your website. Do you have a careers page?

14:01
Rob Murray
If you don’t, I say in the next 30 days it’d be worthwhile having one up there.

14:04
Steve Wolf
I’d agree to be devil’s advocate. A lot of the respondents are small providers. They have one location, maybe two, but. But it’s easy enough to stand up a site and a career page. They should.

14:15
Rob Murray
Yeah, well, the odds are they have a website. It’s got services on it. They’re trying to get customers. One of the things that we try to help people understand is that finding a good team members worth like 10 customers, maybe more. So why do we invest so much money in marketing and advertising for customers? But we don’t look at the same way when it comes to recruiting the people that are going to help set us free as leaders. So I think it’s fascinating for sure.

14:39
Steve Wolf
Back to the sources that looks like they’re really hardly ever being used. 10, 20% of firms are using the sources I’m about to mention. I think they could tap if they’re. If they’re not getting the traction they need in the job market, Try new avenues, try new recruiting channels. Depending on your locality and the fabric of your community, there’s a lot of other things you could do. One is only 10 to 20% of firms are using local advertising. I realize that’s an expense, whether it’s radio or billboard or maybe digital advertising. But it may make sense in your community. What costs less, although it costs some human effort, but it may bear fruit. Is partnering with local colleges and local community partners. Have a presence at job fairs and the career department at your local community college or university.

15:40
Rob Murray
I got a client out of Tacoma, and he’s owner of the company. They’re about 5 million bucks. And he goes to the career job fairs at community colleges. He’s a guest speaker in different lectures for people that are learning the trades. And I asked him, I’m like, so what’s all the deal with all the staffing? This is a year and a half ago. And he said, I’m good. I got wait list right now for my company. Wow. And I think what you just highlighted right there is that because no one’s doing it, if you do, you get a chance to win because you’re in a space by yourself.

16:12
Steve Wolf
That’s exactly right. Differentiate and do what other folks are not doing. Again, partnerships with colleges, vocational schools, community events.

16:25
Rob Murray
Big deal. All right, so you had a slide up before about salaries. I think it’d be really cool just to share with some folks. And there’ll be a link to this report in the podcast summary. So if anybody wants to get the whole thing, we’ll make sure we get a link in there so you can download it. But can you just walk us through, you know what people should be thinking about paying for certain positions. They can see if they’re, you know, on point or not.

16:50
Steve Wolf
Sure, I will. And admittedly, the data here is a little squishy. I’ll explain why in a moment. But for what it’s worth, part of the purpose of this study is to share with the its initial core audience snow and ice operators, owners, and by extension, others in adjacent fields like landscaping. The purpose is really to get a baseline for what the salaries might be in the field. Again, the respondent base is primarily small firms that have one location, A smattering of mid sized firms operating in two to four localities and a few really big firms. So the data is probably going to be skewed a little bit more toward small providers.

17:42
Rob Murray
Yeah, well, and just for context though, a small provider in this report is around 50 staff.

17:48
Steve Wolf
That’s right. They’re not, they’re not teeny tiny.

17:50
Rob Murray
Right.

17:51
Steve Wolf
They just operate in one location. So they may operate only in Burlington, Vermont or only in Vancouver, but yes, they have an, they have a. They have an average size of 50 workers. So still a pretty robust organization.

18:08
Rob Murray
Yeah, exactly. It’s not teaching.

18:09
Steve Wolf
Midsize firms have typically about 100 workers. And the big guerrillas, the large firms have an average of 600.

18:19
Rob Murray
That’s awesome. So then let’s go through the salaries. What should people be expecting to pay folks? What would be.

18:24
Steve Wolf
Sure. So we asked, what do you pay your CEO or your president, the leader of the organization. And they earn on average $156,000 a year. Next, rounding out the management suite. And this is where the numbers get squishy because if we ask what do you pay folks in finance, that could include your cfo, but it could also include a bookkeeper. If we ask what you pay in sales and marketing, it could include your VP of marketing or your revenue, your chief revenue officer. But it could also include marketing coordinator assistance. So that’s where things get a little squishy. This was not an audit at the C level, the mid level and the management level. But I think it’s still interesting on the management side to understand who gets paid more or less by function.

19:18
Steve Wolf
Again, each function is an amalgamation of high, medium and low typically experienced employees.

19:27
Rob Murray
Right.

19:27
Steve Wolf
So the function that gets paid the most is finance and operations. Those people, again, averaging experience levels, get paid $76,000 a year, followed by regional managers who may be in charge of a territory and managing that territory, they get paid an average of 74,000. In third place across internal office functions is sales and marketing. Those professionals get paid an average of $69,000 hr and kind of back office administrators get paid less, an average of $63,000. The two functions that get paid the least, again, on balance, are fleet and production management, averaging 59K. And lastly, account reps, customer service, account management personnel get paid an average of $57,000 a year. By the way, this is prorated rather than annualized. Some of these folks might work or be employed eight or nine months out of the year.

20:39
Rob Murray
Right. But we’re. But they are looking at it as annual salary.

20:42
Steve Wolf
I think that. I think the important thing is, you know, not suggesting that you give these numbers to your people because it depends on their experience, but hopefully an owner operator can get a sense for which functions are paid a little bit higher or lower compared to others, on balance.

21:01
Rob Murray
Yeah. And also, if you’re listening to this and you’ve got some sales marketing folks, and most of them are making less than $68,000 and they’re doing really good work, you might be at risk for someone wanting to look for extra money or if they’re getting paid more than $68,000 and they’re junior and not doing well, maybe there’s something that we need to consider. Right. So I think giving this, like, you know, bit of a benchmark is really helpful, but I think what’s really helpful for this is equipment operators and drivers and crew, you know, because that’s the bulk of a lot of people’s staff, you know, and we got a really good, you know, respondent rate from this report. Maybe we can just touch quickly on what people are looking at in the field.

21:38
Steve Wolf
Absolutely. So flipping over to folks putting on those heavy coats and boots and getting out there, mechanics and fuel operators, maintenance personnel, everyone that keeps the snowplows and the trucks and the loaders running, get paid an average of $49,000. And then really, the bulk of personnel, seven or eight out of 10 for every or for every snow and ice operator is our drivers and crew. Drivers get paid an average of $33 an hour, and crew gets paid just shy of $26 an hour. And I think those figures, there’s. There’s no squishiness there. They’re not gonna, they’re not gonna differ too much by experience level. Those are the folks that these kind of companies have to hire at scale, in bulk and may have higher turnover year over year. 33 an hour for equipment operators and drivers.

22:41
Steve Wolf
Those working on the sidewalks and with shovels in their hands are getting paid 26 an hour.

22:47
Rob Murray
Sweet. So again, for anybody listening, get a benchmark. Are you above, below?

22:52
Steve Wolf
Yeah, exactly. And you could, you’ll be able to tell if you’re underpaying those folks or not. And compare that to your degree of turnover, too. We’ll get to turnover later in the conversation.

23:03
Rob Murray
Well, why don’t we just go in there now? Because I think it’s perfectly tied and that was a beautiful segue.

23:09
Steve Wolf
Why not? Why not then? So first, let me say turnover was the number two challenge when respondents were asked what really gets their goat in the workplace, Managing their labor force. We talked about hiring a moment ago. That’s one side of the coin. The other side is retention. And retention is really tough in the snow and ice field. As I mentioned, season over season, year over year. The amount of snow, weather wise, is simply variable. And that leads to workers twiddling their thumbs. They’re idle if there’s not enough snow, if it’s a warm winter, or, you know, being overtaxed if there’s a heavy winter. Perceived low pay among workers grumbling that they’re not being paid appropriately in the job market, especially when wages are going up at the warehouse, in their neighborhood, trucking and the like are all going up.

24:13
Steve Wolf
Perceived low pay or feeling undervalued based on their salary and therefore taking off. Third are newer hires. You know, those that tend to stick around for two, three, four years are probably likely to stick around five, six, seven years. They like the culture. They’ve. They’ve drunk the Kool Aid. But new hires come in and they may be, you know, surprised about the work involved or not really mesh with the firm’s culture or something else. They tend to leave. I heard a lot of anecdotal stories about the difficulty hiring young workers, because young workers, just culturally, and this is a total oversimplification, are, you know, according to owner operators, less likely to have a strong work ethic and roll up their sleeves and be willing to be a team player?

25:11
Rob Murray
See, I’m curious if that’s always the case about young workers, like, because like 80 years ago, they probably like kids these days, you know, 60 years ago, same thing, 40 years ago. Now it’s just us. Makes me think I’m just getting old.

25:28
Steve Wolf
Maybe so. Maybe so. And turnover connects to, you know, a lot of other things that I think we’ll unpack in a moment. Does the company offer even a brand new employee some kind of career path and opportunity for advancement? Even if they’re, Even if they’re in the crew and our drivers, they’re. Is there a career path for them? Are they offering professional development and a way to grow their skills over time?

25:57
Rob Murray
So let’s go. Yeah, like, that’s huge. And on that specific note about training development, career path of the most successful operators, all are. They almost all think of themselves as training companies. They just happen to do snow and ice or landscape. And because they’re investing so much in people, they stay because their career is progressing, whether it’s into new positions or even mastering a skill within their own people to get paid more. That’s a big deal. So what did you find?

26:34
Steve Wolf
Part of the secret sauce, I think is setting a strong example at the top, setting strong values, living the company’s values. But. And we could get to some of the softer things. But to your point, investing in your employees, I just pivoted to a slide where we asked, what type of career development professional learning resources does the firm offer? And the most striking thing is one out of four firms offer nothing. Full stop, nothing at all.

27:08
Rob Murray
So if you offer even a little bit, you’re better than 25% of the market.

27:11
Steve Wolf
That’s exactly right.

27:12
Rob Murray
Now, what I love about this is that even the best folks don’t do a lot.

27:19
Steve Wolf
Correct. We, we asked if they offer or not offer any of five career development perks or benefits. And the answer is, and what we can get to them one by 1. The 75% of firms that offer something, never offer the whole kit and caboodle they get to, are offered by 1 3rd or 5 firms.

27:50
Rob Murray
So what do we got here? What was the most popular? And then what was the least popular?

27:56
Steve Wolf
Got it. So I think the easiest way for firms to offer some kind of career development because it requires money instead of time or thought, but it’s still helpful, is reimbursing them for some kind of career development that they pursue on their own. So 55% of snow and ice firms will reimburse their employees for an industry certification.

28:20
Rob Murray
Right.

28:21
Steve Wolf
Like a certified snow. Snow Snow operator. Nearly 50% will also pay or partially pay for a membership association such as, you know, the cyma, my client in the snow and ice arena, or any of the landscaping associations. Fewer one in four pay for the employee to earn an additional degree, whether it’s through an associate’s degree, a local bachelor’s degree, or a vocational degree.

28:57
Rob Murray
Yeah. And I think the thing that shocks me is that if you look at internal career pathway design, like it says, 38%. Right. So, you know, just over a third of folks are bringing that to the table. It doesn’t take a lot to put something like this together. You know, for an organization Whether it’s leader, management team, you just look at, you know, even two, three steps. If you’re at here and you get some training, some certification, you can get here and it can be within your role, or it could be, you know, a different role, but spending the time, and I’m talking like an hour or two, you know, kind of per role, tops. You can, you can better than 62% of the entire industry when it comes to giving people clarity on where they can go with their career.

29:45
Steve Wolf
You make a good point. I think. I think designing a pathway and community in a structured way that’s communicable to your employee base is a one time thing. It probably takes a good chunk of effort from the C suite and whoever’s leading human resources. It’s a bolus of effort that they would have to be very thoughtful about. But once it’s built, you have it. It’s a differentiator because only 2 out of 5 firms are doing it. And now your employees can feel like they’re cared for more, like they’re thought about more and they can feel that they have a home for further years if they gain experience and gain upskill.

30:29
Rob Murray
Not to mention the tool it gives to the managers to work with people on these paths and get a gauge of whether or not they’re excited to do so or if they’d rather just stay where they’re at. Because both are fine. But if it’s not clear, no one knows. So I just think that if you’re listening to this, designing even a two year pathway for your staff and working with your managers to communicate, that could be massively helpful.

30:53
Steve Wolf
I agree. And rounding out career advantagement possibilities, half of firms offer internal professional learning events like bringing in speakers. Now of course, all of them, or presumably 99% offer some initial safety training and operations training. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about ongoing during the winter, somebody coming in and speaking a lunch and learn it may be about the latest technologies or innovations in the field just to upskill them a little bit.

31:27
Rob Murray
Yeah, that’s awesome. So you mentioned it earlier too about this idea of culture and good culture versus maybe a toxic culture and whether people fit or not. So what kind of came from this report around this? Because culture can be really nebulous, right? Like it’s a lot of people talk about it, a lot of people know what to do with it. So what did you find when it came to employees perception or even operators perceptions of culture in the workplace?

31:51
Steve Wolf
Got it. I was personally Knowing the industry a little bit, but just enough to be dangerous. Because I’m in market research, I don’t work solely in this field. I was personally surprised that when respondents were asked what’s the status of their employee, of their workplace culture, I was surprised that they rated it so positively. Eight out of ten said that their culture is excellent or good and nobody said that their culture is terrible. They were also asked, is their culture steady state or improving or, you know, on the decline? And more folks said it’s improving than not.

32:40
Steve Wolf
Now take this with a grain of salt because folks might not want to admit some of the hard truths about their culture, but I was still nonetheless surprised to see that or read that given that salaries are going up and turnover is a struggle and some of the challenges that they shared earlier.

33:01
Rob Murray
Well, and I think this is operator bias, like owner operator bias. Could be.

33:06
Steve Wolf
The respondents, by the way, were sometimes the owner operator or folks in finance, operations or folks in hr. They had to be intimately familiar with the inner workings of the salary structure and the employee base in order to survey. So they’re going to be in the office and probably a senior executive. So take all that with a grain of salt.

33:28
Rob Murray
Yeah, that’s okay. I mean, regardless though, I think this, what you’re going to get to is really what the audience can get. Glean some like tips from or some help from in terms of what people are doing.

33:39
Steve Wolf
I think so too. And you know, a lot of these folks, they’ve, if they’re the founder, they built the business. The business has been running on average for this response based 20 years. Some of them might be rookies in the field, but presumably they’ve stood up a business and are pleased that it’s running, that it’s run even five years or 10 years. Again, a lot of them average 20 years, some of them 30 or more. And I think they’re really proud of the culture that they operate. When I led focus groups, which are not on the slides, but we had a chance to do some more storytelling, folks were just very. What’s the best way to say this? This is a tough industry. It’s a bit of a slog.

34:27
Steve Wolf
Folks have to, folks work and stick in the industry, have to be team oriented, you know, in a literal sense. Sometimes when there’s a snowstorm and they all take a strong sense of pride in working in their community, clearing snow out so that the community can function, so that airports and shopping malls and offices and neighborhoods can Function. So the page I’m on here are some qualitative drivers of a strong culture. They were asked two questions, what factors contribute to a strong culture? And then I’ll get in a moment to what factors contribute to a poor culture.

35:14
Steve Wolf
But on the positive side, living their values, prioritizing things like respect for other people in the field, taking accountability, being honest and ethical, having a positive attitude, sometimes in the face of adversity and connected to that intentionality, literally the firm thinking about and putting at the forefront its culture helps improve the culture just by talking about the culture.

35:42
Rob Murray
Yeah, well, I mean, that’s like one of the only ways you can really bring it to life. You know, if you live your core values but you don’t articulate what they are, people will see and you’ll be modeling the behavior, which is great. But as a leader or leadership team, if we can model it and then label it and then tell stories about it, and then give people props for doing the same, that’s the big deal.

36:05
Steve Wolf
Yeah, sticking with the qualitative side, and you mentioned modeling, another one that came up often is leadership. The top folks in the firm leading by example, demonstrating the values. I heard stories on both sides where maybe there was something of a toxic culture and then a new leader came in and it flipped in a positive way. Or on the opposite side, somebody new came in and the culture just tanked.

36:33
Rob Murray
Right.

36:34
Steve Wolf
On a more nuts and bolts side. But these connect to culture. Investing in your people. So that’s paying a fair wage, paying at or above market scale, offering incentives when a storm hits or, you know, the workload needs to be, you know, milestones need to be met to meet a certain contract. A huge HOA needs to be cleared by a certain time. Paying, paying incentives for folks in the crew paying the same day rather than having them wait a week or two for a payroll and investing in top of the line equipment so that they’re working with the best and it helps them get their job done. We just mentioned investing in training too. Again, things like reimbursing for education or industry association membership is not free. So all of that combined, showing that you care about your people. Lastly, you know, hiring.

37:35
Steve Wolf
We’ve already talked about hiring and retention, but that’s the number one key to unlock a strong or weak culture is who are you going to bring into the organization. Being very choiceful in bringing in strong people. Anybody that has a bad attitude is a bad apple. Kind of weeding them out early so that you’re left with really good people who care about each other.

37:59
Rob Murray
So then let’s flip over to what’s making culture not so good and maybe just pick out one or two highlights.

38:06
Steve Wolf
Sure. It’s really the flip side of some of the positives we talked about before. And even one employee with a bad attitude can kind of ruin the culture for everyone else.

38:23
Rob Murray
Misery loves company, right?

38:24
Steve Wolf
What’s that?

38:25
Rob Murray
Misery loves company.

38:26
Steve Wolf
Misery loves company. And it just kind of sucks the air out of the room inside the organization. And it’s easy for bad attitudes to be contagious and cause sort of an internal pandemic. Turnover. If there’s high turnover, then folks don’t have a sense to bond. Every season is like a different team.

38:50
Rob Murray
Right.

38:53
Steve Wolf
Again, you know, not paying scale. Folks feel jealous of their friends who are. Who have jobs at a similar level but are getting paid more. And staffing. The balance of staffing, how many people you have, especially in the field, is really key, because if you don’t have enough, then they’re overworked in the winter season. And if you hire too much, then there’s not enough hours to go around, and they feel kind of in tacit competition with each other. That’s a difficult thing to do because that connects to weather forecasts and global warming is real. And year over year, there might not be quite as much snow work to go around as there was five years ago. So that’s an easy one to pick on. It’s probably a hard one to get right.

39:47
Steve Wolf
But balancing the amount of crew that you need and just getting that right, not having too many or too few.

39:55
Rob Murray
So let’s maybe end on the benefit side. I know there was some pieces in here around what people are actually doing for folks when it comes to benefits. I’d love to maybe highlight a couple of things so that people understand, like, where they really need to be and maybe one or two opportunities where people aren’t sure.

40:11
Steve Wolf
And I think all of this, and I’m glad you brought this up, Rob, connects to satisfaction and retention as well, because it’s not just about salary. It’s about what else you’re offering, folks. So we asked three questions. What kind of health benefits are you offering or not? What kind of retirement benefits are you offering or not? And what kind of additional perks. Kind of a hodgepodge of additional perks. The striking thing, and I’m looking at health benefits first, is American firms are pretty stingy if I can editorialize. Only a little bit. More than half offer health care through their employer, Much less things like dental, vision, disability, life insurance, Maternity leave, paternity leave. So I would say if you’re an American firm, really as table stakes, offer health insurance, I know it’s costly.

41:07
Steve Wolf
If you’re an owner operator and if you want to differentiate and stand out from the crowd, offer paternity leave, offer a health savings account plan. The Canadian firms by definition are more generous because healthcare is free in Canada. But they go above and beyond what the government offers. 4 out of 5 offer a dental plan, a prescription drug plan. More than half offer eye care, a vision plan. Maybe it’s cultural. The Canadian owner operators seem to be taking care of their people more on the health benefit side.

41:43
Rob Murray
Yeah, well. And regardless of where you are, US or Canada, one of the things that’s fascinating in this results is that 37% of the states don’t do anything. So if you start looking at, okay, nobody goes to these community job fairs, engage with their post secondary schools. Very few people are giving people paths to career and giving them an opportunity to do formal education. Inside the organization, 4 out of 10 firms aren’t giving any benefits. You stack those things on top of each other and now you are a employer of choice. And this idea of not being able to find people, it goes away.

42:23
Steve Wolf
I’d agree. And it’s not our money but I imagine if a savvy CEO runs the numbers investing in those items, and I was surprised too that 4 out of 10American firms don’t offer anything on the health side. If they do invest in these kind of benefits, it’ll be easier to hire folks and their retention will go way up as along with work quality.

42:49
Rob Murray
Yeah, I just think, you know, and anybody, if you want to check this out, feel free. We’ll make sure we put the link in the podcast description so you can go to a spot and download it. But it doesn’t take, you don’t have to move mountains to become remarkably better. It’s almost like 100 meter dash where you know, one person is one inch ahead of everybody else and they’re a gold medalist and everybody knows their name and the next person’s just behind and no one knows who it is and they’re forever forgotten. It doesn’t, it doesn’t take, you know, massive moves. We’re talking about going to your post secondary schools once or twice a year. We’re talking about spending a couple hours with somebody on how they can advance their career. We’re talking about giving somebody bare bones health benefits.

43:31
Rob Murray
Like this is not massive stuff.

43:34
Steve Wolf
I would Totally agree. Only half of firms offer retirement benefits like a 401k plan or in Canada, an RRSP plan. Why are half of firms not offering that? Again, it’s a differentiator. We also asked to what degree do they offer other perks? 2 out of 3 firms offer access to a company owned vehicle. 3 out of 5 offer PTO, half offer Flex hours. And that’s great. Again, I would say, I would argue based on the data, those are kind of table stakes workplace benefits that any savvy firm would offer. But to your point, Rob, about how to differentiate, what about those that are hardly ever offered?

44:21
Rob Murray
Yeah.

44:22
Steve Wolf
Only one out of four firms offer some kind of subsidy for transportation, whether that’s a mileage reimbursement or a subway card, a Metro card. One out of four offer a profit sharing plan. That’s really cool. I mean, profit sharing plans make, you know, by definition put skin in the game for everybody involved. Talk about teamwork. Rather than talking teamwork, you could chase it with a profit sharing plan. There’s, there’s a host of smaller benefits that some firms offer, but very few. 15% wellness benefits like a gym membership or a Fitbit. Mental health benefits like massages or access to a calming app or counseling if the employee is going through a crisis. Speaking of a crisis, the one that was last place here is an employee assistance Plan.

45:19
Steve Wolf
And if you don’t know what an EAP or employee assistance plan is, it’s a way for any employee to receive counseling for financial issues, drug or alcohol abuse issues, mental health, marital issues in anonymous way and you know, talk about taking care of your employees wellness. I think that’s a way to do it.

45:41
Rob Murray
Yeah, that’s cool. I mean, and one of the positive things from this report is that only 8% are doing nothing. So if you’re not bringing this additional benefits to your folks, it’s definitely something that needs to be happening. Okay, so where do people find this report? I know I’m going to put a link in here, but where do people go?

45:59
Steve Wolf
People? And I’ll share the link with you. Rob Sima, my client, the Snow and Ice Management Association. And this report was actually funded and directed by its own foundation. Cyma has a 501c3 charitable foundation called the Cyma foundation research is part of its charter in terms of educating members in the community about trends in the field. I’ve worked with them for a handful of years. So they have commissioned this work and it’s available on the CIMA website through the CYMA Foundation.

46:34
Rob Murray
Amazing. And if there are people that are part of other associations, then they’re in the industry, they’re listening to this and they’re thinking maybe they want to get Steve to come do or commission a report for their association or industry. What’s the best way to get a.

46:46
Steve Wolf
Hold of you, Steve at Wolfworks Consulting W O L F works W O r k s consulting.com or 202-486-0480. I do work in all for all kinds of clientele. The snow and ice industry and by extension the landscape industry, for whom I have looked at a lot of data, is really interesting and I’d love to work with anyone that has a compelling project.

47:17
Rob Murray
Sweet. We’ll make sure we’ll get your number and your email also in the podcast. I really appreciate you doing this and thanks everybody for listening.

47:23
Steve Wolf
Thank you, Rob. This was a lot of fun.