I’ve always enjoyed connecting with the winners for our Watch Us Grow: Industry Standouts program in the leadup to putting together the feature.
It’s so encouraging to see how professionals take on the challenges of running a business and not only maintain their achievements but reach even further goals.
Like before, we’ve got a wide range of experiences across this year’s winners. They come from both small and large companies, and while some have years of background, others are still fairly early in their careers. The longer this program continues, the more I’m convinced that it’s not specifically time spent as a leader that makes for a successful company, but maybe it’s more the time spent understanding what the team needs to be able to do its best work.
One of the main throughlines with almost all of the applications for this year had to do with handling labor. It’s no secret that trade industries like irrigation and landscape lighting struggle to find qualified employees who show up to do the work reliably. But with the glut of new work that came around as a result of the pandemic, many business owners have had to either put a lot more effort into hiring or turn away potential clients.
They each took a different approach in both attracting good candidates and in making sure those new hires had the resources they needed. In some cases it was about building a good profile for what a hire looks like and making the decision to not just hire to have a warm body. In others, it was about developing an actual career path plan before putting the ads out, or having attainable goals set and the education in place to help reach them.
They’re treating new employees like people just like them.
But in every situation, the overall idea was the same. They’re treating new employees like people just like them. They’re understanding that employees need to be compensated in a way that will help them actually handle their bills and feel as though this day-to-day job can develop into something more in the future. While it can be easy to say that people just don’t want to work, business owners who have seen growth in the past year have given their hires a way to see the work as something more, something they can build a life around.
The amazing part about this is that it’s not just the larger companies or the ones that have more resources that are doing this. Even with fewer than 10 employees, it’s important to establish that infrastructure. It costs time and effort to build from the ground up, but these companies have already seen results that are paying back dividends.
Most importantly, I think a company that sees its employees as more than just people who show up and do the work will be healthier in the long run. At least in some cases, these companies show that one of the keys to business growth is employee growth.
