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Personality Testing for Employers

by | Aug 27, 2018 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

Personality Testing For Employers

How many times have you heard someone say, “I hire for personality not skills”? It’s a common theme amongst many owners and managers even in skilled labor industries like tree care world. So what does that mean and why are they doing it?

 

The simple response that you will hear is that skills can be taught, personality cannot. I agree with this thought process and want to give you an article devoted to figuring out what personalities you have currently and what type you’d like to build your team around.

 

Find the Right Tool – Just like using the proper sized saw for a removal job, the first step is to commit to using a tool to help identify key characteristics that you want to see in your team members. There are many personality tests on the market today, however, my favorite one is True Colors. True Colors is a simple personality test that helps highlight how individuals communicate and what they value most which in turn helps create a better team atmosphere within your organization.

 

I first was introduced to the True Colors system while attending a Leadership Workshop for the ISA a few years ago. All of the participants at the workshop took the short test and were split up into groups based on our colors. It was incredible to see how accurate the simple test was at identifying our core personalities. Throughout the workshop, we wore nametags that had our primary color listed. It helped all of us communicate much better and understand where the other party was coming from when discussing certain topics. Because I found it so powerful, I brought it back to the Wisconsin Arborist Association to do with our Board Members and internally for my team at my agency. Knowing how others communicate has been a tremendous help to accomplishing any of our goals.

 

Test Your Current Staff – Once you choose which tool you will use, have your current employees take the profile and discuss the results with each of them individually. What did you learn about your top performers? Are there common traits amongst the best within your team? What skills does your team lack as a whole? Learning from these tests will help you identify what type of person you want to hire next. It also can help you recognize if you have someone in the wrong role. Perhaps, one of your production climbers would be better suited as a sales person because of their personality. Or maybe the opposite, a person on the sales team would be better fit for technical work like consulting or plant health care. Understanding who you have on your team and how they interact with others is an enormous benefit to you as the leader of the organization.

 

Use with Interviewees – Lastly, when you are looking to bring in someone to your team, have them take the same test that the rest of the team has. Make sure that their personality will fit the position that they are applying for. Too often in the tree care industry, owner’s hire anybody with a pulse and a driver’s license. This will only do one thing; set up the business and new employee for future pain and trouble when personalities clash and internal issues arise that would have been prevented if they were never hired.

 

Getting the right person on your team is difficult to do, however, using personality tests can be a great tool for you. And because there always seems to be a shortage of potential employees, check out our article on the 5 Hiring Hotspots to get some ideas on how to start recruiting top notch talent.

 

Written by: Eric Petersen

Effective Delegation

by | Aug 27, 2018 | Employee Management | 0 comments

Effective Delegation

Delegation. A simple concept that is extremely difficult for some, especially for a business owner of a growing tree care company. Perhaps the definition of the word can help those out? Merriam-Webster defines delegation as; the act of empowering to act for another. True leaders do not merely pass off work that they do not want to. They inspire and empower their team to perform tasks that help achieve the overall mission of the organization. Below are my five tips to successful delegation.

 

Understand Your Value to Your Team – As the owner, you obviously have the ultimate responsibility to make sure the business stays afloat and remains profitable. Unfortunately, many times the pressure to keep the doors open makes you think you should be doing everything for the company because no one knows your business quite like you do. Naturally you push yourself into tasks that you are not qualified or passionate about and it has a ripple effect on your organization. The best leaders understand what their value is to the team. Where is your time best spent for the greatest benefit to the entire organization? Take account of your skills and passions. Pay attention to what really gets you excited and remind yourself why you wanted to be an owner. Are you great with numbers and setting goals or is the physical work more to your liking? What value do you add to the organization above and beyond others? I have seen many successful tree care companies where the owner is still in production because his or her passion lies in proper tree care versus the paperwork and management side of things. Define your role for your team so that you can delegate the rest of the tasks.

 

Utilize Your Team Member’s Strengths – Effective delegation occurs when duties are shifted to the appropriate team member. Build your team with people that have the strengths that you need in your organization. Confirm those strengths with each individual so you know that they are on the same page with you. There are plenty of production arborists who are natural sales people. If sales is an area of weakness for you, explore transferring that role to them instead of struggling along just because you are the owner. There will be some training necessary when delegating any task or responsibility so be open and willing to commit to teaching those skills and knowledge to your team.

 

Begin With the Why – Everyone wants to know what’s in it for them. If you are delegating more work to your team, give them the reasons why early and often. If your team members feel they are having work dumped on them without knowing why the morale of your team will suffer dramatically.

 

Inspire Your Team – When people understand why they have been assigned a new task they can accept that extra obligation. However, to truly be a top level delegator, you must inspire your team at the same time. Every one of your team members will find inspiration a little differently. Think about why the goals of the organization would be meaningful to every individual. What do they get excited about? Why did they join your company? Parlay that knowledge of your team members to motivate them not only to accept the task being delegated, but to get them to reach out for more responsibility.

 

Trust Your Team and They Will Trust You – This should go without saying, but when you delegate a task it is imperative that you trust your team to accomplish it. Checking in on the progress of the task, especially if it is new to them, is good to do, however, avoid the most common mistake with delegation; micro-managing. No one wants an assignment handed to them only to be told exactly how to do it. Learning to trust that your team will get the work done can be challenging for some owners. There will most likely be some small mistakes and the outcome of the task may not look exactly like it would have if you did it, however, if you stomp your feet and get upset you can guarantee that you will lose the trust of your employees. Once that is gone, it will take a long time to get it back.

 

Delegation is such a critical part of running a successful business and fortunately it is a skill that can be learned and developed. Use these five tips to begin to consciously think about delegation within your organization and how you can improve on it.

Written by: Eric Petersen

How Do I Get to The Next Level?

by | Aug 27, 2018 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

How Do I Get To The Next Level?

Written By Eric Petersen, CIC

 So you’ve done what everyone has told you to do to get your business to this point. You’re proud of what you’ve accomplished but you still find yourself looking for more. What’s the next step? How can I really take my business to the next level? Well, unfortunately, there isn’t a magic wand to help you elevate your business. Getting over the edge takes more discipline and team work than what you relied on to get to this point.

Below are my eight tips for taking your business to the next level!

1. Clarify Your Vision – Where do you want to be? What is the vision for the business? By now you know what is possible within the tree care industry. You’ve met successful owners and you know what works for your company, so now is the time to create the specific vision of your company. Be detailed in your description of what your company will look like in 3, 5 and 10 years. Write it down so you can look back on it at least every six months to check your progress. The next level will look different for every company, the fun part is you get to decide what it means for your organization.

2. Create the Plan with Stretch Goals – Once you know where you are heading, figure out the goals that will get you there. Make sure the majority of your goals are attainable yet push you to make them happen. For our agency, our primary goal for 2022 is to grow by 22% (22% in ’22 – get it?). It is a number that we have never hit before but since we’ve laid the foundation in the previous years it is attainable while making us stretch for it. Again, being specific on how you will achieve each goal is critical.

3. The Customer Experience is King – If you haven’t looked at what kind of customer experience you and your team are providing for your customers you must commit to fully engage in that process. Your current customers are the best source of referrals and repeat business so ensuring that they have the best possible experience with your team is a must. Check out our article on “Reviving the Customer Experience” for help on how to transform your customer service.

4. Commit to Continuous Learning – You probably already do this, but never stop learning. I’m not talking about just the formal seminars and continuing education classes required to keep up your credentials. Those are important, but more so are the conversations that you have with other business owners that have made it through the challenges that you are facing. Attending the TCIA’s Winter Management Conference and Executive Arborist Workshop will get you in the same room as those who you can learn from. When attending these events, make sure to ask direct questions to others so you can walk away with ideas for your business.

5. Teamwork – You must share your vision with your team and create a team first culture where everyone wants to win together. Proper delegation of responsibilities is key to allowing everyone to feel part of something larger than their job. When everyone knows their role in achieving greatness for the whole organization, the entire company will take off.

6. Evaluate and Adjust – Let’s face it, you won’t get everything right the first time. Expect to need to make adjustments to your process and slight variances from your goals. I suggest to at a minimum review your annual goals at the halfway point each year so there is still time to make changes so you can achieve the goals you set out at the start of the year.

7. Embrace and Live the Plan – This is probably the most challenging one on the list because it takes a lot of self discipline, but live each day with purpose to accomplish what you need to that day. Life happens and interruptions are part of it, but when you continually refocus yourself on the overall vision you will be amazed at what you can accomplish for your company.

8. Believe in Yourself and Your Team – All great leaders believe in themselves and their team. They are confident that together the right answer will pop up and solutions to challenges will be overcome. You have to provide that strength from the top as the owner so that everyone feels proud and excited to be part of a thriving company. If you are struggling with this, just look back over the past year and jot down all of the hurdles your organization has overcame. Share this with the team and everyone will quickly be reminded of how far your organization has come in a short bit of time. This should reinvigorate you and your team to push to that next level.

Of course, make sure you are applying your ‘Why’ to each of these steps. When you have a purpose deeply engrained within an organization, your need for the magic wand disappears and your company will take off to the next level.

Need more help taking your business and team to the next level? Contact ArboRisk to learn more about our Thrive New Heights Package! This package will give you one-on-one consulting to improve company culture and beliefs, role responsibilities and job descriptions, safety and training program creation or updates, and sales and marketing. 

What is Your Why?

by | Aug 27, 2018 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

What Is Your Why?

One of my favorite movie quotes of all time comes from Uncle Ben to a young impressionable Peter Parker (Spiderman) “With great power comes great responsibility”. It resonates with me because we all have something that can help make the world a little better. A special skill or certain knowledge, to Uncle Ben that was power, however, most of the time we don’t share that with others. I believe that when we realize our gift and how that can help others, we then have a responsibility to help improve the world around us. And when we begin to do this, the return in our own lives is staggering.

 Obviously as an arborist you are not catching bad guys and throwing them in prison, or taking drugs off the street or saving the world from a tragic ending, but you are helping the world improve. In fact another one of my favorite quotes is from Jim Skiera, former ISA Executive Director, “make the world a better place one tree at a time”. I know your company does that every day in various ways. Whether that is by proper pruning or chemical applications or through consulting with your customers on their trees, your team is making improvements in the landscape, but do they know why? For me, our insurance agency has the ability to help save lives, prevent injuries and protect businesses from financial hardship. Our why is simply to make sure we do whatever we can to ensure each employee gets home safe every night and has a job waiting for them to come back to the next day.

 So what is your why? Why do you do what you do?

 If you haven’t defined the why for yourself, use the questions below to jumpstart your thought process. Begin thinking about your personal life, then answer each question from your organization’s viewpoint. Lastly, challenge your team to find their own personal whys and how they fit into the company’s purpose.

 What gets you excited to wake up in the morning?

 What are your innate strengths?

 Where can you add the greatest value?

 How do you measure success in your life?

 Unfortunately, the why so often gets lost in the how. How are we going to grow our business? How are we going to get all of the work done? How will I find my next great employee? If you are able to focus on the why, the answers about the how come along naturally.

 You will attract better employees and customers, people that believe in the same values that you and your company believe in. It will elevate all aspects of your organization and set you apart from your competition. You will see greater results and subsequently you will be much more fulfilled along the way.

Just like Uncle Ben said, you, as the owner, have the power and responsibility to lead your business to great things, positively influencing many people along the way.

 

Written by: Eric Petersen

Do I Need an Employee Handbook?

by | Aug 27, 2018 | Employee Management | 0 comments

Do I Need an Employee Handbook?

While not specifically required by law, having an employee handbook is a great business practice that will set the tone for your entire business operation. Unfortunately, there is a lot of negative stigma surrounding employee handbooks. This article will help you understand the importance of a handbook and debunk some of the more common myths about them.

 

The purpose of an employee handbook is to outline the operating rules for the business so that every employee knows what is to be expected of them. Company policies such as vacation time, sick days and dress code are cornerstones of a handbook, but they also need to address topics such as Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA).

 

These company policies set up the same rules for everyone and allow the business to govern seemlessly. The goal is to be fair to all employees so that special preferences do not impede production of the entire team. Also, when the policies within the handbook are consistently followed and applied, the business has a much better chance at being successful in defending itself from a lawsuit brought on by an employee.

 

A few of the more common myths are:

 

Myth #1 – Handbooks are too dry and employees don’t read them anyways.
Okay, an employee handbook obviously isn’t going to make the best seller list, but that does not mean the employee will not read it. When the employee handbook is part of the initial employee on-boarding process, it becomes the most beneficial tool to explain the ins and outs of your company. Having the employee sign to acknowledge that they read the handbook is also a good way to get the employees to read the information.

 

Myth #2 – Having a handbook creates more liability.
I’ve heard plenty of business owners say that they don’t want to have their policies in writing because they could be held liable if they don’t follow the same process every time. However, that is exactly why you do need to have a handbook, to make sure the policies are followed the same way each time. When one employee gets treated differently than the next, you open up a possibility of getting sued for discrimination. Close that opportunity by having a handbook and following what it says. Of course, if you have a handbook and you choose not to follow what is written in it, you will create more potential liability for your company.

 

Myth #3 – Creating an employee handbook costs too much.
On average, the cost to settle an employment related lawsuit out of court is $40,000. These cases typically surround one particular issue that was not clearly defined in the company’s handbook. Because both sides claim the opposite viewpoint on the issue, these suits can be settled out of court. However, if the lawsuit goes to trial, just the defense costs alone average $75,000, without a certainty of a positive verdict. In my experience, the typical cost to get an employee handbook created by an attorney is about $1,500. So if you are faced with a $40,000 bill or a $1,500 fee to establish the proper procedures, which would you prefer?

 

By understanding the importance of your employee handbook and following the procedures that you have established, you will be able to improve your employee relations and position your business for faster growth.

 

Written by: Eric Petersen