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Growing Your Human Resource Assets

by | Oct 11, 2021 | Employee Management | 0 comments

Growing Your Human Resource Assets 

Written by Jim Skiera

The most common growth limitation I hear from business owners is the difficulty they have recruiting new employees. Our tree care business clients, in general, have a backlog of work but are having difficulty finding enough skilled labor to meet the client’s need. As a result, most tree care companies are more likely competing for employees, (human resource assets), more than competing for work. To make recruiting even more difficult this challenge exists for most businesses. The most common sign seen today is “Now Hiring”.  

To be competitive in this tough labor market it is critical to view employees as assets. To retain and develop employees for the long term, offer to help them build a career rather than a job. When you have a team of employees that feel they are part of your business growth plan, you are building the best recruiting tool available. Set aside time to visit with each employee to discuss their career goals and help them develop a plan to achieve the goals.

The process should include identifying and developing new leaders. New leaders may be needed to replace someone retiring, a person who has been promoted, to fill a vacancy caused by turnover and or to fill a new leadership role created to expand the company. It’s a risk management strategy that increases the availability of prepared and qualified people as the business grows, adds new employees, new services and or loses a key employee. It’s also one of the best ways to retain, inspire and reward employees. Happy employees are great recruiters. 

No matter the size of your company, this activity starts at the top. Include employees in your succession planning discussions. Leadership is a learned skilled, preparing your people to lead is one of your most important duties. One of the most important skills to develop as a leader is your ability to listen. Model that skill and it will become part of your company culture.

Here are a series of steps to consider at least once a year to help you include employee development in succession planning to grow your business and human resource asset base. 

  • Identify critical positions in the company which require highly capable employees. If you are looking to expand include critical positions needed for that expansion.
  • Identify the most competent person for each specific critical position and what the consequence would be if that person were to leave, be promoted, and or become temporarily unavailable.
  • Identify people in the organization that are likely candidates to advance into those critical positions when the time comes. These transitions can be planned in the case of a promotion, or in the case of an emergency the company is prepared to minimize the impact.
  • Identify success profiles for all critical positions. If you are on top of this there should be job descriptions to review for this information. If not, that is a good first step to developing a success profile.
  • Create development plans for successors to ensure they are ready to assume future roles.
  • Develop employee development plans to address the gaps. Budget time and resources for leadership training.

Begin by getting your key players involved to help with identifying critical positions and highly capable people. At first people that haven’t been included in this type of discussion in the past may be threatened by the concept, it may appear you are getting ready to replace them. Communication needs to be handled well and if it is, you will find it is something that is welcomed. The process allows people to see benefits and opportunities that they might not have seen before, for themselves, others and the company. In time it will be a part of your culture and every employee will become a recruiter.

If you need additional help growing your human resource assets, check out ArboRisk’s Thrive Leadership Development Package! Our experts will work with your leaders one-on-one to build their leadership skills, thereby increasing team loyalty, efficiency, and profitability.

Developing Leaders Using Flashlights and Mirrors

by | Oct 11, 2021 | Employee Management | 0 comments

Developing Leaders Using Flashlights and Mirrors

Written by Kevin Martlage

As a tree care business owner, you are faced with numerous decisions and issues surrounding your organization and team on a constant basis. How you approach those things ultimately rests on the shoulders of you as the leader of your company. While we all have various levels of success and issues we are dealing with, the backbone of any organization is the team that leads and runs the business. Certainly, our customers, vendors, suppliers, and equipment are all important, but without an effective team to take care of those things you are simply another tree care company searching for that next tree to prune. 

If I were to ask you how are you intentionally developing your current and future leaders what would you say? Could you honestly answer that question or does the typical business day cause too many hurdles and time constraints to effectively develop the team around you? If you are developing your team, great!! What then specifically are you doing to ensure that your team has all the tools and resources necessary to be successful, productive, and most importantly happy? Do they know what good looks like and how they can positively impact the organization daily? Those are all questions that are important to think about as you advance your organization and team with effective and intentional leadership development. 

I work with individuals and teams daily helping them identify what is “being left on the table” in terms of their overall strategy, teamwork, operational efficiency, and productivity. While my work with those clients is extremely fulfilling, it is the ability to help individuals look internally to understand themselves and how they can continue to impact their organization that is the most rewarding as a coach. This is where the concept of ‘Flashlights and Mirrors’ becomes relevant.  

That phrase, ‘Flashlights and Mirrors’ was introduced to me by my father who has spent a vast majority of his life crafting various workshops and trainings to help people, and teams, realize their full potential. The concept is one that I use with my clients and is something that I think can be very impactful if a leader fully embraces it as they develop their team to make a positive impact on the tree care industry.  

The concept is simple. As a leader, it is your responsibility to ensure that those on your team have not only the resources and understanding necessary to complete their job responsibilities, but also your support to reach their full potential.  The ‘flashlight’ in this equation is used to help “shine the light” on those areas that are important to them. The ‘mirror’ is then used to help them look internally to understand how they are impacting the organization, the team, and their professional development on a consistent basis. Your responsibility as a coach committed to transparent communication and support, is to help facilitate those conversations with your team. 

There are a variety of ways to use the ‘flashlight’ concept with your team when it comes to their development. However, the thing that turns it on the brightest is the question, “How can I help?” Not only does this open the discussion for further discovery, but it also helps to build trust which is super important as you develop your current and future leaders. Granted the responses can vary and have a lot of different outcomes, but as a leader it is your responsibility to take their response and help shine that flashlight a little brighter so you can both uncover what it is that they desire, need, and are passionate about. 

Some suggested questions you can use to help shine that flashlight are:

  • How can I help?
  • What support can I provide to help enhance your ability to lead your team or to do your job?
  • Are there any areas of your responsibilities that you feel you could use some additional training?
  • What are your career goals within this company and outside of this company?
  • Are you happy with the responsibilities you currently have?
  • Are there areas of the business that you wish you had more interaction or responsibility for?
  • What are you passionate about within this company? 
  • What are you passionate about outside this company? 

The list can go on and on. However, as a leader committed to developing your team, it helps to understand what it is that they are passionate about, want to achieve, are having difficulty with, or need help with. Once you begin to understand those areas, you can work with them to develop an action plan around how to alleviate those issues and achieve those goals. This then becomes their developmental plan which can be used as you continue to meet with them and develop them for the next step in their career.

 

The concept of using ‘mirrors’ is a bit different, but equally important. This is where, as a leader, you help them look internally regarding their own performance within the organization. This part of the equation can be as detailed or simple as your organization allows. However, the most important thing to remember is that the ‘mirror’ only shows facts and does not reflect emotion. 

The ‘mirror’ is used to help you have those transparent and important conversations with your employees that provide specific details regarding their performance and interactions as a member of the team. It is also meant to help you provide them with some invaluable insight into how they interact with others, support others, and impact the team and organization. 

To build your mirror you must first determine what “good” looks like for that individual and your organization. When we say “good” this includes developing and providing specifics about the culture of your organization, metrics you would like them to achieve, acceptable interactions and communication with others, and most importantly their ability to understand what is expected of them on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Once developed and agreed to, this then becomes the ‘mirror’ that you consistently use to help them look at those things. By consistently, transparently, and intentionally providing them feedback regarding their performance in those areas, you are helping them to “look in the mirror” to remind themselves of what good looks like and how they are positively and negatively impacting those things. This will help continue to develop them personally as they work to achieve those goals and continue to positively impact the organization by looking inward first. 

The concept of “flashlights and mirrors” is simply a guide to how you can provide invaluable insight and development opportunities for your staff. The key to any of this is that you must be consistent with your development conversations while you build a trusting and effective business relationship with your team. If you would like to learn more about intentional leadership development, I would encourage you to look at the THRIVE program, and specifically the Leadership Development Package, for more details. 

4 Tips to Create a Culture of Safety

by | Sep 3, 2021 | Safety | 0 comments

4 Tips to Create a Culture of Safety

Written by Mick Kelly

At ArboRisk, we often hear people say they want to build a better safety culture, but many times they don’t know how to do that. Because we all know a great safety culture doesn’t just look at the health and wellbeing of your employees – it also incorporates equipment maintenance, public safety both on the jobsite and on the road, and your brand reputation, you must be strategic in establishing the safety culture that you want within your organization. 

By creating a strong safety culture, you are developing an ethos for your company and giving your employees an idea of how things are done in your business. Your goal should be to ingrain in the collective memory of your team, through repetition, routine and diligence, the importance of making sure every employee gets home safe each night. 

Here are my 4 tips to create a stronger culture of safety within your business! 

Communication

The key to any culture is communication. If you don’t have a clear, defined idea of what your safety culture is, then this will trickle down to every aspect of your business. It is imperative that the message from leadership is crystal clear, that you are more interested in everyone’s safety than saving a half hour of work. Because of that, you expect your team to follow the guidelines and not to cut corners. It’s a message that has to be repeated every day until it becomes the mantra of the company. 

 

Training/Employee Development

Training is one of the largest key aspects for increasing safety awareness within an organization, and by the way is also a great way of retaining employees. Laying out a clear development path(s) within your organization and encouraging employees to obtain industry certification or designations will help grow your safety culture because they will be able to visualize how their role impacts every other person at your company. The more decorated your team becomes and the prouder they are of their work, the more that your safety culture will thrive.

 

Preparing for Safety

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Nothing could be more true about safety. A strong safety culture is created intentionally by being prepared. That means proactive thinking must occur to set up topics for safety meetings in advance, investigating what new equipment or technology is available to help your team operate safer (think wireless communication headsets for your helmets) and installing a telematics system into your vehicles. All of those items are done in advance of an injury and accident. To begin preparing for safety, simply take a half hour to sit down and think about potential hazards that your team faces each day and create a simple action plan on how to minimize each of those hazards. Use your “toolbox” meetings to cover one topic a day.  

 

Written Procedures

Writing anything down makes it more official. Being able to provide an employee with written guidelines will solidify the seriousness of your intent. Written procedures give directions for handling difficult or stressful situations like reporting procedures for an injury or accident. Explaining the long term benefits of these written procedures to employees will take away the stigma of the extra work they may perceive comes with it.  

 

Other tips and hints

  • Take the time to look over your past mistakes – look at your written reports and see if there is a pattern that is leading to broken equipment, accidents in vehicles, accidents on jobs, etc. 
  • Having a “Safety Guru” onstaff is a great way to manage the safety culture. Often you’ll find an employee that is passionate about theirs and others safety and they can be the advocate you need within your organization.

 

Here at ArboRisk, one of our core mission values is to help each of our clients make sure their team gets home safely each and every night. Helping our clients create a safety culture within their company, whether it’s a one-man operation or they have numerous employees, is imperative to achieving that mission. A great safety culture will also help grow your business by attracting the right employees and in the long term will help to keep your insurance costs down. 

Taking the time to develop and implement a comprehensive safety program is the first step, but living and breathing safety within your company is really where you’ll see the results. Because developing a safety program takes time, ArboRisk partners with tree care companies to create personalized programs in a fraction of the time. For more information, check out our Safety Package and contact us today!

Hydraulics Safety

by | Aug 27, 2021 | Safety | 0 comments

Hydraulics Safety

Written by Margaret Hebert, Dawn Thierbach, and Jeff Thierbach

Arborists work with equipment utilizing hydraulics every day  – chippers, chip dump beds, stump grinders, aerial lifts, and the list goes on.  While accidents from hydraulic fluid leaks are rare, accounting for only 5% of all accidents within the tree care industry, they can result in serious injuries and even amputation.  

So before we begin to talk about hydraulic injuries and how to prevent them, let’s look at some stats:

  • The pressure needed to penetrate skin is only 100 psi. 
  • Chippers, chip dump beds, stump grinders, and other equipment arborists use daily can run at 4000 PSI or higher. 
  • Amputation rates for an injection injury with solvents involved are 50-80%.  
  • With pressures greater than 7000psi, the amputation rate is 100%.

High-pressure injection injuries occur when fluid under pressure is lost through a small hole in a hydraulic or other pressurized system and the pressurized fluid penetrates the skin of a victim. The injuries are characterized by a small puncture wound that can appear mild in the beginning, and they often get dismissed as minor.  Hydraulic fuel injection injuries, however, are anything but minor. In fact, they are considered a surgical emergency.  Hydraulic oils are highly toxic and they poison you and your body’s tissues.  Immediate treatment is required to save the patient’s digit, limb, or life.

So, what happens after a hydraulic fuel injection injury? Let’s use an injury to the hand for example. First, the initial “strike” feels like a pin prick or bee sting, is seemingly harmless in appearance, and is often dismissed as nothing serious. Underneath the skin, however, the injectant begins damaging tissue, and pressure builds up in the hand and fingers. Within hours, the fluid can quickly spread to all areas of the hand, wrist, and forearm. The built up pressure damages tendons, nerves, arteries, vessels, and muscles. Unless pressure is relieved within hours of the injury, the victim risks amputation from lack of blood supply.

Surgery is always required for a hydraulic fuel injection injury.  During the surgery, as much of the injectant as possible will be cleaned out, and dead (necrotic) tissue must be removed.  Typically the wound must be left open to reduce the chance of infection and any further tissue damage, and a return visit to the operating room will be required within 24-48 hours.

Properly training your team is essential for avoiding or minimizing the severity of hydraulic injection injuries. Training should include:

  • An overview on hydraulic pressure systems and basic functionality. 
  • A plan of action in case a leak occurs:
    • Immediately shutting down the machine as soon as possible to avoid leaking fluid.
    • Changing the hose after all stored energy has dissipated.
    • Hydraulic fluid cleanup and remediation.
  • A plan of action if a hydraulic injury occurs.
    • First aid treatment to include:
      • For pain management, if needed, use Tylenol.  Avoid Ibuprofen, Aleve, and aspirin since they are mild blood thinners and there’s some chance of internal bleeding.
      • Elevate the affected limb.
      • DO NOT use compression wraps, tourniquets, or ice.  All these increase the risk of amputation.
      • DO NOT give the victim food or drink since they will be needing immediate surgery.
      • Get the patient to a trauma center or hospital immediately!  A trauma center is recommended due to rapid access to a surgeon, transfer capabilities to higher levels of care such as hand or vascular surgery, and immediate availability of X-ray and CT imaging.  Early antibiotics (ideally within an hour) and early surgery (ideally within 10 hrs) are the keys to reducing the need for amputation. 
      • Inform medical personnel that it is a hydraulic pressure injury and provide them with the safety data sheet (SDS) for the fluid. 
      • If the facility does not have treatment capabilities, the patient will need to be transported quickly.  In one incident we are aware of, the patient was air-lifted to the nearest hospital that had the ability to properly treat the injury.
    • Notification of emergency personnel (911)
  • Emphasis on never using your hands to check for leaks.
  • Training on how to check and maintain your hoses regularly, with a frequency of at least once per week. 
  • Ensuring that replacement of old hoses occurs when the machine is turned off and stored energy has dissipated following proper lockout-tagout procedures.

Remember to keep the training fresh in your team’s memory by including it as a topic in tailgate meetings a few times each season.


If you need help adding in a hydraulic safety component to your overall safety program, enroll in ArboRisk’s Thrive Safety Package, to work one-on-one with one of our Thrive consultants. Together we all can get everyone home safe each night.

Distracted Driving and Road Rage

by | Aug 27, 2021 | Safety | 0 comments

The Dangers of Distracted Driving

Written by Peggy Drescher

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stats show that while Americans drove less in 2020 due to the pandemic, there were still an estimated 6 million accidents and 38,680 deaths.  The main behavioral causes were impaired driving, speeding and failure to wear a seat belt.  Two causes on the rise were distracted driving (accounting for over 3,000 deaths last year) and road rage. We’re going to dig into these two causes in this article. 

Distracted driving is any activity that diverts your attention from driving. This includes talking, texting, eating and drinking, using phone, changing the stereo, etc.  How many people have you seen blow through red lights?  Chances are they were distracted by something causing them to miss the red light. –PRO DRIVING TIP – if you are first in line at a red light, when it changes to green DO NOT proceed through the intersection for 3-5 seconds and look both ways before you do.

Did you know that texting will take your eyes off the road for at least 5 seconds?  This amounts to driving the length of a football field at 55 MPH with your eyes closed!  Drivers using cell phones are four times as likely to be in a crash and about 1 of every 4 motor vehicle crashes involve cell phone use.  Those that are texting are 8-23 times more likely to cause a crash.

If you haven’t had a safety topic on Distracted Driving, now is the time to do so. During your meeting, discuss your company’s stance on cell phone usage while operating a company vehicle, because if an accident occurs on the job, it not only affects your business but also your employees and their families. 

Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Dr. David Michaels states:

“OSHA’s message to all companies whose employees drive on the job is straightforward: It is your responsibility and legal obligation to have a clear, unequivocal and enforced policy against texting while driving.”

In addition, nearly every state has passed some sort of statewide law against distracted driving. There are plenty of resources that have sample cell phone usage policies, however, one that you could use as a reference is from the NSC.org inside of their Safe Driving kit.  

Now, to discuss road rage or just plain erratic drivers.  Road rage includes lane weaving, running red lights, speeding, tailgating, making obscene hand gestures, yelling verbal insults and even inflicting physical harm.  

I’m sure everyone has seen this before or perhaps even participated in any of these – have you ever been driving behind someone going 70 MPH and have them intentionally drop a piece of metal out of their window?  I have – and I am lucky it hit the bottom of my car but the sound was like a bomb went off.  What came out of my mouth was not very peaceful.  Besides it making me nervous to continue the 2-hour drive I still had to accomplish, I had bad thoughts about the driver for quite a while.  

If road rage happens to one of your crew during the work day what do you think that does to their performance?  I suggest having a safety discussion and ask your employees if they have any examples, I bet you’ll get some interesting stories to discuss.  

Here are a few ways to combat the urge to participate in road rage: 

  • Provide your crew with the resources to get the job done correctly before they leave the shop so they are not stressed about the work for the day.
  • Teach breathing techniques to use in difficult situations.  They truly do work!
  • Have all employees go through a defensive driving course once per year.
  • Investigate apps for cell phone blocking technology and safe driving

In addition, if you need help with incorporating driver safety into your safety program, reach out to an ArboRisk team member to enroll in our Thrive Safety Package and begin working one-on-one with our industry experts.  

Listed below are a few other links that have great resources for safe driving topics, free posters and even surveys that your employees can take to score their driving. If you need help with developing a safety topic on this subject, I would be happy to help.  Stay safe out there!

http://nsc.org

http://www.osha.gov

https://www.nhtsa.gov

GHSA State Laws – Distracted Driving

Traffic Safety Huddles

Road Rage Sheet