I've always loved greenkeeping. I love everything about it, the challenge, the hours, and especially the people. Lately there has been a lot of talk about how we can address issues with attracting and retaining skilled people to help us maintain our golf courses. When I started at my new club with a larger staff one of the most surprising things to me was how much I enjoy working with others. Until that time, I was usually alone and most of my efforts to stay interested in my work revolved around crazy agronomic stuff. While that is obviously still the case, I have found a great deal of joy working and learning from my staff and helping them develop their skills further so that they can add more value to our operation and find more enjoyment in the work they do every day.
I'm certainly not an expert in labor relations and I normally don't poke my nose into this side of the business but over the past 4 years I have stumbled across some things that I think bring our operation success and I haven't read anything like this in my never ending quests to be a better manager. I'm not totally convinced they are great ideas but they are different and they work for me so far and maybe they could work for you too.
Does overtime make sense?
I've never quite understood the regular need for overtime in golf course maintenance. Sure, sometimes you have an emergency that requires overtime, but as a general rule, it shouldn't be relied upon as a standard practice.
In Canada, we have to pay time and a half for the first few hours of overtime. This increases our costs 150% which is the opposite direction most of us need to be going. Further adding misery to the situation is that there are many studies that show that productivity drops drastically the longer you work each day. We lose productivity further by working later in the day as the golf course fills with golfers we are often waiting for golfers to play through. This can essentially triple the costs of getting things done. In what world does it make sense to get less done for more money?
The perspective I take for trying to get everything done on the golf course is this;
I could keep 30 people busy on the golf course maintenance team but I only have 10. Even if we all work double time we will still leave a lot on the table that could be done. Working extra hours is futile. If you need to get more done you need to either hire more help or find ways of doing the work more efficiently. With the exception of myself, we haven't used any overtime in the past 4 years. If I work overtime I will take that time off as soon as possible.
Sometimes we get massive irrigation breaks and for the most part, we can easily isolate the hole where the break occurred and fix it the following day. We don't run our turf right on the edge and usually have more than one day's worth of water in our soils so this isn't a major concern. The only situation that requires immediate attention is on a mainline that we cannot isolate and even then, we often have a day or two to get the work done during regular hours.
For equipment it's a similar story. We have worked in a redundancy to our maintenance operations so if we lose a particular piece of equipment, we have a plan to temporarily manage without it for as long as it takes to get the primary equipment back up and running. This past summer this was used as our ECU on our primary rough mower went down and it took a month to get it repaired. We didn't skip a beat getting our rough cut as we had a plan that didn't involve us working around the clock to get our main machine back up and running ASAP.
Working Efficiently
In my Turfenomics series of blog posts I discuss how I have been able to get more done with less. I also shared recently how our changes to mowing and rolling frequencies helped cut our greens maintenance costs in half while improving the daily conditions of the greens.
Generally speaking, the responsibility lies with me to find ways that my staff can get more done by working more efficiently while avoiding the tendency to be in a rush. Rushing can work in the short term but in the long run it leads to burnout, mistakes, injury and costly damage to the course and equipment. In SAR we had a saying that went like this. "Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast." This was to help us reduce our tendency to rush or panic, slow down, and be thoughtful and efficient about what we were doing.
Instead I design our work processes to be optimized for our work windows to allow our staff to work longer without golfer interference. This gives them the time to work in the most efficient manner without rushing. It also reduces the likelihood of golfers seeing distracting maintenance operations during their round. Better for productivity and better for our customer experience. Win win!
Scheduling
I often hear about staff scheduling requiring staff to work weekends or one weekend in 3 or something similar to that. I have found that most people that have worked with me prefer working a static schedule instead of one that is constantly changing. Essentially, if you work weekends, you work every weekend. This allows you to develop a lifestyle and consistency from one month to the next. A lot of people enjoy having days off during the week as most things are less busy so it's easier to get your chores done and enjoy the relatively empty beach or hiking trail or golf course!
The golf course is generally busiest on the weekends so we do less disruptive maintenance on the weekends. This means that I need less staff. We generally don't need to babysit our turf as we are able to effectively manage our soil moisture to ensure that we can easily get through the day without supplemental water during the afternoon.
I like to work on weekends because I can help get the course ready in the morning and then do office work later in the day as the course becomes too busy for maintenance work. The same is true for mechanics. If no one is using the equipment, it is an ideal time to do disruptive equipment maintenance so it's ready for the coming week.
Showing up on time
This one might be a little contentious but as a rule, I don't discipline staff for showing up to work late. I would much rather them show up late than not show up at all with the fear of being punished for being late. Obviously there is a limit to this idea, but in general, most people show up every day on time or early. In an age where it is increasingly difficult to find good staff, firing someone for being a few minutes late is borderline insane in my opinion. The actual time that we start is much less important than actually showing up and doing the work.
One of the goals of our safety plan is to manage risk to the best of our ability so that the most risky thing our staff do each day is drive to work. Being in a rush to arrive on time increases the most risky aspect of their day. If you show up 10 mins late, work 10 mins longer in the afternoon or work less and we will pay you less.
I allow plenty of time each morning to allow our staff to work efficiently even if there are minor disruptions. One of these allowances is showing up late. If showing up late will disrupt your operations in a major way, set the normal start time to an earlier time and work in a nice buffer to get everything done on time.
It is always preferable to have a daily meeting with the staff before heading out on the course. While I still like to do this, if someone is late they are easily able to get caught up with the daily activities with the use of our digital job board. The same is true for people who show up early before I get there. It's not a replacement, but a tool that allows us to be more flexible in our start times.
Time Off
One of the questions I used to ask on job interviews was whether or not the person planned on going away on holidays in the summer. This was considered a red flag if they wanted to go away as this was our busy season and we needed all the help we could get.
Now I prefer all my staff to take a portion of their time off in the summer months. It's especially important to relax, unwind and make time for yourself during the most stressful periods of your work life. It's also incredibly important to be able to enjoy the nice weather with your loved ones. Not everyone can afford a trip to a tropical location in the winter months so it's nice to be able to enjoy the nice local weather while it lasts with the people who you love most.
If you plan ahead for this you can ensure that you are adequately staffed during the busy summer months to limit the disruption being down on staff will have.
Connectivity
25 years ago it wasn't that common to have a cell phone or email. Now we are bombarded with work communications and notifications. Back in the day if I needed to contact a worker outside of work hours I had to phone their home and hope they were nearby. Now I can text them and for some reason expect a quick answer at any time of the day. Even if they have a good work life balance and don't reply, they are still distracted from their rest time with messages from work. Today we have tools that allow us to schedule our texts and emails so that they aren't sent until the person is expected to be at work. I don't text my staff after work hours and I don't expect they will text me on my days off unless it's an emergency. Generally, my staff have the skills and autonomy to make decisions in my absence. I am also fairly compensated and put on a salary to accommodate disruptions on my time away from work and most of my staff aren't.
No, wanting to have work life balance isn't a phenominon new to millennials. It's something that has been brought on by the constant barrage of communications our new connected world has brought. It is relatively new to our species and something we are just now getting better at managing. Those Gen x'ers had it much easier when they were young because it was next to impossible to get ahold of someone when they weren't at work. I think gen x'ers who are still in today's workforce also appreciate work life balance equally to millennials. It's not a generational thing, it's a human thing.
Ergonomics
Have you ever run a rough mower without a seat with suspension? It's incredibly hard on the body. How about a mower in the hot sun without a sun shade? Cup holders? Power outlets? Enclosed cabs for working in the winter? Is your chainsaw heavy and cumbersome to use all day or is it small, light and adequate for the work you most commonly do? Is your cup cutter a modern design that reduces impacts to your joints and back? Is your office desk designed to work while standing? Do you have an equipment lift with good lighting? Are you safety standards up to snuff? Do you take PPE seriously? Are you able to provide modern equipment that is easy to use? Simple things like this can drastically increase the comfort of doing the work in all types of weather and can help reduce fatigue and injury.
 |
| An enclosed cab on equipment that is used in the off season makes working in inclement weather a joy. Smiles all around. |
I'm far from an expert in staff and labor relations, but I think that these few deliberate strategies have helped me keep a skilled and dedicated staff for the past few difficult years.