Staying On Budget

Crew chiefs are accountable for safety, job quality and customer satisfaction. That’s a lot of responsibility! Here’s one more assignment: Ensure that projects and properties are profitable.

Know the Budget

Staying on budget requires knowing what the budget is. “When our foremen pick up their work orders in the morning, the budgeted hours for each property are on them,” says Bruce Moore Sr., president of Eastern Land Management in Stamford, CT. “They’re responsible for the budget hours, and we have an incentive program in place that’s tied to their performance.”

“Our foremen have PDA’s, so the budgeted hours for each property are right at their fingertips,” adds Miles Kuperus Jr., owner of Farmside Landscape & Design in Wantage, NJ. “They key-in when they check in to a job and also when they check out. They know precisely how their crews are doing that day, and whether or not they are on schedule.”

How crews perform on a given day, however, is only a snapshot of their overall performance on a property. Maybe traffic was exceptionally heavy that day, a crew member might have called in sick, or there was an equipment glitch, e.g., flat tire, broken starter rope, and so forth. The point is that it’s great to stay on budget on every property every day. But, as the saying goes, “things happen.” The big picture is making sure properties are not trending in the wrong direction.

Help Solve Problems

“We hold weekly meetings with all of our six foremen,” explains Farmside’s lawn maintenance supervisor Chris Dragon. “During these meetings, we discuss properties that may be consistently running over budget or otherwise encountering another issue. If there are budget concerns, we may take a closer look at routing, make sure the equipment is the right size for the project, and so forth. This is the time when foremen are encouraged to bring up specific concerns to me.”

Stuart Griffith, Albuquerque branch manager for Heads Up Landscaping, started out in the field but now oversees the company’s field supervisors, who oversee the crew chiefs. “Once a month, I print out a performance report that details percentage of hours used for each property,” says Griffith. “The program sorts by jobs that are on budget, over budget and under budget. I print out this report for our field supervisors, and give them a couple of days to digest it before holding our meeting.

“If there is a problem, the field supervisor discusses it directly with crew leaders to determine if the issue is chronic or something that can be fixed by tweaking how a project is approached,” Griffith continues. “If it’s chronic, we may have to go back and change the allotted hours. Otherwise, it could be the route. Maybe excessive traffic is the issue; we include windshield time in the job cost.

“Or maybe it’s how the job is being performed. Crews might be starting at the wrong end of a property or otherwise not being as efficient as they can be. Or it could be a breakdown in planning, with a crew leader failing to adequately plan out the week. It could be a communication issue, with tasks not properly allocated for each crew member.”

In other words, it could be any number of things that cause a property to run over budget. Regardless, the foreman must work with his supervisor or the company owner to help get the property back on track.

Don’t Wait Until the Boss Finds Out

The best crew chiefs help fix problems as soon as they emerge, rather than waiting for that weekly or monthly meeting when the boss is upset.

“If crew leaders see a problem developing, I want them to ask for different equipment or otherwise help figure out what the best approach is to keeping a property on budget,” Griffith says. “Not all crew leaders operate this way, but being proactive helps the company’s bottom line and works to keep the customer satisfied if it’s a quality issue.”