Hundreds of Lawn Care Professionals Rely on Connecteam for Daily Business & Management Needs

Running a lawn care business requires you to be on top of various tasks at all times. From communicating with staff and customers to maintaining equipment and scheduling hours and marketing your business, the list is endless. And you are also at the mercy of the weather, for example if there’s a heavy downpour, you can’t trim the grass.

Basically, you’re wishing for more hours in the day to tackle every task. That’s precisely why we decided to interview hundreds of lawn care professionals who utilize Connecteam every single day to tackle these common day-to-day challenges. This blog showcases the best practices to help overcome these challenges.

Challenges lawn care companies faced before Connecteam: 

• An organized schedule that works across the board

“I feel like I waste a lot of time on creating the work schedule, it isn’t even one of my main responsibilities but it always takes up all my time.” 

“If an employee calls in, I lose a lot of time finding a replacement because I’m searching through the schedule and digging up contact information for a potential replacement – it’s pretty exhausting.” 

• Effectively communicating with my team

“Communicating updates and announcements with my team eats up a lot of time and isn’t a smooth process – from sending an email or text message or organizing a conference call, I lose a lot of time.”

“If I send a message, I have no way to track who opened and read the message which means I don’t know that everyone is aligned!”

• Keeping track of checklists and reports 

“Managing and keeping track of equipment repair reports can take hours or days. It is always a mess going through it. And if I catch a mistake, it takes even more time to get it done.” 

“There are a lot of paper files that I need to review so it’s hard to understand if everything was done the right way, and on time.” 

• Accurately tracking time 

“Time tracking and payroll can take a whole day or two because I am going through hundreds of Excel sheets or scribbles on paper. More often than not, I catch a mistake. I need a more efficient way to track time.”

“I’m always playing ping pong with my employees because mistakes can happen or I need someone to take on more hours or there’s always questions about overtime.”

• Training new hires

“It is time consuming to bring in my team for a training session – not only is it a hassle to find a day that works for everyone but often, my employees don’t like losing a day to learn a new method. And to be honest, I don’t like setting these days up!” 

“In lawn care, I have a lot of temporary and seasonal employees and usually, people quit within the first three months. So that means I lose a lot of time and resources on-boarding and training my staff. What I really want is an efficient and quick way to get training done.”

How Connecteam helps you tackle common challenges

Automate daily checklists and reports

Lawn care companies rely on checklists and reports to maintain day-to-day operations so friction is lowered, information flow is automated and better oversight can be gained. Typical checklists and reports created on Connecteam include: 

• Repair order ticket
• Stock order
• Service summary report
• Incident report
• Vehicle accident report
• Expense reimbursement
• Employee performance review

Additionally, all entries submitted by employees are digitally logged, can be automatically sent to a predefined email address as a PDF copy and can be exported in an Excel sheet.

Job scheduling

Lawn care businesses are constantly handing complex scheduling needs but with Connecteam, it’s a much easier task to manage:

• Assign employees to service calls based on different locations and customer needs.
• Keep records of check in and check out times and location with GPS stamps.
• Employees can add shift notes and comments for further explanation when needed.
• Allow employees to accept and reject shifts.

Accurate time tracking

When it comes to accurate time tracking and payroll sheets, lawn care companies use Connecteam to ensure it’s a smooth process. 

• For clocking in and out of shifts with a GPS location stamp.
• Sending push notifications to remind employees to clock in or out. 
• Utilize notes and tags to address specific needs (like filtering by customer or specific dates).
• Export payroll sheets, per shift or as a total.
• View current and past timesheets.
• Requesting time off – employees receive an alert the second a request is approved or denied. 

Streamlining communication 

It is essential for lawn care professionals to communicate instantly but that’s not an easy task to complete. However, Connecteam’s communication tools make this easier to achieve.

• Employee directory: easily find the right contact details of coworkers, managers and more. Simply search by name, job role, department, and more. 
• Chat groups and channels: streamline daily communication easily and efficiently, chat about the employee of the month, poor weather conditions, the best route to the job site, great customer reviews, and more. Start a one-on-one chat or create specific groups separated by location, skills, etc.
• Realtime push notifications and updates: send formal and informal announcements, including service changes, HR updates, announcements, information distribution, safety reports and more.
• Periodical surveys – whether it’s a simple two-question feedback survey or a robust employee satisfaction survey, lawn care managers use Connecteam to allow employees to share their feedback with ease and efficiency.
• Suggestion box – makes it easy for team members to share their ideas and thoughts in real-time. 

All of the communication tools also make it easier to boost employee engagement as employees are front and center. 

Making safety and awareness a priority

Connecteam makes it easy for lawn care companies to raise awareness and standards as safety is a crucial aspect in the day-to-day operations. 

• Quick and easy reporting: employees can instantly send reports while on-the-go so the relevant manager can evaluate and respond in real-time. For example reporting an incident.
• Safety digital resources: ensure safety protocols, tips and resources are available at the tap of a button, including key materials like ‘lessons learned’, incident findings, and periodical safety tips.
• Ongoing safety training: managers need to know who has finished a course or quiz and can even send reminders to those who haven’t finished a required safety training session. This helps ensure that all lawn care professionals have the skills required on an ongoing basis. 
• Safety first communication: it’s easy to distribute and communicate safety related updates and protocols, such as incident finding reports, procedural updates in real-time or risk factors like rough weather conditions or closed routes.

Company protocols are instantly available

Lawn care companies must have common resource material available instantly for all team members to ensure compliance: 

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) 
• Safety and emergency protocols
• Employee handbook
• Code of ethics
• Sexual harassment policy
• Uniform policy

Training all employees

With Connecteam, lawn care managers offer training through the app to ensure employees are reached on a regular basis. Additionally, you can track progress and can execute training anytime and employees can complete the material in their own time. 

• Health and safety training
• Sexual harassment training
• Equipment usage and maintenance
• Test and quizzes.

However, this isn’t only about on-boarding new hires but also improving your “senior” employees’ professional skills on an on-going basis to avoid knowledge gaps.

Connecteam is an all-in-one employee app with multiple capabilities designed to help scale your business. Plus, the amazing price makes choosing Connecteam an easy choice! Start your free trial now and don’t hesitate to send us a message at [email protected].