416 That’s the number that should resonate with you if you are a tree care owner or manager. It’s a number that should be in a company’s employee handbook, and in today’s business world, you need a good handbook more than ever.

Business is super competitive right now, and that competition is for both finding good customers as well as quality employees. It’s not unusual for a potential client to get a few prices on $750 worth of work. How much do you want to chase that? If you’re going to, you need a pretty good close ratio.

Photo courtesy of Momentum Tree Experts, Novi, Michigan.

At the same time, there’s a shortage of labor, especially skilled labor, so you probably need to charge more than the $750 that your competitors charge if you want to keep that good help. That means your challenge isn’t just getting the $750 job, it’s convincing the client why you’re worth more.

What makes the difference? How are you worth it and someone else isn’t? Why should someone hire you instead of chasing the low dollar? There are several reasons, including professionalism, safety, proper insurance and getting a job done right the first time. But for the sake of this article, let’s focus on staff. That’s where the 416 number comes from, and it’s about benefits. It is the number of hours a person needs to work in order to get their next allotment of time off.

Here’s how it works

There are 52 weeks in a year; multiply that by 40 hours, and you get 2,080 potential non-overtime hours of work a year. Divide that by five workdays, and that comes to 416 hours. So, if you give one week – five days – of paid vacation a year, a person has to work 416 hours for each paid day off. If you give two weeks, a person has to work 416 hours to get two days off, and if you give three weeks off, they have to work 416 hours for every three days.

It’s important to note that years ago, most employers didn’t give a week off until one year was completed. In today’s economy, people are getting that during their first year, and oftentimes it’s two weeks off during their first year. If you want to keep your best people, you need to be in front of the best working conditions.

Then, if you have the best people, you can confidently stand on someone’s lawn and explain why you’re worth more for a job than your competitors. It’s fine to tell customers that you give your crew as good or better pay packages than most. The good clients will understand that this is what it takes to have quality work done.

The handbook

This all needs to be spelled out in your company handbook, and you need to refer back to it when an employee pushes for more. That makes a potentially subjective confrontation become strictly objective. You show them the handbook they signed at the beginning of their employment, and signed again at the end of each calendar year. It’s what everyone agreed to, and it’s in writing so no one forgets.

Of course, there are exceptions, because we are humans and there are always exceptions. One is if a skilled and experienced worker comes to you from another company. After many years, they have racked up three weeks of paid vacation plus other benefits. They’re not coming on board if you tell them they have to go down to one or two weeks of vacation, even if they hear you’re a good boss. You likely will have to match their previous employer’s paid time off.
And then you have to sell that to your veteran employees. They may not like it, because they have been with you awhile, but you explain that this new person has been in the business for years, they’ve got great skills and that is worth something. You can tell people to keep pay and benefits to themselves, but they inevitably talk about it to each other. Best to just get in front of the potential confrontation and let everyone know you are doing the best you can.

Creating a handbook

There’s a lot more to a good company handbook besides paid time off, and TCIA has a template that members can download for free to make their own. Every business owner should look their handbook over and update it every year, because things will happen that you never would anticipate.

Be sure to have legal counsel review your handbook initially and again every time you make a revision. Give each revised handbook to your employees, answer any questions they have and require them to sign off on each revision. This may seem like a lot of busy work, but it is worth it. This work will help to make sure your company is protected legally, it will help make your company more productive and your employees will appreciate the efforts you make to keep them updated with clear expectations.

The employee handbook is one tool that will separate your company from those that just couldn’t quite develop into a top company. And even though a lot of work goes into writing an employee handbook, that handbook can be worked on when you are slow. In the long run, it will save business owners and managers a lot of time when they are busy.

Michael Roche, now retired, is the former owner of Vermont Arborists, an accredited, long-time TCIA member company based in Stowe, Vermont, now a SavATree company. He is still a Certified Arborist and a Certified Treecare Safety Professional (CTSP), and is now living in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.