Last year, NALP’s comprehensive online training became a free benefit for contractor members.
SSC Services for Education, headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, took advantage of this additional training almost immediately, incorporating it into their broader Grounds Management University.
Brandon Haley, VP of grounds management for SSC, says since incorporating NALP’s free training, it has helped with their employee retention.
“We’re full service; we do grounds and landscaping, custodial and plant operations,” Haley says. “Grounds management easily has the best retention.”
He explains they are always looking for ways to show new hires the career path they can take. When there is defined training and certifications that SSC can point to, it makes it real for people.
“Too many times, people will be, ‘Oh, well, if you do this, we’ll give you more money,’ and then it never happens,” Haley says. “We’re able to make it very concrete, which is a nice selling point for prospective employees.”
Haley recommends others align NALP’s free training with their existing employee development platform.
“It’s been a great tool for us to have,” Haley says. “Just being able to have something online, it’s instant. If I have an employee come up to me and they say, ‘How can I make more money?’ Or, ‘I don’t want to be stuck in this position forever.’ To be able to have an answer for that is unbelievable. I’m giving them a real and actionable path that they’ve already been told about.”
Integrating Training with Increased Compensation
Structured similar to college courses, SSC’s Grounds Management University has 100- to 800-level classes. 100-level training goes over the basics, covering everything from where to park to first aid. Meanwhile, 400- and 500-level training goes into dedicated pruning techniques for various species.
“When they hit those levels, that’s when they can get a bump,” Haley says.
Haley says when someone is at the 400 level, they are qualified to be one of their team leads. Additionally, when employees are past their first year with the company, if they earn any certifications and licenses, depending on how many they’ve done, SSC provides a set percentage increase to these employees.
Haley says one of the certificates they encourage employees to pursue is NALP’s Landscape Technician Training Courses. They are currently working on incorporating the Landscape Business Management Training Courses into their university as well.
The pay bump amount varies based on the employee’s location and the tier of training they completed. SSC does have limits in place to prevent employees from gaming the system.
“So NALP, which is in our tier one, along with PGMS’s CGT training, you get $1 for the first one, maybe 50 cents for the second one,” Haley says. “You start getting down into your tier two and three, which are more of like some of your local or state-run ones; you might only be able to get one or two of those. We usually only allow one a year. You’re not going to come in making $10, and magically you’re making $15 unless you got promoted.”
He says about 15 of their employees have completed the free NALP training so far, and he plans to add an additional 40 team members to their NALP employee roster so they can access the training. Haley anticipates that by the end of the year, 10% of their employees will have completed NALP’s technician training.
“We want to give people true career paths forward,” Haley says. “We’re not trying to just up our starting wage. Overall, I’d say we’ve probably had 15-20% of our employees take advantage of one of these or the other.”
Haley says one of the benefits of NALP’s free training is that it helps with budgeting. He says even if the courses only cost $100, that quickly adds up when you have 40 employees who want to complete the training.
“The simplicity of it’s there,” Haley says. “You can’t beat it.”
Haley says the team also appreciates the access to the additional training and career progression.
Key to Success
When incorporating NALP’s free training into your current employee development program, Haley recommends starting with your goal in mind.
“If your goal is just to hire more people, you might want to structure it a little differently,” Haley says. “If your goal is to build your next team, lead supervisors, account managers, I would structure it differently and actually create paths for them to go through this training.”
Haley says he does not sign all his employees up for the NALP training automatically, as some would only complete the course for the pay bump but never put the knowledge to work.
“I do like to make people work for it a little bit,” Haley says. “By work for it, you need to contact me with your email address for me to get that sent in. Just that one little thing weeds out a lot of people, and the ones who actually go for it tend to finish it and then actually put it in use.”
Of the employees who decide to sign up for NALP’s training, Haley says over 80% complete the courses.
Haley says they make a point of giving employees time to complete the training at work.
“Any training we have people do, we give them time at work to do it, give them access to computers,” Haley says. “If people want to do it on their own to speed it up, that’s great. I will not get in their way. We give them standardized times throughout the week that they can work on it. It also helps us push people and see who really wants to do it versus who doesn’t.”
Haley says while he appreciates the initiative shown by individuals who opt to complete the additional training in their free time, he also knows how busy people are. SSC makes it clear to employees these additional trainings are not required, and they are not expected to complete the course in their free time.
“You’re giving them the time to invest in themselves,” Haley says. “We invest in them because they provide us the work that we sell. To me, I’d be remiss to not give them the time to grow themselves at work. We find we still get the same amount of work done.”
Haley says it typically takes their employees three to four weeks to complete NALP’s technician training.
“Our goal is to give people an hour or two every week that they can work on it,” Haley says. “I don’t want it to be a forever process. They’ll learn it, go use it in the field, and then train somebody else while they’re out there.”
