Numerous types of workforce challenges plague the industry and landscape professionals had a chance to listen and share how they’re tackling these issues during the all-new roundtable breakfast panel on Nov. 10, 2026, at ELEVATE, presented by NALP and powered by Cat.
Jennifer Burnett, chief people officer with LandCare, Cam Cundiff, director of administration with Weed Man Epic3, and Joel Sullivan, CEO of Sullivan’s Landscaping & Maintenance, all shared insights into how they set clear expectations and balance a positive culture with accountability.
Burnett explained that accountability often gets a bad rap, but it actually goes hand in hand with a positive culture. She pointed out that it’s not fair to your team members if they don’t know where they stand and what goal they are trying to reach.
Cundiff added that while a manager may have a goal to increase their sales by 20%, you have to break that down into more manageable elements, such as how many sales they made that day. He says it’s also important to have countermeasures in place so that employees don’t game the system. For instance, if someone brings in five sales, do four of them cancel a few weeks later?
Cundiff says one thing he learned from his mentor is the fact that you need to be hyper-focused on what behaviors are needed to reach certain outcomes.
Sullivan says one of their biggest workforce challenges has been finding leaders to grow as quickly as the company is. He says it’s hard to strike a balance between giving people opportunities and making sure they are properly prepared and less likely to fail. He says they’re trying to think three to four years out instead of just focusing on being lean right now.
Burnett agrees that speed and proficiency matter a lot as they are seeking individuals who are interested in learning and moving up within the company. She says it’s a bad idea to promote individuals into leadership roles out of desperation because you can end up losing a great person and contributor in your organization.
After the panel discussion, attendees were encouraged at their own tables to have candid conversations about topics including how they prepare and train employees for leadership roles, how they hold their high performers accountable, what has strengthened their company culture, and how leadership has changed as the company has grown.
Attendees from all company sizes shared some of their strategies ranging from how they find roles that fit employees’ strengths to how they address high performers who don’t follow company policies.
One takeaway Sullivan gathered after the breakout time was the importance of allowing employees who struggled in a leadership role to step back down into the position they succeeded in.
Burnett shared how her table discussed the importance of involving the team in the selection of new hires instead of the recruiter simply filling a role. She says they also discussed how having a mentor who is not a direct supervisor can allow newer employees to learn while the mentor is able to grow laterally by sharing their knowledge.
Cundiff encouraged attendees not to limit their team members’ growth path just because of their previous roles within the company.
Janae Reed, director of personal development with Timberline Landscaping, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, says one takeaway she’s gathered from ELEVATE is there’s no one right answer.
“Everybody’s doing things a little bit different because it might work in your environment or in your local market,” Reed says. “It might work differently for your teams and your culture. So that was really just good to see that there are a lot of different ways to think outside of what we’re doing, but also if what we’re doing is working, stick to it.”
