Landscaping runs on crews, seasons and weather. Here is how to plan, pay and keep the people who keep sites looking right.
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Share your requirementsA landscape maintenance company looks after gardens, lawns, trees and grounds for apartment complexes, offices, campuses and homes, on recurring contracts, plus design and installation jobs. Work follows the season: planting, pruning and monsoon clean-ups bring peaks, and quieter months follow. Crews of gardeners and helpers are deployed to sites under a supervisor, using mowers, cutters, sprayers and sometimes tractors. Many workers are casual or migrant, and wages are often paid weekly. The owner balances recurring site contracts with project crews, and equipment safety with productivity. See also HR for facility management. Most of the HR work is about planning around the season, keeping casual workers on a record and keeping people safe around machines.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Peaks and troughs make a fixed team too large in some months and too small in others.
People engaged for a day or a project are paid in cash and appear on no list.
Cutters, mowers, sprayers and tree work carry real risk, and protective gear is often not worn.
Rain days and delays disrupt attendance and pay, and arguments follow about who bears the lost day.
The best person on the crew is promoted and left to learn how to run a team.
Weekly, daily and per-job payment sit side by side, and disputes follow.
Crews travel on whatever is available, which affects punctuality, safety and who pays for the journey.
One client wants edging by hand and another wants speed, and crews do not know which until they are corrected.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for facility management, not in general.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a landscape maintenance companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
For each contract and season, the people needed by week, with a core team and a pool of casuals you can call.
What this coversHideFor each contract and season, the people needed by week, with a core team and a pool of casuals you can call. The workforce plan holds it.
Name, identity, contact, dates and pay, even for one day, so good people can be called back.
What this coversHideName, identity, contact, dates and pay, even for one day, so good people can be called back.
Instruction before first use, protective gear issued and recorded, and a daily check by the supervisor.
What this coversHideInstruction before first use, protective gear issued and recorded, and a daily check by the supervisor. The health, safety and wellbeing work builds it.
What happens to pay and attendance on a washed-out day, agreed in advance and explained to the crew.
What this coversHideWhat happens to pay and attendance on a washed-out day, agreed in advance and explained to the crew.
A short programme on briefing a crew, handling disputes and recording the day.
What this coversHideA short programme on briefing a crew, handling disputes and recording the day. The leadership and people management programme is built for this.
What the client expects, how often, which tasks and what to leave alone, so crews and replacements start from the same page.
What this coversHideWhat the client expects, how often, which tasks and what to leave alone, so crews and replacements start from the same page.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A plan for a core team and a seasonal pool, built from your contract calendar.
Equipment instruction, protective gear and incident routines for crews who work outdoors with machines.
Clear rules for weekly, daily and per-job pay, and a payment calendar crews can rely on.
A short programme for crew leaders who were promoted for their skill with plants.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in facility management, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Housekeeping, technician and security staff at client sites leave for reasons head office rarely hears. How to ask, what to look for and how to act on it.
7 min readRead article
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead article
A laminated notice, an annual drill, and an incident register with three entries in two years. What workplace health and safety looks like when it is real.
7 min readRead article
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep a core team for the recurring contracts and a pool of casuals you can call for peaks, registered and inducted in advance. Plan from the contract calendar, not from the last busy month.
Yes, a simple one: name, identity, contact, dates and pay. Which registers apply depends on your arrangements, so confirm them with a qualified professional.
Instruct before first use, issue and record protective gear, check daily and fix faulty equipment at once. Most injuries come from untrained use and missing gear.
Whatever you agree, as long as it is written and explained before the season. Disputes come from a rule invented on the day.
Look for reliability, the respect of the crew and willingness to learn, then teach the new part of the job. The best gardener is not automatically the best supervisor.
We would go through your casual workers last month and how many appear on any record, what crew members were taught before using a cutter, and what happens to pay on a rain day. A good first job is a crew plan built from the contract calendar. Scope is then confirmed in writing before we begin.
All 10 business types in facility management · Find another business type
See all HR topics for facility management, or another industry.
Identify payroll leaks, record gaps and hiring bottlenecks in a free first conversation, and leave knowing what to fix first.
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