A tree care business prunes, fells and manages trees for housing societies, campuses, roads and farms. When the best two climbers carry most jobs, one injury or resignation can stop the business, so passing on skill is urgent.
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Share your requirementsA tree care and arborist business prunes overgrown branches, removes dead or dangerous trees, trims street and campus trees and clears fallen timber after storms. Customers are housing societies, schools, companies, builders, municipal bodies and individual owners, and some jobs need local permission before a tree can be touched. Crews of climbers, ground hands and a driver work with saws, ropes and a vehicle, and a single poor decision can injure someone or bring a branch down on property. Demand peaks before and after the monsoon and after storms, with emergency calls at odd hours. The skills are learnt on the job, from older hands. See also HR for facility management.
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.
Few people can climb and cut safely, and losing one means turning away work or sending an unproven person up.
How to read a tree, plan a drop and rig a branch is learnt from an older climber, and when he leaves the knowledge goes too.
A fallen tree after a storm needs a crew immediately, at night, and the next day's planned work still has to be done.
Falling branches, saws and ropes cause grave harm, and informal practices on the ground are a daily risk.
Helpers who drag and chip branches are hired by the day with little induction, and are exposed to the same hazards.
Some work needs approval before it starts, and crews are left waiting or tempted to proceed without it.
Wet and windy days stop climbing, and earnings swing, which pushes the best climbers towards steadier employers.
Ropes, harnesses and saw chains wear out, and no one is responsible for retiring them before they fail.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Learning and Development; Career and Succession Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for facility management, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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 tree care and arborist services business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A ladder from ground hand to climber to crew leader, based on observed skill and supervised jobs, and not on years claimed.
What this coversHideA ladder from ground hand to climber to crew leader, based on observed skill and supervised jobs, and not on years claimed. The role design work builds it.
A short plan for each job covering the cut, the drop zone, the rescue method and who is on the ground, briefed before anyone climbs.
What this coversHideA short plan for each job covering the cut, the drop zone, the rescue method and who is on the ground, briefed before anyone climbs. The health, safety and wellbeing work covers the habit.
A planned apprenticeship with a named mentor and a record of what each learner has been shown, so knowledge is passed on before the elder retires.
What this coversHideA planned apprenticeship with a named mentor and a record of what each learner has been shown, so knowledge is passed on before the elder retires. The learning and development process can structure it.
A fair on-call list with agreed extra pay and rest after a night call-out.
What this coversHideA fair on-call list with agreed extra pay and rest after a night call-out. The attendance and shift process holds it.
A first-day briefing, personal protective gear and a short check on how to work around the saw and chipper, whatever the contract type.
What this coversHideA first-day briefing, personal protective gear and a short check on how to work around the saw and chipper, whatever the contract type.
A register for ropes, harnesses and saws with a person responsible for inspection and retirement.
What this coversHideA register for ropes, harnesses and saws with a person responsible for inspection and retirement.
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 job-by-job briefing, equipment register and training record that fits crews working with saws and ropes.
A planned apprenticeship so climbing knowledge is passed on, not lost when a senior leaves.
Clear levels from ground hand to crew leader, tied to demonstrated skill.
A fair emergency rota with rest built in after night call-outs.
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
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
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Pay fairly across lean weeks, give them a path to crew leader, treat emergency work properly and look after their safety. The best climbers can choose where they work.
Start on the ground, move to low, supervised cuts and progress against a written list of skills, with a mentor who signs each step.
Use a rota, pay a known extra rate, and give rest the next day. Improvised calls to the same two people lead to exhaustion and exits.
The hazards around the saw, chipper and falling branches, where to stand, what protective gear to wear and who to ask. A short check afterwards confirms it was understood.
A named person, with a register and a schedule. Shared responsibility usually means no responsibility.
A first talk would cover which climbers can lead a job alone, how your most senior climber could teach juniors, and when each rope and harness was last inspected. A sensible opening piece of work is climber grading with a written rescue and drop plan. We then agree scope in writing before starting.
All 10 business types in facility management · Find another business type
See all HR topics for facility management, or another industry.
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