As you know, there are a lot of moving parts in a lawn care, landscape or pest control business. You’ll feel more in control of your company’s success when your standards of operation are fully written out for all employees to reference while on the job.
If you’re a small green industry company, you may not have a fully staffed office of accounting, administrative and marketing departments. But you do have an operations department—whether you, the owner, run it, or hire a manager to oversee that area.
You probably trained your crew leaders on how to get things done and your crew leaders pass along those procedures to their teams. As your business continues to grow, and add more employees, those carefully laid out instructions start to get conveyed differently.
However, wouldn’t it be better to have it in writing so instructions and messaging are the same for all your employees?
Standard Operating Procedures For Your Business
A written SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for daily expectations and what to do in specific situations will give you peace of mind and empower your employees to take responsibility. Here’s 6 Standard Operating Procedures for your business.
1. Start/End of Day Procedures:
There should be processes and procedures on how to pack the trucks for a day’s job. There should also be a separate SOP for the end of the day such as emptying the trucks, refueling, cleaning equipment, filling out daily reports and preparing for the next day.
2. Completing Services Offered Correctly:
Taking the time to detailing out the procedure to perform the services your offer will save labor expenses and ensure that your customer is satisfied after each job.
3. Equipment Maintenance Procedures:
Equipment breaks down. But it seems to happen more often when you’re out on the road. Crew leaders should be able to look at the SOP when it comes to repairing, calling you, and stopping a job due to breakdowns.
4. Accident Report Procedures:
It’s a dangerous world out there, and green industry workers can run into some scary issues. For example, car accidents and personal injury are real risks that do happen. Crew leaders should be able to refer to a procedure in case of an emergency.
5. Safety Procedures:
For example, SOP’s could include what a technician needs to wear (PPE – Personal Protective Equipment) when applying fertilizer, herbicides or insecticides on a property. Safety procedures can include how-to lists of operating equipment, how to fill up containers holding chemicals and how to use a fire extinguisher.
6. Truck Maintenance Procedures:
Your crews need to know what they’re responsible for when it comes to maintaining their trucks. For example, if the trucks need to be washed once a week or daily; a weekly truck inspection procedure that might include checking the tires, fluids, and lights; where to gas up and when/where to change the truck’s oil.
Solutions to Standard Operating Procedures
Spring-Green understands the challenges unique to green industry business owners, and they supply solutions when you join their franchise opportunity.
Spring-Green also provides all franchise owners with an operating manual and a customer journey map that outlines the ins and outs of running a franchise. Plus, you’ll have ready-made SOP’s and other checklists to make running your company a breeze.
Spring-Green can help you grow and diversify with our 40 years of experience and our proven expertise in business development. Learn more about how Spring-Green can expand your lawn care, landscape and pest control services. Call 1-800-777-8608 or visit us at www.growmygreenindustrybusiness.com.
