Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Safety excellence - The six critical components

Power Pusher helps to provide safety in a working environment through their material handling tugs but safety can also be provided in a number of different ways outside of purely physical safety. Actions made in management and supervision also play an important role according to this ISHN article. Are these visible elements a part of your safety processes?

Eugene Zemlyanskiy, Flickr.com
Dr. Dan Petersen was one of the great safety pioneers of the last 50 years. His focus was consistently on developing a viable safety culture that lived safety accountabilities at all levels of the organization. Organizations fully utilizing his Six Criteria for Safety Excellence are among the leaders in safety performance. These criteria are:

Visible Upper Management Commitment to safety. In most organizations it is difficult to pry executives away from their cost, quality and customer responsibilities and have them be visible in the workplace with respect to safety. Roles, responsibilities and associated activities are essential if we are to make the executives field presence accomplishable.

Active Middle Manager Involvement in safety. It is not uncommon for organizations to have far fewer middle managers than in years past. This fact makes their active presence on a regular basis at the workface even more of a challenge. Once again, practical roles, responsibilities and activities provide guidance for these important people to make themselves known in safety where it counts most, on the front line.

To continue reading about the six critical components to safety excellence, click here.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Popular Outdoor Design Trends for 2014

With many of the new 2014 landscaping trends requiring some heavy lifting, keep Power Pusher's electric wheelbarrow in mind. Take a look at a few of the up-and-coming techniques you might see this year according to this article from GreenIndustryPros.com 

Glenn Switzer, Flickr.com
Consumers are spending money on residential landscapes, especially those used to relax and socialize. Commonly known as outdoor living spaces, these types of landscape projects, along with sustainable and low-maintenance landscaping, are the most popular among consumers in 2014, according to a survey conducted by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

Landscape architects who specialize in residential design were asked to rate the popularity of different landscaping elements. Roughly 94% said "gardens and landscape spaces" were either somewhat or very popular. Coming in second at 92% were "kitchens and entertainment spaces". Third was "outdoor recreation" at 76%.

Additionally, the following specific residential landscaping elements were noted as being "in demand" this year:

Lighting – 98%
Seating/Dining Areas – 97.7%
Fire Pits/Fireplaces – 95%
Grills – 94%
Installed Seating – 90% (includes benches, walls, ledges, steps and boulders)

To continue reading about more common 2014 trends, click here.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The Four Keys to Igniting Employee Potential

"Engagement doesn’t happen by accident": a quote from Roxana Hewertson's article from Construction Business Owner. The base of any good working environment comes from productive and engaged employees who will champion your brand and your services. That's why it is so important to improve in this area and learn how to create a work culture that welcomes and rewards high-performers. 
Taki Steve, Flickr.com


When do you feel truly engaged at work? Chances are it’s when you believe in what you are doing, you are actively involved and you enjoy the people you work with. You are truly engaged when you are fully present, committed to the task at hand and enjoying what you are doing.

Research has long proven that engaged employees lead to more successful and profitable businesses. In 2012, a Dale Carnegie study found that of the 1,500 employees studied, only 29 percent were fully engaged, 25 percent were disengaged and 45 percent were only partially engaged. These results reflect many other credible studies conducted during the last ten years that show that, time after time, 50 percent or more of employees in all industries are dissatisfied at work and less than fully engaged.

Employee engagement is often lumped into the bucket of “soft, touchy-feely” human resource topics, but the “hard reality” is that flawed management practices and failed leadership contribute significantly to employee disengagement—and disengaged employees are unproductive and unprofitable employees, resulting in a negative financial impact. Engaged employees are more productive and deliver better customer service and higher quality work, all of which result in better branding, reputation and financial success for their employers. Every drop of discretionary effort impacts your bottom line. Whenever an employee contributes beyond what he or she must do to keep the job, you get more time and productivity than you are paying for.

Continue reading to find the 4 main keys: click here. <

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

On Contractors' Minds

Have you ever had business concerns regarding personnel, government regulations, industry professionalism, staying price-competitive, pursuing the best opportunities, building a consumer base, or managing growth? According to this article on GreenIndustryPros.com, landscape contractors are struggling with the same issues. Know that you're not alone as you learn what you can do to ease your worries. 

USACE, Flickr.com
The market for landscaping services is much improved, but this business is still rife with challenges. According to a survey of landscape contractors subscribed to Green Industry Pros magazine, three primary issues remain foremost in the minds of landscape contractors:

1) Finding, training and managing employees
2) Government policies and/or regulations which impede the ability to maintain acceptable profit margins and grow
3) Dealing with "fly-by-night" competition

Actually, according to the survey, a couple dozen issues where brought up by contractors. Some are interrelated, and each tie back to one of the three main issues listed above. For this article, we'll break it down just a little further into seven topics of conversation, while also providing possible solutions as recommended by landscape contractors themselves.

To read the full article, click here.