Asking for advice on being asked for advice

treebilly

treebilly

Student of the Jedi. OH-7106A
Joined
Aug 10, 2014
Messages
6,673
Location
North Lawrence,OH
We got our Christmas bonuses this year with a questionnaire in the envelope to fill out. Basically rating certain things and asking if I'm willing to take on more responsibility, blah, blah, blah. At the end they want to know if I have any ideas to improve the company and promote company growth. I'm not sure if I should actually take the time to write all the stuff down or just give him an atta-boy. I've given advice before and was told they would work on it but nothing happens. Safety is a big issue to me. They talk about it a lot but never really follow through. I'm kinda thinking of taking Butch's advice. "Not my circus, not my monkeys" just here for my check.
 
Anyway, I would give them your advice.
 
you don't get what you don't ask for. Try to show how safety improvements could save big bucks with some concrete examples. use near miss examples from your jobs and ways to avoid those near misses. maybe you can suggest that you step up their safety program. Simple thing like a written driving test and written safety meetings will have to cover their assets.maybe part of the safety equation is training, which they may not have time for but you might be able to request 15 minutes here or there to do some training in a no work situation or at least on the job with little pressure
 
I wouldn't have a problem with you not filling it out as that isn't many tree guys forte. The "not my circus" attitude would probably get noticed and I'd be looking to replace you
 
Ger and I seem to have followed a similar approach with management. It didn't always work to my advantage, but on average it seemed to be the better path...besides, you cannot expect a tiger to change his stripes, says me with a deep growl :).
 
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  • #10
Well the company is running three full crews through out the winter and looking to add a forth late spring. Also they have two landscape crews and a lawn crew.
I decided to fill it out and am advising them to check for a workers comp deduction for setting up an actual safety and training plan. I know when they started an actual drug policy it dropped WC by five percent. They've only had one claim in the last 8 years and it was minor. Someone slammed their hand in the bobcat tailgate. Broken fingers and stitches. My crew does decent on ppe and other safety. We also know pretty much where we're going a day or two in advance. We get the uglies. The other crews lack on ppe and one foreman is way to green to be effective at all.
It's a second generation company so two brothers are now owners. I think they're having issues with running a growing company. Trying to grow but in a hurry to do it and not knowing how to organize for it. I sometimes question why I stick around.

Sorry so late and long of a reply. Snowed here and I went out at midnight to plow.
 
You plowing for the company or yourself?

Well if they are struggling with running a growing company, good on them for soliciting feedback. Give it to em, see if they run with it.
 
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  • #12
Company. Back to tree work tomorrow ( I hate snow).
I've mentioned issues before and been ignored or forgotten. They also have mentioned wanting to do certain things and nothing becomes of it. I'm hoping they consider some if what I suggest. I see a lot of money being lost from poor organization but worse is I think that lack of employee training will either start to mean a lower quality work or someone doing major property damage or injury. This year I spent a lot of time repruning for other crews or going in to do a removal that was to challenging on my way back to the shop after my job was completed for the day( of course they were gone by then and I couldn't even show or coach them through it). The call backs to fix a prune really bother me.
 
How do they make money when they do a bunch of call backs.
 
IMHO the problem is what are they looking for. I've worked for some fairly insane bosses, as have all of us at one point, the suggestion of CPR training is scoffed at while the suggestion for new coffee cups styles and colours has a corporate inquiry commissioned with tenders sent out to vendors immediately and staff assigned to over see the project.
 
What ideas did you pitch them, which came to nothing? Maybe revisiting them with a more solid 'turn-key' solution???
 
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  • #17
Various things like tool inventory list, maintenance schedule and checklist, and a system of "rewarding" employees for safety. This time I'm breaking things down and basically setting it all up in detail. Plus a bunch more stuff like work orders, morning routine, end of day, and routine training times( 1 hour at shop a week). I talked with some of the other guys and we all seem to be thinking the same things
 
Setting it up for them in detail will help it get off the ground.

Written instructions for how your inventory system is supposed to work, (including a Parts Used list/ needs to be restocked) should help them see how it should function. Its important to know what got used up/ broken/ lost so that it can be replaced before being needed.

I'm a field fixer, keeping me from needing as much for back-up saws, but I can't fix them in the field if the last X, Y, Z was used out of the spare parts box, and not written down to be replaced at the saw shop during a routine visit.
 
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  • #19
I agree. The hard part is going to be getting the guys to document the mistakes or property damage no matter how minor, to be used as a learning tool to figure out how to not let it happen again. Stuff happens but by figuring out what can be done different will be benificial to all. It does seem that at least half of the guys care and what to see improvement in the company but it's gonna have to be backed and implemented by the owners. I do have the feeling that they'll probably be looking to me to do a lot of training, which is not my best thing. I have a hard time explaining things and even harder time seeing someone else doing the more dangerous aspects of this job.
 
Concrete examples, visual aids, etc.

Give the guys a small branch and a grape. or a toothpick and a grape,and ask them to spear the grape. then hand them their safety glasses. That's about as hard as an eyeball is to pierce with a stick. one eye Bob, a career logger, 50 something years old, got poked in the eye with a sharp branch on a tree. Another guy, one eye Guy, was zipping the whiskers from a hinge off a stump, and got a little piece of wood in his eye. It got infected, now he's one eyed Guy. I know no- hand Stan, too. Honest.
 
P.S. Maybe the company needs Jerry's training series. ISA also has a lot of publications that are suitable for training aids, along with tree catologs, like sherrill. Animated Knots by Grog--animatedknots.com. TREESTUFF has training info.
 
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  • #25
Listed Gerry's books and dvd's along with others. Like the grape thing. I'm seeing that this is gonna take a bit of time to properly get this layed out for them.
 
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