You tell yourself the same story every spring: nobody wants to work outdoors, good people are gone, and the only way to staff a hardscape crew is to steal a foreman from the shop down the road.
That story is usually about your hiring system, not the labor market.
This guide pulls from Finding, Hiring, and Keeping Great Employees with Tony Bass on the How to Hardscape Podcast (episode 368). Tony is co-author of The E-Myth Landscape Contractor with Michael E. Gerber, builder of Super Lawn Trucks, and author of The Landscaper’s Guide to Finding, Hiring, and Keeping Great Employees. He has spent about four decades making payroll in this industry — first as a landscape contractor, then as a manufacturer and consultant helping lawn and landscape companies build recruiting systems.
The angle here is not another list of job boards. It is Tony’s find → hire → keep process: how you talk about the job, how you screen, how you train, and how you keep people without pretending every technician must become a manager.
Hiring Is a Different Business Than Working Alone
Tony’s starting frame is blunt. A lot of people own equipment and install hardscapes, irrigation, lighting, or lawn work with zero employees. Far fewer contractors take the next step: initiate payroll, remit taxes, and build a company that other people depend on.
That is why hiring feels like a different ball game. You are not only selling work. You are building a place people join, learn in, and stay in. If you treat recruiting as a desperate Craigslist post when you are already short-handed, you will keep getting desperate results.
Systems thinking shows up the same way it does in the E-Myth work Tony is known for. The company needs documented ways to attract, select, teach, and retain — not a hope that the next “experienced” hire will save you.
Find Landscape Employees by Fixing the Job Ad First
Most landscape and hardscape ads shrink the pool on purpose.
When the headline says “Hardscape Technician,” “Lawn Maintenance Technician Wanted,” or “Landscape Crew Foreman Opening,” you are mostly talking to people who already see themselves as industry workers. That is a narrow slice of the whole workforce. Tony’s point: you would rather open the door to people who want a change, then filter for outdoor work — not only fish in the pond of people already labeled “landscaper.”
The headline he has tested across many contractor recruiting projects:
Fresh Start Working Outdoors
- Fresh start invites people who are disengaged where they are now — a large share of the employed population in the engagement surveys Tony cites.
- Working outdoors narrows for people who will actually show up for field work.
He described a Texas client who said he had no benefits edge, average pay, and nothing special to offer. The old technician-title ad brought a handful of applications. After changing the title and rewriting the first few sentences of the description, applications jumped into the hundreds inside a week — enough that they turned the ad off.
You still need a real offer and a real company. The lesson is process: put the prospective employee’s shoes on. What problem are you helping them solve? What is in it for them? Marketing language is not fluff here. It is how you stop shopping only among people who already work for your competitors.
If you want channel ideas (job boards, colleges, referrals), the site already covers that in How to Find Landscape Employees. Use that for where to post. Use Tony’s approach for what the ad says and who it is written for.
Hire With a Screening System, Not a Stack of Resumes
Once the ad works, the next failure mode is the owner reading resumes at midnight and winging interviews.
Tony’s hiring filter starts with two blocks you answer on a recording before candidates ever get your calendar:
- Top three reasons someone would enjoy working at your company.
- Top three reasons someone should not apply — or would not be a fit.
Be honest about hours, holidays, benefits, physical work, and standards. Answer the questions people always ask in interviews so you are not repeating yourself fifty times. At Tony’s company, candidates watch a long, unedited video about the business and expectations. That length is intentional: it sorts for people willing to invest attention before you invest yours.
The next step is not “read every resume.” It is: can this person read and follow instructions? You are the employer. You set the process. You are looking for people who want an opportunity you can teach — not only people you can buy out of another contractor’s truck on price.
Stop Defaulting to “Must Have Experience”
Tony is direct on this: hiring primarily for experience is often a signal that you do not have a training system.
When every posting demands an experienced foreman, you tell the market you cannot develop people, and you risk leapfrogging crew members who already know your standards. Some people will grow into leadership. Many good producers will not want that path — and that is fine.
He told the story of Louis, a lawn maintenance technician who stayed in that role for about a decade: fast on site, valuable to the crew, never interested in driving or stepping into English-heavy leadership. He also described Manuel, a welder who stayed a welder for twenty-five years and earned more through tenure and benefits, not title changes. Retention is not only a promotion ladder. It is also a system that rewards people who want consistency, security, and a clear job done well.
If someone cannot meet the qualifications of the role, cut them and make room for someone who will. Teaching is the daily mindset. Babysitting forever is not.
Build a Youth and Internship Pipeline
Tony’s second recruiting lever is age and attitude, not only ad copy.
He argued that contractors who only chase fully formed field hands miss a large group of younger workers — and that building an ongoing internship or apprenticeship program is how you grow people who learn your way of working. His company invested in documenting a youth internship model (recognized in Georgia as a benchmark program in the episode’s telling), stayed connected to local high schools and colleges, and aimed to keep roughly 5–10% of the workforce as people new to work — not a one-time intern from three years ago who “didn’t work out.”
The episode’s outcome story: of about a dozen interns brought in around 2020–early 2021, several moved full-time after school, and most of those full-time hires were still with the company years later with strong work ethic and trust.
Part-time scheduling objections are common (“we need bodies on the site all day”). Tony’s counter is that the belief is optional. If you want a pipeline, you design work and training for it. You also accept that many young hires will stay months or a few years, not forever — and that teaching them still beats perpetual panic hiring.
Keep Great Employees: Tenure Beats Forced Promotion
Keeping people starts with honesty about what “great” means.
Not every A-player wants the next title. Some want to be excellent at the job they already have. Build benefits and recognition that improve with tenure — vacation, holidays, respect for loyalty — so long service is something you talk about on the shop tour, not only a secret for managers.
Frequent Small Raises (Tony’s Retention Lever)
When the conversation turned to keeping people, Tony’s single sharpest tip was about pay timing, not a bigger Christmas bonus.
Most owners he hears from default to occasional dollar-an-hour bumps. On full-time hours that is real money — and it is often too chunky and too rare. His practice: raise more often, in smaller amounts.
Pattern from the episode (paraphrased):
- Probation and early milestones matter. If someone makes it to 30 days, increase. Again at 60. Again at 90.
- Amounts can be small — sometimes 15–25 cents an hour.
- In the first year, a solid hire may see four to six increases for showing up on time, getting along with the crew, and respecting company resources — not only for certifications or a new job title.
That is how you recognize people you can afford to keep before they drift to the next ad. It is a different tool than a mid-season “raise or I quit” negotiation. For handling stacked raise requests, budget windows, and A-player leverage without freezing your sold work, pair this with the How to Hardscape episode and guide featuring George Urvari of KTC on when employees ask for raises. Tony’s frequent small raises are especially useful as an early-tenure retention system. George’s annual cycle is about stopping hallway renegotiation. Use both deliberately; do not confuse them.
Family, Ownership, and an Escape Plan
Tony also pushed back on the idea that building with family is automatically a mistake. His Chick-fil-A / Truett Cathy story landed on a simple question: if you are going to build something that lasts, why not build it with the people who matter most — and why do we celebrate sell-outs more than companies that reach a second or third generation?
That does not mean no boundaries. Roles still need clarity (his example: father running shop / truck construction while Tony ran CEO and marketing). And if family members are co-owners, you still need an ownership escape plan: stock, an annual valuation method tied to cash flow and proven income, and buyout rules so someone can leave without destroying the company. The same mindset applies to ending employee relationships cleanly when the fit is no longer good for both sides.
Systems again: how you start a relationship and how you end one both need a process.
How to Start This Week
- Rewrite one live job ad. Lead with a benefit-forward headline (test Tony’s “Fresh Start Working Outdoors” or a tight variant), then outdoor work, then the real hours and standards. Stop leading with the internal job title alone.
- Record a screening video that covers top reasons to join, top reasons not to apply, pay/benefits shape, and how a first week looks. Send it before you book interviews.
- Add one follow-instructions step between interest and interview so you are not sorting only by resume polish.
- Decide what you teach. If every opening requires an experienced foreman, you are advertising a training gap. Sketch the first 30 days of teaching for a capable beginner.
- Open or revive an internship lane with a local school so 5–10% of your headcount can be new-to-workforce over time.
- Map early-tenure raises at 30 / 60 / 90 days in small increments for people who clear the basics — then keep your annual raise policy clear for everyone else so mid-season asks do not run the company.
- If family or co-owners are in the mix, write the escape plan: valuation method and buyout path, not only good intentions.
If you want the full conversation — including the industry stats, client ad test, internship results, and book walkthrough — listen to Finding, Hiring, and Keeping Great Employees with Tony Bass on the How to Hardscape Podcast. For the written playbooks he mentioned, start with The E-Myth Landscape Contractor and The Landscaper’s Guide to Finding, Hiring, and Keeping Great Employees (links in the episode show notes; verify the current Super Lawn Trucks / Tony Bass site URL before you buy).