If you specialize or work in the tree care industry, you know how important it is to stay on top of trends to not only keep your business and employees safe, but to also growing your business and staying ahead of the competition.
In a recent webinar, NIP Group’s tree care industry experts Tom Doherty and Tim Greifenkamp were joined by Tim Walsh, President of the Utility Arborist Association (UAA), to recap 2022 and look forward to 2023. Here are our top takeaways.
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Mechanization is a Big Opportunity
While it was determined that tree care professionals were providing an essential service during the pandemic, the emotional toll of COVID-19 was still felt by many – if not all – in the industry. Now, nearly three years later, we are still feeling the effects, but there are opportunities for success in this new industry climate.
“We’re seeing a lot of increases in mechanization around tree removal as well as pruning. We’ve seen a lot of work on ash trees with the emerald ash borer — a lot of trees with higher risk in climbing and dealing with them [the insects],” said Walsh.
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Engage Existing Employees to Help Your Business Grow
It’s always been difficult to recruit and retain tree care employees, but during the pandemic it’s become even more challenging. When you add in mechanization, Walsh explains, it’s even more important to keep the employees you have because it’s hard to keep things going when you have expensive equipment but no one to run it.
Not to mention it’s much cheaper to keep an existing employee than to recruit, hire, and train someone new. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the cost of losing an employee range from 16% of their yearly pay for hourly employees to a whopping 213% of the salary for a highly trained position.
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Train Existing Employees to Reduce Risk
It’s also imperative to train the employees that you have to reduce the risk to your business. The combination of mechanization and a younger workforce resulted in more claims for employees that have less training using newer pieces of equipment and causing loss, Doherty said.
Something that stuck out to Greifenkamp in 2022 was drivers hauling this heavy equipment but, again, without the proper training on following distances, etc. “We end up with some pretty significant rear end-type auto accidents,” explained Greifenkamp.
Doherty found that equipment-in-use rollovers spiked this year, like with bigger, heavier equipment like saws mounted onto trucks and lighter cranes mounted onto lighter vehicles. He added that sometimes it’s a simple lapse of judgment from being short-staffed and trying to complete work quickly, but it can result in a costly claim.
Looking Towards 2023
The webinar wasn’t all about learnings from 2022, though. The panel also covered what to expect in 2023 – specifically updates coming to ANZI Z133 standard.
Watch the full webinar below or on-demand.