Job shadowing is a tremendous learning tool for employees. By watching an experienced, successful worker, a new employee or student can see best practices in action and better understand how to apply them directly to a work situation.

But the same learning concept can be used by employers, too. In the Colorado landscape industry, company owners are often willing to share their experience and knowledge to enrich the industry overall. By sharing successes, they help elevate the level of professionalism and improve the reputation of landscape companies in general.

When recruiting employees, it's important to use more than just newspaper classified ads, online job sites, and your company website. You can use your network, on- and off-line, as well as community resources to actively search for that next great employee. 

Yesterday, President Obama signed a bill into law to fund the Federal Government through December 9. Unfortunately, the measure did not renew the H-2B returning worker exemption.

While the returning worker is now set to expire on October 1, the H-2B regulatory provisions that prevent DOL from enforcing corresponding employment and the ¾ guarantee, allow for the use of wage surveys, limit some DOL enforcement authority and provide for a 10-month season, will automatically be extended through December 9.

In the meantime, the Department of Homeland Security recommends that employers continue to include returning workers on H-2B petitions so that these workers can be removed from the cap count if Congress reinstates the H-B returning worker exemption later this year.

Your continued help in weighing in with Congress through emails, calls,and social media are greatly appreciated. Continued outreach will help us be successful in getting the returning worker exemption signed into law in December.

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Landscape companies that train their irrigation techs and offer other in-house training can get the job done more efficiently by enrolling employees at Pickens Technical College, Aurora. Classes are short, 9-week chunks of time. Instructor Bill Cary also ensures flexibility that helps students meet snow removal and other work obligations around class time. 

As Landscape Account Manager at All Phase Landscape, Inc., Shelley Kowalenko oversees maintenance of 90 separate properties. It’s her job to make sure turf, beds, trees and general maintenance of all 90 sites live up to customer expectations. Says Kowalenko, “I would have never been able to hold such a position without the plant material, landscape maintenance, pruning, irrigation and general horticulture knowledge I gained through the Pickens Technical College program.”

Once you know which jobs need to be filled, what you are able to pay, and how to describe the job, it’s time to get the word out. Writing a truthful and enticing job listing is a crucial step in your recruitment strategy and should take some thought.

Each year, Colorado State University’s flower trial garden conducts a program that evaluates the performance of different annual plant cultivars under Colorado’s unique Rocky Mountain environmental conditions. Those growing conditions include high altitude, wind, intense sunlight, drying winds, severe hailstorms, large fluctuations between day and night temperatures and a season-long need for irrigation. The annual trial consists of over 1,000 different cultivars of annual bedding plants. Plants are grouped by genus, arranged by color and grown in rows, side-by-side, in order to compare similar varieties.

On August 25, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its final Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues, which was meant to replace its 1998 Compliance Manual section on retaliation. 

Landscape company owners are sure to be affected by the upcoming federal overtime rule changes, which could affect the exempt status of employees. The new rule, which goes into effect December 1, 2016, is being challenged by several lawsuits. The National Association of Landscape Professionals has joined a coalition of businesses to challenge the rule.

In response to the lawsuits, US Labor Secretary Thomas Perez released a strong statement in support of the new rule and its implementation.

The Regulatory Relief for Small Businesses, Schools, and Nonprofits Act (HR 6094) would extend the deadline for implementation of and compliance with the new federal overtime rules. The new deadline would be June 1, 2017. A similar bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate.