Employees who deal directly with customers can be a company's best asset or its biggest drawback. Effective management of those employees could make
all the difference.

Owning and operating a landscape business, or any business for that matter, necessitates wearing many different hats – one of which is managing and mentoring employees. And in the green industry where most of the employees are on the front lines, dealing directly with customers, effective management of those employees is critical to the success of a business.

"The people in your company who are dealing with your customers are where the rubber meets the road," says Peder Johnsen, CEO of Concordis Senior Living, www.concordisseniorliving.com, which owns, operates and develops senior housing communities.

Johnsen's grandfather and father built one of the first contemporary-style assisted living facilities in Florida more than 30 years ago. Johnsen took over administration of two small facilities at age 18 and today runs all of the company's ALFs.

"We developed certain practices over the decades," he says. "These practices work in any business because they keep the leadership actively involved in what's going well – and not – on the front lines, and provides a system for regular communication through all layers of the company."

Johnsen offers these tips for management of employees.

• Identify the influencers in each work group. Within the various groups that make up your business, identify the key players – the people who influence others' behavior, whether or not they hold a title or official authority. Meet with them on a regular basis so you can stay plugged in to what's happening on the front lines.

• Identify areas that need improvement. Talk to them about systems and areas that need to be fixed, overhauled or eliminated, and about how team members are working together. They'll often have ideas for innovations. The idea is not to look for people or problems to blame, but to work together to develop solutions and improve the team's overall efforts.

"The information you get in speaking with these key players is invaluable," Johnsen says. "There may be nothing at all wrong, which is great, but these meetings give you, the CEO or manager, the information you need to constantly improve. It also reinforces the message to employees that they and their ideas are valued members
of the team."

• Figure out those "wildly important goals." You can have the best people in the field working for you, yet if they're not specifically guided to a certain goal, they are putting their time and effort toward an end that they're assuming is correct. CEOs and other upper-level managers have the 30,000-foot view, so it's up to them to guide everyone beneath them.

"Short-term priorities may change slightly or drastically on a regular basis," Johnsen says. "Your team may be self-sufficient, but their vision is limited to their daily duties. If they don't know that a goal or objective has changed, they can't work toward it."