How Much Should You Pay Your Lawn Care Workers and Employees

Hey, it’s Jonathan. The question is, “How much do you pay your lawn care crews and your employees?” I can’t give out specific numbers because we do have to keep some things private at our company. I will tell you that we’re in Texas, and depending where you are in the country, the numbers are going to vary.

Generally for crews, our numbers are going to range from $8 to $14 an hour. For our technicians that do the weed control and pest control services, we pay anywhere in the $20,000-$40,000 a year. Management level people make anywhere in the 30’s to 60’s just depending on who you are and what you contribute.

It’s all over the board, and it’s based on what they bring to the table. More and more we are shifting away from hourly and salary pay, to pay for performance. I think that you really want to strive for that. Pay for performance and bonuses comes with a lot of risk and challenges though. For example, if you’re not careful and you’re doing pay for performance, it can lead to lesser quality performance.

It’s real common in the industry to pay by the day. But, I’d encourage you to be very careful of the overtime loss. If you pay by the day, that does not get you around overtime.

With pay for performance, the same thing is true. If the crews are not making enough money after regular pay and overtime pay, you could get yourself into trouble. This is a sticky area it’s challenging.

It’s not uncommon for our competitors to pay workers $8/hr, $9/hr, $10/hr. It just depends. It’s not uncommon for them to pay foreman $12, $13, $14 an hour. It’s also not uncommon for spray techs to make in the 30’s. That’s in our market.

I don’t know how useful and helpful that is for you. We tend to pay above average and we have very low turnover. We take really good care of our guys and they have the potential to make more money as they do more for the company so long as the quality does not deteriorate.

Feel free to ask a more specific question if you’d like and I’ll try to give you as much information as I can. Thanks.

 

 

One Reply to “How Much Should You Pay Your Lawn Care Workers and Employees”

  1. Hello so here’s my situation, I am starting a lawn care business I have 6000 for buying everything I need, but I’m scared I might screw up somewhere. Any tips suggestions pointers. And i am trying to go huge with this just as yourself.

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