Mike AndesFounder, Augusta Lawn Care and Homeworks · Founder of Homeworks and Augusta Lawn Care

Do you think PIP's work? #lawncarebusiness #lawnmowingbusiness #homeservicebusiness #podcast

8 Apr 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:41

In this YouTube monologue, Mike Andes critiques the typical use of Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) in the lawn care and home‑service industry. He argues that PIPs have roughly a 20% chance of success and are often perceived by employees as a prelude to termination. While he acknowledges rare cases where PIPs spur radical improvement, he believes they are most useful when a manager’s performance has been temporarily hampered by personal life circumstances. Andes recommends an indirect approach: involving an external coach who can convey performance concerns to the general manager (GM) without the manager hearing it directly from the owner. He emphasizes that the most effective PIPs are metric‑based, focusing on concrete targets such as weekly budgeted hours, growth metrics, and on‑target earnings (OTE). He explains that when a GM’s base salary is high, tying performance to OTE—e.g., a base of $70k should translate to $105k OTE—creates clear expectations, and falling short (e.g., earning $103k) signals underperformance. Additionally, he stresses monitoring efficiency scores, especially after price increases, to ensure locations become more efficient. Overall, Andes advocates for clear, data‑driven standards and external coaching to improve GM performance rather than relying on traditional PIPs.

Chapters

I will say PIPs are like a 20% chance of working. Usually when you give someone a PIP, it's kind of like the way of saying you're fired. To me, that's how they hear it. I have had some PIPs work and like people make a radical change, but it's very rare. So I am much more now of the opinion like I'm either going to fire this person or I think sometimes PIPs have been helpful when someone comes out of like a life circumstance that has negatively impacted their professional performance. And I need the PIP to kind of like, hey, just FYI, you're not up to standard. Like, can you kick it back into gear? One thing I would really lean into is talk to a coach and be like, hey, my GM has had this problem. I'm gonna have him book a call with you and I kind of need to go over these things. Like the indirect approach, right? That's the nice thing about Augusta is like I've had that before too where like, hey, I want my GM to hear this and so I'm going to slide some notes to the coach and then they're hearing from someone else. The thing that is the easiest is when it's metric-based. Like they're not hitting the number of budget hours per week. They're not, they aren't hitting growth metrics. Like those are the easiest things to do. But sometimes if your base pay is high enough for a general manager, they don't really care because like they're happy with 70 grand a year. So what we've done in my locations is when we give them our on-target earnings, that is actually the standard. Anything below that becomes like a derogatory remark again. So when I say, hey, your base is 70, you should have $105,000 based on on-target earnings. If you make $103,000, that's like, you did not do good. Like the location should be improving. Like especially in your profit mode, you're raising prices, like things should be becoming more efficient. And so I would really get clear with what on-target earnings are and then what on-target metrics are. So like, hey, this location should be improving efficiency score 'cause we raised prices and your budget hours went up.