Short excerpt from a YouTube video (creator: Mike Andes) discussing hiring and pay strategies for lawn care crew members. The speakers contrast guaranteed hourly wages with a pay-for-performance model, noting local market caps (~$18/hr typical) and that top performers on pay-for-performance can earn $23–$25+/hr.
Now we'll go back to hiring. He wanted. He wanted 60 hours a week, which I could not. You know, I'm not giving that to him. And he was just average, right? Like, whatever. And then he said, or you could pay me like, 22 or $23 an hour, and that would balance out. Well, my. My whole thing with that is like, show me a 22 or $23 an hour resume. Crew worker is not 22 or $23 an hour. There are no landscape companies around here that pay their crew members more than 18 bucks an hour. $18 an hour is the highest that I've seen. We are definite. I'd say the high highest, 25%.
The reason we didn't hire this employee is because we use pay for performance, where everyone's guaranteed at least 18 to $20 an hour. However, if they're high performer, they get a percentage of all the revenue they make for the business. And a lot of our high performers do make over 23, 24, $25 an hour. However, if we guaranteed this guy as a base pay at 23, we'd kind of be throwing all the people under the bus that work really, really hard to earn that 23 or $24 an hour on pay for performance.
