I Told my Employees to LEAVE

This morning at our local Augusta Lawn Care location, we had orientation for 12 new employees. And I actually told them in this meeting, it's their first day of work. We have a whole day of orientation and training, etc. And I spoke to them for maybe 15, 20 minutes at the very beginning. And in that part of me talking to them, I literally say this statement. I do not want you to be working here in three years. You say, why in the world would you say that? The whole goal of hiring is to retain employees and keep them for a long time and keep them happy and see them grow and have a family, and hopefully they stay with you for 10 or 15 or 20, build their whole career with you. I actually say that if you are working here within three to five years, I have failed you as a boss. Why do I say that? Because I truly believe that the first step to irrelevance is complacency. I believe that someone getting in a rut of the same position, the same type of responsibilities, the same job title for years on end is the first step towards stagnation and eventual death. Now you say, well, how? Like, why is it so dramatic? Why would you say that to frontline employees? Because these are workers. These are out in the field, frontline staff that mow lawns, install mulch, trim bushes. Why would I say that to these employees that are going to be working hard and telling them, hey, I don't want you to be here in three years? The reason is because we've created a culture where I'm going to repel individuals that just want to stay status quo. They just wanted to stay stagnant. They don't want to improve themselves. They don't want to listen to audiobooks or podcasts. They don't want to try to achieve or push their boundaries or push their skill sets to be able to lead, manage, and sell. If they don't want to do that, I don't want them around. I'm going to repel them as much as possible by saying, look, within the next three years, I expect you to not work here. Either A, you're going to move up inside the organization because of the skills offered, or. Or B, you're gonna take those skills and you're gonna do something cool with them. So at Augusta Lawn Care, the reason I don't want them to be mowing lawns in three years is cause I want them to either have moved up to a management position, I want them to go start their own Augusta Lawn Care location, or I want them to go and get a better job someplace else. I said this morning, I told these frontline employees, you do not want to be mowing lawns for the next 10 to 15 years of your life. You do not. This is not a good career decision. I said that. And some of you are like, well, that's demeaning. You're like, putting them down. No, I'm being realistic instead of saying, oh, you're gonna build your career here, we wanna have a family, and for the next 10 years you can work here. That's not true. And the ideology is almost damaging to an employer. When in your mindset, you're trying to keep employees for long, long periods of time and they're frontline employees, you're robbing yourself mentally and all the energy and emotionally, you're gonna pour into that ideology and you're robbing the employees because they need to move ahead in their career. They should not be at an entry level position for multiple years on end if you've created a place, a place of work where they can come and work on their skills, their experience, and actually grow inside your company. Now, obviously, I would love to have these employees stay with us, move up inside the organization, become an estimator, a general manager, work within the franchise, or a command center creator, go start their own location. And we certainly highlight the individuals that have done that. The people that have moved to the organization start at the very bottom and work their way up. Marcus, General manager. Lee, selling franchises. Liz, operations manager. Lonnie, head of command center. These are all people that moved up from the bottom, including people like Nick and Austin and Tyler that have gone and actually started their own location after working out in the field. And again, sitting in that same meeting where I say, I don't want you to be here in three years if you were actually honest with your employees about this, instead of selling yourself and them on the idea that they're going to be at an entry level position for five or 10 years, you'd save yourself a lot of headache. And you just set them up to expect that they're going to get skills, experience, and the things required to get them to the next level of their career. The human body as an organism is constantly growing and evolving and changing, and the only time it stops doing that is the day of death. And so until somebody says, well, I don't consume podcasts, I don't try to improve, I'm happy in this position. I don't need to improve my skills. I don't want to, like, learn about selling or I Don't want to learn about financials or marketing. That stage of decline starts right there. That is the date of death. When as professionals, as employees, they begin to get in a state of stagnation and complacency and not pushing themselves anymore, not growing. An organism that is not growing is not constantly eating, consuming data, information, knowledge, education. That individual that in their physiology does not consume food and is constantly growing, shedding new cells, growing new cells. If that's not happening, they die. The same thing is true in business, your employees and for your business. Because the day that your business becomes stagnant, the day that you become complacent as an owner, not content, I love contentment. That is the goal and in my opinion, the standard of success. But complacency is extremely different than contentment. I can be content, but yet every single day show up to work wanting what's better for my employees, better for the business, and trying to constantly change, improve and grow. Now this is not only for the employees at frontline level positions for the franchisees of Augusta Lawn Care. We also are pushing them to think about the next stage of their wealth journey. And we actually have the seven steps of the wealth journey inside of Augusta Nation. Why? Because I don't want them to think about mowing lawns and getting more customers just now. That's fine, that's good. But I also am looking down the road in the fact that eventually they've got to diversify into other asset classes. They've got to figure out how to take control of their own personal finances and start investing in stocks or real estate. These are things we're already starting to think about because I, I don't want them just to be mowing lawns for the next 10 to 15 years. And I don't want them to have five or 10 employees also just mowing lawns and making a great profit margin on their business, but having no idea how to tax, efficiently invest that money. So what are we doing? We're not allowing complacency. We're constantly trying to improve, grow and change. Now if all of this sounds good and you're like, yes, I need to do that with my employees, we need to have constant improvement. We're going to have an audible program now. We're going to have optional meetings and we're going to do open book management, we're going to do P4P. All of that is good and fine. But if you as an owner cannot look yourself in the mirror and do the same exact thing and hold yourself to that standard, you cannot expect them to be listening to audiobooks and listening to podcasts and improving themselves and trying to hone their skills of selling and honing their skills of business. If you yourself cannot hold yourself to that same standard, I believe that up and down the chain of command, there must be a sense of urgency and commitment as well as holding each other accountable to making ourselves better. I expect those employees to become better, get more skills, get the experience and move up in their career. They should in turn expect their managers, and those managers should expect myself to hold that in front as the standard bearer of what leadership really is, is truly leading out in front of your employees what you expect of them. And if I expect them to not be in the same position in three to five years, that means that I too cannot expect myself to stay stagnant in what I know, what I've learned, and what I've always thought is right. And in the next three to five years, I've got to constantly be challenging myself, learning myself, and constantly adapting and growing. Because the stages of death are as follows. Stagnation leads to complacency, which leads to irrelevance, which leads to death. It happens in every business, every organism, and every organization. And I encourage you to push against that status quo. And you might be thinking, well, you must treat your employees great, and everything's just hunky dory. Check this video over here where actually I tell you about the story of how I have not given a single pay raise to those frontline employees for several years. Seems crazy. Check it out. Followed by ah, snap. Followed by and.