The snow season brings its challenges — I won’t sugar coat it. It’s cold, the hours are unpredictable, sometimes we have to work all night. But, like just about everything in life, you get what you are looking for. If you look at all the reasons it stinks, you’re going to be miserable.

For us to grow our business and keep people employed year-round, performing snow services is consistent with the Grunder Landscaping Co. mission statement: To create opportunities for our team to grow and succeed by enhancing the beauty and value of every client’s property while exceeding their expectations every step of the way.

The challenges I listed above were the exact reasons why my team was resistant about getting into snow removal for years. They were afraid that it would be too hard on our team, our trucks and our equipment. But a few years later, we have a significant commercial snow operation and our team is now onboard with our plan and genuinely gets excited when some snow is in the weather forecast. It all came down to shifting our mindsets.

Paying snow premiums

Compensating our team well for working winter events is a key part of our strategy. It softens the blow that you may have to come into work at 2 a.m. when you know that you’ll make a lot of money doing it. Our team members earn an additional 30% on top of their normal wage. If they hit overtime hours, they also earn overtime pay. While these two numbers don’t compound (i.e., they don’t earn 30% of their time-and-a-half rate), they stack up to a generous hourly rate for each snow or ice event.

Everyone is involved

Our sales manager runs a sidewalk crew; our president operates a snow pusher; and I drive from site to site to make sure crews have energy drinks, water and snacks.

Every team member is involved in snow and ice events in some way. Maybe they’re helping set out snacks the team can grab when they report in; stepping outside of their usual role and working on a crew; or taking over tasks from a teammate to free them up to go out in the field. On our team, everyone pitches in.

A clearly communicated vision

We got into snow and ice management because we wanted to provide year-round employment; and we felt like that was important to do in order to retain team members from season to season. We’ve been super clear that snow and ice events help us to make it through the winter with our full team employed.

Bring the hype

We take pictures and celebrate our team as they’re doing snow removal work. We get excited ourselves because excitement is contagious. Beyond pictures of the big snow piles, we remind our team that iceonly events are exciting, too. No matter the event, if we’re able to have onsite time billed to clients in the winter, it’s a win for the company and for our team.

As I type this, we just had a small event and one of our managers ran his whole route by himself because it was on the weekend and his team had family plans. It was a lot of extra work for him, and we acknowledged it to the whole team. His team appreciated him filling in for them and our team got a little bit stronger in the process.

Keeping morale up has been a critical part of our success, and it’s something I see other successful companies doing well when I visit them through my work at The Grow Group.

You’ll be seeing a column from me in Snow Business in 2024, and I look forward to sharing more ideas to help you be successful. In the meantime, keep up with me at @growgroup_ on Instagram or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Marty Grunder is founder of Grunder Landscaping Co. and The Grow Group coaching firm.