Valleybrook Gardens had been in business for about 38 years and it was one of those companies where many staff had worked for between 15 and 25 years. The outside staff, who were responsible for most of the manual labour of planting, moving plants and entire crops, watering and cleaning the perennials were Punjabi women. This was a loyal and very hardworking team, that also had enormous care for others, was collaborative in their working style and valued community highly. There was also a union.

When I arrived in the Spring of 2017, among the myriad of important things I learned, was how challenging it was to provide daily rotations for the entire outside team, which could be upwards of 80 people. This was the source of many grievances, because the ladies paid a lot of attention to just how fairly the rotation of jobs was handled among those who did not have posted positions. The management team really tried very hard to have the allocation of work be as fair and well rotated as possible, and it was as frustrating for them as it was for the ladies when this was not achieved in a way everyone felt was equitable.

Not having been there for very long (just a few weeks), I could hear what a Big Deal it was and obviously, because there was a union, it was felt to be an even bigger deal than would otherwise be the case. Big Deals like this always interest me. Why is it such a big deal? Is it something that impacts what the customer receives, or is it one that impacts staff significantly? When I asked a management supervisor what the story was, he said “oh the ladies are just always complaining”. That really wasn’t an answer for me – I wondered why no one was ever happy with the rotation that has been worked out? Would a different type of rotation gain more acceptance? Curiosity truly peaked, I had to dive in to see “what I saw”.
What happened really quickly was that I realized that “while it looked like the work rotations were the issue”, there was something much more specific that was the problem. In fact, as the mystery started unraveling for me, I wondered if the real problem, if resolved, may forever diminish the level of focus of the team on who was doing which job when. But I am getting ahead of myself …

One of the tougher jobs at the nursery, particularly if you have to do this hour after hour, is what is called “setting out”. Basically you are taking trays of pots – for the larger pot size a tray has 8 pots and weigh up to 25lbs – off a trailer, walking into a greenhouse and then placing it in a particular spot in the house. Sometimes the trailer could be driven into the house a bit, but then all the trays had to be taken off by hand to be placed on the floor – 1,200 trays per greenhouse. So lots of bending to place 1,200 trays on the ground.

Taking all this in, I immediately had a question – why, when this is such a tough job (I got in there and did it myself for some hours – back breaking and really hot work!!!), was only one lady doing it at a time? It was the first time I had ever seen the outside staff working alone. I wondered how much they liked working alone when everywhere else on the nursery they worked together in pairs or in teams and seemed to enjoy collaborating like that. I had lots of questions. Talking to many of the ladies over many days, I pieced together that at some time in the past, Setting Out had been done in pairs and then in a more recent season, that had changed. I also found out that the staff found the job extremely tough, particularly working alone and this was the main reason that everyone was so focused on the daily rotation of THAT job.

At the end of the day, this one task – SETTING OUT – that had been reduced from two to one field staff person apparently to improve productivity, became the vortex for much unhappiness, conflict and a scheduling issue daily. I immediately allowed two field staff to work together on this task, which halved the load for each person and made the team very happy to have a partner to work with. Part of this decision included understanding that by doing this, I was impacting productivity negatively and had two less staff for other areas of the nursery. My view was that the productivity gain was not worth all the upset. As I suspected it would, the death grip and grievances on the rotation of jobs faded away. What a relief!

Prior to the next season, we posted the SETTING OUT Positions. These roles paid more per hour and gave the worker more guaranteed months of work each year, making it an attractive role for those who enjoyed working alone in a physically challenging job. Having people who actually wanted to do that work made an enormous difference. By far the most significant difference made though was in the overall happiness of the outside staff, because they had been heard, their concerns were valued and necessary changes were made. The impact of this support for the team changed the dynamic at Valleybrook. It was the start of a new journey and wonderful success.