The Edge March/April/May 2026

managing, we can act accordingly and get somebody in the door to help build out that capacity.” Milosi fills seats in relation to their rev enue goals. Salsbery says this allows their finance department to approve budgets and help them prioritize what seats are most important to fill first. McCarthy says one strategy they use is if they have a project where they don’t have a crew that can take it on, but they have applicants who want to work with them, they will split up the top two employees on one crew and put them on their own crews, and then add additional labor for them to spread the load across their crews. Work can become even more over whelming for employees if burnout causes some of your top performers to leave. When growth creates opportunity, it is key to reward these individuals by allowing them to rise through the ranks. “We find that top performers love an environment that is rapidly changing and growing,”Salsbery says. “The key is delegat ing responsibilities to our top performers at the right time. This acts like fuel and helps them learn a new skill or grow in another area of the business.” Sartori says providing stretch oppor tunities without overwhelming team members is one way to continue to help top performers feel valued. “Many of our leaders started in the field and grew with us,”Snyder says. “We also emphasize pay transparency, competitive benefits, performance bonuses, and an environment where people feel connected to the culture.” Sweeney adds that while competitive pay and benefits are necessary, you need to live out a company culture people want to be a part of. IMPLEMENTING SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES Before you start growing rapidly, make sure

impact response times they will proactively split it to create a new branch. “This helps maintain our culture, preserve strong customer relationships, and give emerging leaders room to grow,” Snyder says. For more short-term challenges, Mc Carthy says they’ll move teams around to support crews that are already overworked. PROACTIVE HIRING AND RETAINING TOP PERFORMERS If you want to protect your team from burnout, you can’t wait until workloads are unsustainable for your current crews. Sweeney says previously, they would hire once a role was needed, and the team was stretched thin. Now, they’ve started to hire for where the business will be in the next six to 12 months. Snyder says they monitor labor ratios, overtime trends, job costing, and customer needs closely so they hire proactively and meet those demands before the strain is too much for their teams. “Our field leaders play a big role in that process, providing real-time feedback on crew capacity and are quick to flag when their teams are nearing their limits,” Snyder says. “By combining data with on the-ground insight, we can plan staffing needs ahead of time and avoid the cycle of over-hiring and seasonal layoffs that’s common in our industry.” Sartori says some of their leading indi cators include backlog growth, overtime trends with hourly employees, crew utiliza tion, onboarding timelines and overall cli ent demands. He says they start backfilling additional capacity before employees get overwhelmed. “We’re always building a bench strength of A-player type candidates,” Sartori says. “That way, we’re ahead of the curve. If our leading indicators are telling us that this individual is getting a little bit overloaded in the amount of revenue that they’re

Photos: (Top left) Milosi (Top right and bottom) Ruppert Landscape

you have a strong organizational structure with clear roles and responsibilities. “In order to successfully scale, team members need to be trusted to do their part so that the entire business can move forward,”Sweeney says. “We find that when there is a weak or missing link and others have to fill dual roles, that’s when people get frustrated and burned out.” Sartori agrees that burnout often occurs when individuals are wearing too many hats. “We’re continually making sure that each person owns a piece of that business, whether it’s operations, sales or management, so that everybody has a key piece in that role, and there’s not too much overlap,” Sartori says. “The more overlap we have and people managing through those three key components of the business, the more people are spin ning out of control.” Snyder says consistent communication rhythms like daily huddles, weekly staff meetings, and monthly reviews keep everyone informed and connected. Mean while, their strong onboarding and training

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