3.1 Reasons to Join Us at Farwest and Grow Your Business
Meet us at the biggest and greenest Trade Show in the West! We look forward to seeing you August 20-22 at Farwest in Portland— an event offering countless opportunities to grow your business and advance your career. We will be there with three in-person educational sessions on extremely timely industry topics such as talent acquisition, management, human capital, and more that you will not want to miss. Get educated and up-to-speed in these sessions. WEDNESDAY, August 20th The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Green Industry – Paige Franks & Todd Downing Wednesday, August 20, 2025, 9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Room: B110 As innovations in technology, automation, and AI are on the rise, our ability to connect with and understand each other on a humanistic and emotional level declines. Now more than ever, emotional intelligence, or EQ, is a valuable and necessary skill in the workplace, especially in leadership. You will learn the following: What EQ is and its application in the workplace. How EQ influences and benefits the workplace. Resources and strategies for leaders and employees to improve, measure, and evaluate their EQ. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description THURSDAY, August 21st Managing and Motivating the Multi-Generational Green Industry – Paige Franks & Todd Downing Thursday, August 21, 2025, 9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Room: B110 For the first time in history, 5 generations collide in the workforce: The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. However, the workforce faces mass retirements from the Baby Boomer generation every day. Generation Z is quickly infiltrating the industry, and Millennials are stepping up to take over the preceding leadership positions, bringing new ideas surrounding technology, management and communication styles, company culture, and personal and professional values and expectations. In this seminar, we will share various perspectives inspired by professionals across the four prominent generations in the workforce today (Boomers, X, Millennials, and Z) providing insight into what once was versus today’s reality. You will learn the following: What the current understanding of the state of the industry is from the perspective of each generation, as well as thoughts and feelings on these changes How leaders are managing and accommodating today’s workplace standards on company culture, communication, and work-life balance Advice and insight on best practices when it comes to working alongside various generations and implementing and embracing change. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description Capital Risks When You Have Limited Resources – Michael Maggiotto Thursday, August 21 @ 1:30 pm, Room B110 Are your people generating unnecessary risks to your business? Do you struggle managing people risks because of limited resources? Simple mistakes can cost a company millions or even end a business altogether. However, solutions to these risks may be easier than you think. You will learn the following: key risk areas within the green industry, ranges of costs for compliance violations, costly impact of turnover, the positive impact of efficiency improvements, and best practices and remedies for overcoming these challenges. This session will help business leaders and HR professionals identify and overcome these risks and understand the safe harbor afforded by having an independent 3rd party audit of human capital risks. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description A “plus” reason to attend— Connect with The BEST Team in person at Farwest! Their focus will be to make themselves available to meet with leaders wanting to discuss their company’s executive hiring, succession planning, restructuring, and turnaround needs. With decades of experience in corporate management, sales, marketing, human resources, exit planning, and business advisory, BEST specializes in talent acquisition and management consulting for the horticulture industry. If you represent a company that needs executive hiring, restructuring professionals, or succession planning, please make an appointment to meet with us anytime throughout the show. Contact us today, and may you have a great Farwest Show! View or Download Our Best Overview to learn more about the BEST Human Capital & Advisory Group and why there is a better way! We look forward to seeing you in Portland at Farwest!
6.1 Reasons to Join Us at Cultivate’25 and Grow Your Business
Cultivate is the event we look forward to most in our industry, so we look forward to seeing you July 12-15th at Cultivate’25 in Columbus, Ohio— the Green Industry event offering countless opportunities to grow your business and advance your career. We will be there with SIX in-person educational sessions on extremely timely industry topics such as talent acquisition, management, succession, exit planning, and more that you will not want to miss. Get educated and up-to-speed in these sessions. SATURDAY, JULY 12th Managing & Motivating the Multi-Generational Green Industry (Multi-Generational Panel) – 9:00 AM ET • Panel Discussion – Moderator: Paige Franks For the first time in history, five generations collide in the workforce: The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. Generation Z is quickly infiltrating the industry, and Millennials are stepping up to take over the preceding leadership positions, bringing new ideas surrounding technology, management and communication styles, company culture, and personal and professional values and expectations. In this panel, professionals across the four prominent generations in the workforce share their experiences, providing perspective and insight into what once was versus today’s reality. Join Paige Franks and a great panel of horticultural industry leaders to learn what the current understanding of the industry is from each generation’s perspective. How leaders manage and accommodate today’s workplace standards on company culture, communication, and work-life balance. Advice and insight on best practices when working alongside various generations. How generations view what is important in company benefit programs. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description Game-Changing Trends in Recruiting Talent (PANEL) – Saturday, July 12 • 1:00 PM ET • Panel Discussion – Moderator: Harrison Downing What are the trends in 2025 in how we connect with potential talent to gain their interest? The latest recruiting and interviewing trends differ vastly from those in past years. But why the notable change? Along with the uncertain times we live in, we are experiencing generational workforce changes that bring with them new values, attitudes, behaviors, and expectations of employees. Change, especially with technology, is constant and faster than ever. The panel will share insights on the top trends shaping how companies in our industry recruit and assess candidates during the interview process. Attendees will learn how to optimize marketing strategies to reach candidates, how to balance virtual vs in-office approaches, how to assess candidate fit for behaviors and culture, and even what your company branding means in hiring. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description Trends Changing Why Employees Stay with You! Saturday, July 12 • 2:30 PM ET • Moderator: Todd Downing Today’s workforce consists of five generations for the first time ever. Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. These generations were raised in different social, technological, and political atmospheres. Each generation corresponds to different childhood upbringings and family environments, which create different values, behaviors, and needs as employees. How do we engage our teams to be fulfilled in their job and remain passionate about your company? The panel will share insights on the 2025 trends shaping how they keep their teams of all generations motivated, engaged, and with them! Learn why retention starts at the top, what onboarding programs are successful with retention, how Training & Development programs are changing to meet the varying learning styles of employees, and how adjustments to Benefits, such as PTO, align with what employees want in 2025. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description SUNDAY, JULY 13th Growing Forward: Release and Review of the 2nd Annual State of Succession and Exit Planning in the Horticulture Industry Report – 4:00 PM ET • Speakers: Chris Cimaglio & Ken Lane How prepared are you—and your peers—for succession or exit? What does life after business ownership look like? And in today’s market, how may economic and industry challenges influence long-term business strategies? Until now, getting answers to these questions has been a challenge. In this interactive session, bridge the knowledge gap with key insights from the PivotPoint Business Solutions 2nd Annual State of Succession and Exit Planning in the Horticulture Industry Report that was sponsored by Greenhouse Grower magazine. Key Takeaways: Assess your readiness in real-time by benchmarking against your peers across eight key business drivers. Discover how critical industry-wide issues—including the impact of immigration, tariffs, climate change, insurance costs, and access to capital—may affect operational decisions. Gain expert guidance on best practices to ensure a smooth transition and avoid common regrets. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description MONDAY, JULY 14th 2025 Trends in Compensation and Benefits to Attract, Retain, and Motivate Top Talent Monday, July 14 • 10:45 AM ET • Panel Discussion – Moderator: Michael Maggiotto Over the past few years, compensation has accelerated faster than historical norms. Even as the rate of compensation increases begins to pull back, many are unaware of the intricacies of compensation and benefit design. Is it just about paying a salary we once paid five or 10 years ago, or offering the same benefits every year? Well, not if we want to attract, retain, and motivate top talent, it isn’t. Attendees will learn 2025 trends affecting compensation design to attract talent and keep up with the cost of living. Gain knowledge in identifying what benefit trends are working well in attracting and, importantly, keeping talent as generations of workers shift. Understand strategies to keep a company competitive without breaking the bank! Be ready to share, as we will be looking for the audience to provide their best practices–after all, you are the ones who drive the trends. Save Your Seat – Click here for a Session Description TUESDAY, JULY 15th Succession & Exit Planning: What’s Your Endgame for a Regret-Free Business Exit (Extended Session & Workshop) Tuesday, July 16 • 9:00 AM ET • Speakers & Moderators: Chris Cimaglio, Ken Lane, Larry Turow, and an Expert and Peer Panel “Begin with the end in mind.” What’s your endgame? Every business owner will eventually
The Never-Ending Puzzle of Compensation & Benefits in Horticulture
For all the wonderful attributes our Green Industry brings to our world and the careers of its employees, we continue to be highly challenged in attracting and retaining qualified talent. There are many Human Resource solutions to improving and retaining talent flow. Unfortunately, no one magic answer will fit all companies or their employees. Additionally, one topic in the equation is often uncomfortable or sensitive to discuss: compensation. In developing an attractive compensation and benefits program, it is important to understand the current economics involved, where to keep educated on compensation and benefits trends, set your specific company total rewards plan, and execute in an engaged manner with your valued team. The Economics We recently hired several positions across the country that were quite challenging due to the compensation set being below market. It is notable that compensation was not below market five to seven years ago, but more importantly, the compensation for these roles has not increased since then. Why does this matter in attracting talent? Understanding the economics of The CPI inflation calculator, which uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, sheds light on why. This data represents changes in the prices of all goods and services purchased for consumption by urban households. A $65,000 Head Grower salary in January 2017 has the same buying power as $84,395.69 in September 2024. A salesperson’s salary of $80,000 in January 2019 has the same buying power as $100,210.80 in September 2024. These CPI numbers do not consider the additional increase effect of our country’s high cost of living areas. As compensation relates to retention, turnover costs companies six to nine months of an employee’s salary on average to replace them. Recent research by Harvard University revealed that increasing pay among warehouse workers by just one dollar per hour resulted in a 2.8% retention boost. Results also showed that every dollar-per-hour pay loss caused a 28% increase in turnover. While lower inflation may ease some pressure, many organizations are still catching up from the past couple of years of cost-of-living adjustments. Balancing real earnings growth with competitive compensation will be vital to moving forward, especially in industries still feeling the pinch. Employees continue to struggle to get ahead from the high inflation years, and employers must keep that in mind. When merit increases exceed inflation/cost of living, employees gain. Then, when inflation/cost of living exceeds merit increases, employees lose. While many employers have provided higher increases in the past couple of years, more is needed to keep up with inflation. As a result, it takes employees a few years to recover from higher inflation times. However, employees seem to forget that they make up ground when increases are higher than inflation; eventually, it all balances out. Many companies focus on adjusting pay based on market competitiveness and talent retention rather than on inflation alone. Every organization needs to look at their own situation and not just what everyone else is doing. The hope is that lower inflation facilitates more substantial salary increases. Typically, most employers see it as an opportunity to lower salary increases. If they do, they might struggle to attract and retain talent. We know we have been in a talent shortage for many more years simply because of the lack of people to fill the jobs continuously becoming more available due to massive baby boomer retirements. Where to Remain Educated One of the best ways to keep up with compensation and benefits trends is to read industry reports from reputable sources such as SHRM, WorldatWork, Mercer, or Willis Towers Watson. These reports provide insights into the current and future state of rewards, including salary surveys, benefits benchmarks, best practices, and emerging issues. Gather market data for your jobs that is specific to the demographics of where your company is located. (HR associations, staffing firms, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are excellent resources for this information.) Review the going rates for similar positions within comparable industries, companies, and geographies to establish your pay scale. Conduct a study like this at least annually to ensure you can maintain competitive compensation for all employees. Develop a Total Rewards Strategy If you don’t have the salary budget to stay ultra-competitive, rest assured that there is more to the employee experience than compensation. Gone are the days when compensation or hiring decisions were made based on salary history; 22 states plus 23 localities and counting have passed legislation banning employers from asking candidates for this information or basing hiring or promotion on the candidate’s current compensation. Hiring managers: please do not ask this question any longer! Should the unemployment rate remain low for the next five to 10 years, labor shortages will persist, especially in industries such as horticulture that have a vast number of retirements occurring. That said, bumping salary budgets alone won’t be enough to address recruitment and retention challenges. As a result, employers need to be creative and comprehensive with their total rewards strategy, which comprises compensation, benefits, developmental opportunities, recognition, and other rewards that motivate staff and enable a top-notch employee experience. The best approach to identify which benefits will attract and retain your employees, especially with so many earlier generations joining the horticulture industry, is to simply ask them which benefits they would value! In a smaller company, this can be done with one-on-one conversation, and with a larger employee base, there are many effective survey resources to gather this feedback. Per SHRM, there are 216 benefits companies serving employees up from 175 just 2 years ago. Consider offering benefits that better match what your employees want today, such as health benefits, well-being and family caregiving support, pet insurance, and financial planning services in your total rewards strategy. Invest in workers’ professional development with the idea that you can enable brighter futures through upskilling, internal career paths, or debt-free education. To set employee pay, first, determine your pay philosophy. Do you want to lead, match, or lag the market? The most common
The Benefits of Improving Transparency in Hiring
Like all other aspects of business, hiring and recruitment continue to evolve faster and faster. Implementing AI, such as in the hiring process, will increase the efficiency of the process itself. There are hiring changes that are not technologically based occurring that, when properly applied, are proving to have a positive impact on attracting talent, increasing the retention of new hires, and helping companies become a preferred place for careers. At the top of this evolution in hiring is one simple yet too often ignored approach – transparency! What are the Benefits of a Transparent Recruitment Process? Companies that provide candidates with a fully transparent interview process find that over time, they attract better quality talent, increase offer acceptance rates, get new hires up to productivity faster, improve long-term retention rates, and create a stronger employer brand in their community and industry. All the benefits of transparency and authenticity are intertwined. Top talent candidates who experience transparency in the interview process from the beginning are more likely to stay engaged throughout the entire process. Due to the transparency of compensation and trust developed with candidates, offer acceptance increased. Candidates can make decisions on their compensation offer well ahead of the actual offer letter and are more likely to be flexible on their compensation expectations due to developing a trusting relationship. Once on board and with a thorough training plan, the new hires reach productivity levels faster and often exceed them. Perhaps most importantly, long-term retention rates increase, especially when coupled with a Training & Development program that was shared with them during interviews. Over time, professionals in a company’s community or within the industry hear of the positive culture, strengthening the overall employer brand. How to Implement Hiring Transparency: Transparency Begins Before the Interview Develop job descriptions that accurately reflect the role’s responsibilities and, more importantly, define metrics of success in the role. Job descriptions with a vast number of responsibilities will leave candidates wondering just what the role’s real priorities are, and they may not even bother to apply. Keep responsibilities reasonable and in a prioritized manner. Defining three specific and realistic key performance indicator (KPI) metrics is incredibly helpful to a candidate’s understanding of the role’s mission. It is a core component to increasing productivity once on board. What is a realistic KPI? An effective way to set a realistic KPI is to ask yourself: if the candidate does not achieve the KPI in one year, will I have to fire them? This may sound harsh, but it does result in companies setting KPIs that are realistic, thus influencing positive long-term retention. Help Candidates Prepare to be Their Best Communicate interview timelines, including all the interview steps. Doing so prevents candidates from leaving the process out of frustration. Change is constant, and these timelines can often get derailed due to other business priorities and scheduling conflicts, but communicating any changes immediately develops the candidate’s trust. Provide candidates with company information, an accurate overview of the culture, the names and titles of the interviewers, the type of interview questions the company asks, whether a behavioral assessment tool is utilized, and whether they will be required to present to the hiring committee. Candidates are equally responsible for a successful hiring process. However, providing details does not mean doing the candidate’s job of conducting thorough follow-up research on these details! A Conversation, Not an Inquisition Once candidate conversations begin, transparency is increased by having just that – a conversation. Included in this is realizing that no company is perfect, thus, be prepared to be authentic and share with candidates where the company is challenged and what about the role will not be a bed of roses for any candidate. Be prepared to share the onboarding process and exactly how your company invests in further professional training in their teams. Scripted questions lead to sterile conversation and scripted answers by candidates. We learn so much more about a candidate’s behaviors during a conversation rather than a scripted dialogue, as they are more at ease and able to be themselves as opposed to someone they think you want them to be. Timely & Quality Follow-up Providing quality feedback within 48 hours to a candidate in a timely manner may be the best transparency a company can practice. High-quality candidates will stay engaged with the hiring process to the offer end. Top talent that doesn’t receive thorough, timely feedback will exit the process to focus on other job opportunities. Thorough feedback includes sharing how many candidates are in process. This is a critical transparency step. Please do not tell candidates the age-old HR line that we are interviewing several other candidates and will get back to you, especially if you are not. Be transparent – is it one? Is it 5? Or are there no more candidates? Sharing quality feedback to candidates being turned down will help candidates grow professionally and leave a positive impression of your company with them for the future. This is an important way to build a positive company brand image in the community and industry. Transparency in Compensation and Benefits Gone are the days when compensation decisions were made based on salary history; 22 states plus 23 localities and counting have passed legislation banning employers from asking candidates for this information or basing hiring on the candidate’s current compensation. Hiring managers: please do not ask this question any longer. Transparency of compensation and benefits begins with their inclusion in the job description and extends through the final offer. This requires companies to invest time and resources to identify fair and accurate compensation for the role, industry, and geographic location. When setting the compensation range, be clear on what the absolute max is and what the absolute minimum is. Many great candidates are now passing over job descriptions that do not share this. Discuss the compensation range from the first interview and share benefit details. You are building trust and increasing efficiency by eliminating candidates who are over your
Who Wants to Be a Leader?
Do you have a specific career vision of becoming a company leader in the horticulture industry someday? Are you working on adding professional skill sets to enable you to take on C-level or leadership-level roles? As a company, have you invested in a definitive training and development program aimed at developing your next leaders? There is a leadership void in the horticultural industry that will critically need more leaders now and progressively into the future. The number of retirements occurring in the green industry is staggering. Did you know there are over 100 owners of green industry companies retiring soon who have no clear leader to succeed them? Per the USDA, in 2024, the average age of all agricultural producers is 58.1 years, and those over age 65 constitute 40% of the total. As an industry, we endured a period with historically low numbers of students and professionals interested in pursuing a green industry career. This period has created a talent gap in the upcoming generations, especially Gen X. The small number of professionals in this group are talented and knowledgeable. Still, it is merely a matter of supply and demand. There are not enough leaders to take over, and not enough professionals have been provided leadership training. Throughout every sector, demographic, and role in the green industry, there are fewer individuals who have a specific desire and career focus to lead a company. Compare this to the financial or software sectors, where a high volume of professionals have an early passion and focus on driving their careers to the top leadership roles in their industry. It is surprising how small the number of professionals in our industry is who are adequately prepared or willing to be a leader in their company. A dynamic affecting this is the sheer number of family-held companies where leadership has traditionally been passed to second or third generations. While this is admirable, it has also tempered the career aspirations of those not part of the family. We are now at a tipping point where there are fewer generations to pass leadership roles to, causing new and challenging exit planning options for the current leaders. A Mutual Effort Question: How do we address this predicament? Answer: From the mutual effort of individuals and companies. Encourage students and early career professionals to dream big and envision being a company leader. Leadership is not for everyone, provided all the responsibilities and challenges that come with it. However, we need more professionals who genuinely want to take on significant leadership roles with a company. Ask yourself— Have you allowed yourself to dream about this type of role? To have more leaders, we need more professionals who desire to take on a role of this level. With that desire comes the awareness that one must embrace continual learning with curiosity and accept certain sacrifices required to drive one’s career to a top leadership level. This could include putting in longer hours, the ability to relocate, and volunteering to take on new tasks or help in other departments when they are shorthanded. Professionals open to relocating for roles will indeed advance their careers faster! Academically, technical knowledge of plant science-related academia is essential. Yet infusing business knowledge is equally, if not more, important in developing future leaders. We have many excellent educational institutions producing knowledgeable students. Increasing the focus of these academic programs on developing leadership with curricula geared to business and management will provide a business base and inspire more students to do so. For example, we rightly celebrate our grower interns, but we should also celebrate those doing horticulture industry internships in sales, marketing, accounting, or human resources. Have a Plan If you want to lead a company, division, or department someday, identify within yourself the knowledge and skill sets needed to get there. Proactively take charge of gaining the knowledge and experience you lack rather than relying on others. There is just as much onus on companies to be a part of increased leadership development. This does require an investment in both money and time to be successful. Begin to balance your team’s professional development budget with your automation budget. No matter how automized, it still takes strong professionals leading from the front for a company to realize success. Many assessment tools, such as CliftonStrengths, DISC, and Myers-Briggs, are available to help a company identify individuals with future leadership behaviors. These tools will help craft a career plan to infuse them with the skill sets needed to be strong leaders. Does your company have career development planning that includes rotating top talent through different departments or functions? Companies that rotate talent through various departments produce the strongest leadership pipeline. At the very least, does the company invest in continual education or training programs focused on improving communication, soft skills, sales, marketing, financial, operations, or supply chain knowledge? Encourage and support these professionals to become active within the industry via associations, seminars, or other educational and networking events. Don’t be afraid of losing this talent to industry exposure. Several leadership programs have been developed specifically for our industry, such as Dr. Charlie Hall’s Texas A&M EAGL program and the HRI Leadership Academy. Professionals who know their company invests fully in their employee’s growth are much less likely to leave. Employees feeling stifled in their development will leap at the opportunity for growth elsewhere. Investing in the Future No company has an endless budget, but a company can apply strategies that do not require a monetary investment, such as transparency in your business and delegation of responsibilities. Openness with your employees about all facets of the business directly correlates to increasing their professional growth. For example, companies applying the “Great Game of Business” approach to transparency have more engaged, business savvy, and motivated employees concerning their career progression. Pairing high-potential employees with positive mentors will also benefit the mentors themselves by increasing organizational talent strength. Encourage delegating responsibilities and not micro-managing those who are assigned tasks. This must