Quality Control

Part of our mission is to ‘enhance the environment with reliable, high quality landscape services’. To ensure that happens, we have a highly educated and experienced team and solid work systems in place for all to follow, both in our office and in the field. This means that everyone one of our field team members outlined above will be on the lookout for landscape deficiencies while onsite and will report them to the Landscape Maintenance Manager, so they can be addressed if they are unable to take care of it themselves. Since we would be onsite most, if not all days of the week in one capacity or another, we are confident that nothing would ‘fall through the cracks’.

In terms of monitoring the quality of work that is produced, the following measures will be in place:

• Field staff are taught to check and correct their own work. As part of the LEAN management philosophy, having to be sent back to complete a task properly is a waste of time and does not add value. Field staff also attend our in-house education program to learn more about horticulture and associated topics to help them do their job correctly. We also encourage them to learn their plant names, so they can pass our in-house Plant ID test. This knowledge can help avoid costly mistakes such as pruning the wrong plant etc.
• The Supervisor is trained to follow up on their crew members early on in the task and frequently thereafter if they aren’t able to work directly with them. Any sub-par work encountered is corrected immediately. Prior to that they ensure good set up of the task so that team members have a clear understanding of what is expected. Our supervisors receive ample leadership training, both through in-house and outside education so they have the tools to get good performance from their team. They are also trained to use the OJT (On the Job Training) method when training staff on new tasks to ensure smooth and swift uptake and good quality work.
• As part of our quality control program, the manager will inspect the property twice monthly to identify and correct any landscape deficiencies.

As described above we have a long track record of providing consistently excellent service. However, if a quality issue is identified, either by Para Space or Tsawwassen Mills, the following steps will be taken to rectify the situation:

1. The Supervisor will send the worker back to redo the work properly ASAP. If after hours, the supervisor will likely take care of it themselves if it can’t wait for the next service day.
2. If an issue can’t be rectified in a timely manner or assistance is needed from the owner, we would notify the appropriate contact of the issue and our plan to take care of it.
3. All but minor quality issues will be documented in the log book to ensure transparency.