"Can We Get Better?"

I have fallen off my schedule of making a post last week, but with somewhat of a good reason.  I was summoned for that event that we all dread, but is really one of the two most important civic duties we do as citizens.  I had jury duty last week, which I say is one of our most important civic duties, along with voting, which is our other civic duty, (which we jokingly say if we didn't vote, we wouldn't get called for jury duty, don't know if that is true or not, but we would never give up the opportunity to vote).  This was the third time since moving here to Missouri that I had made the trek to the court house, which led to going through the jury selection process, but this was the first time I had been chosen.

I won't go into much details of the case, it was a slip and fall, and wasn't one of those termed "frivolous" lawsuits, really from what I saw as our charge as jurist, I don't think "frivolous" lawsuits make it to court, or have a very good chance of winning.  But I digress.  Why I mentioned the jury duty at all was, I was able to learn some things, one is I need to become an expert at something, those expert witnesses make good money, the other was, I wanted to touch on some things I learned that might be helpful by taking it back to my facility.

I first must thank my fellow staff members who prepared the course for one of our major events we have every season, our Horton Smith Junior Masters Tournament.  We received many compliments from players to parents on course conditions and our landscaping.  I had our new landscape intern concentrate on cleaning up tee beds and our score board area.  Explaining that with the parents just riding around in carts watching, they would have plenty of time to scrutinize the peripheral items, while the players were more concerned with course conditions.  I would just have time during the 3 days of the trial to come in the evening a check on progress, set irrigation and assign the next day's chores on our board.  Obviously we had done some good communicating and training of our mostly seasonal staff, (who are all new this year), because the results were stellar.  

 Our score board area with the hardware waiting to be awarded.  (I have some great before (or maybe in progress) and after pictures of this area I will share at a later date.  We've been very lucky to find a plant science intern who has done some tremendous work on our landscaping this season)





Below a couple of pictures of the boss checking out her friends who had come out to play.  It is an enjoyable time to be out on the course at that time of day, especially when the to do list was completed by the staff earlier.

                              


But that doesn't mean we can't get better at this, as I listened to testimony on how one of the parties handled their training, orientations, and reinforcement, and I saw where we could improve.  The main issue we lack with in is orientation and training.  It is because we are a small crew with a lot going on, we tend to take our new employee out on a new task, spend not a lot of time training on the piece of equipment, whether it be raking bunkers, or mowing tees, or some other task we teach our new employees.  We show how the equipment works, how we mow or rake the area, and put them on it, and watch and coach for a few holes.  Then the trainer is off to work on his scheduled task for the morning.  Sometimes we will try to be doing a task that will keep us in their areas, so they can ask any questions they might have and to correct any mistakes early.  But it doesn't always happen like that.  We also fail the first time to teach cleaning and some operational aspects of using the equipment, such as what our standard of clean is, and the failure to throttle the mower down before shutting it off trick.  We lack consistency, and it will sometimes depend on who is doing the training that day, or for example I have even caught myself, forgetting a step or two when training, mainly because I know exactly how to do the task, yet the employee has failed to read my mind, (which happens a lot!).

So in the future I will be working on a detailed checklist to help the trainers not forget items.  I also will look into something I started during a course I did a grow-in at.  I actually tracked the training process, and then kept track of the progress made at learning the task, to a point that when they are able to do that task so many times, they will become "certified" on that task and piece of equipment.

As far as the reinforcement lesson I learned, it will be continuous, from their first day until their last, just a constant reminder of doing those little things such as picking up trash, making sure clippings are scattered, no tire tracks in the bunkers, basically asking them would they "like to play from that spot?"    

So despite the compliments we get, and for which our staff should be so proud of, we will continue to try and get better.  I would think we owe it to our seasonal staff, (who are mostly students) and to their next employer to create the best employees we can.  Who knows, maybe they get the chance to come work for us?

Thanks again for reading!

Mel

Schedules

In order to keep this blog active, I've put myself on a schedule.  The funny thing is, while we don't necessarily think much about it, scheduling is such an important part of our work on the golf course.

I am a big scheduler, mainly to keep me organized and to get the things done.  It helps me plan out the week, and works within our staff schedule.  Even the little things I schedule, because they could be the easiest items we forget to do.

There are also many different schedules that I make and follow.  I have a weekly schedule that will dictate our daily and weekly tasks. 

I have a cultural and plant health application schedule that plays a couple of roles, one it assures I stay on track with fertilizer and preventive applications, the schedule I create also helps for budgeting purposes.

I have an equipment maintenance schedule which we use to make sure the equipment is maintained properly so it is ready to use when needed and we get the most life out of a piece of equipment, and even an equipment replacement schedule that mainly helps in the budgeting process.
 
There is a golf schedule where we get important golf dates, which we use to make sure the course is at its best for particular outings or tournaments.  As with any of the big events on the golf schedule, preparation for those events starts why ahead of the actual event.  That yearly event on the golf course's golf schedule usually leads to preparation for it, starting the latest would be that spring.  Major events can have preparations starting as much as five years or more in advance, of course that is usually including major renovations, setting up infrastructure for the tournament logistics and media.

There is even somewhat of an irrigation schedule, although much of our irrigation use is dictated by weather or possible cultural or plant protectants, meaning do I water before I apply or after.  It all depends on what the label suggests.

All great topics to discuss over time.  But I will first share my weekly type schedules, hopefully you bare with the documents I use as examples, as I just learned how to screen shot, and have marginal examples.

I first begin with a daily task list, which will go into details about the important jobs that should be accomplished that day to prepare the golf course for play, or as it relates to other projects or applications.

As the above shows, these are our plans for daily tasks for the those two days.  It shows what events might be taking place such as leagues or outings (in red).  For important cultural practices, I show it in green.  The way I layout the tasks emphasizes the importance of those tasks to be done on that day. It does help with some flexibility when needed.  A great example of that was we were scheduled to mow tees on the Monday, the mower went down on Sunday, us being a course without extra equipment, we worked on repairs on the Monday, and we were able to mow tees on the Tuesday.  Weather or staffing can also play some havoc with this schedule, but by having it in this format, I can keep things organized, while being flexible when needed.  In the second column is where I write down the name of the crew member who performed the task, allows us to track accountability.  Than the other two columns are for notes.  After the days of the week are covered, a to do list wraps up this section of my weekly schedule.


The next section is a list of applications I'm planning on making.  Some have specific dates tied to them, (weather permitting of course), while others are applications to make when spare time and weather conditions allow them.  And then there is the reminder for the next application, for example our next wetting agent application.  When it comes to growth regulators like Primo, I will use a 200 Growing Degree Days calendar to track for the next application.

       
   The next section in my schedule is a list of equipment that needs to be serviced and any repairs that will need to be done.  Most of the repairs get the "write-in" treatment.

Last but not least is our irrigation repair section.  Most listed items are project items which when we have time we will do.  We will write in any repairs that occur during the week.

I hope this offers some insight into what planning goes into maintaining the golf course and getting everything done in a typical week.

As always,

Thanks for reading!

Mel