I hope you had a great Thanksgiving spent with your loved ones. I was lucky to have all four of my kids, their significant others, and my two granddaughters in town this week. It was so nice to have everyone under one roof!
I'm sure like me your inbox has been bombarded this week with Black Friday deals - it seems every company out there is trying to convince us that we NEED this new tool for our garage, that this toy will make the kids' Christmas morning special, or that the price this week just can't be beat.
Maybe it's my age, but I feel like all the stuff just becomes suffocating. The marketing messages are overwhelming. And as I'm looking at what to get my team and my loved ones as gifts this year what I really want to do is show them that I care, not check the box and add to the piles of stuff in their homes.
So that's my message to you this week: as you return to work from the holiday, what can you do to show people you genuinely care? These are my three favorite ways to do it:
Specific and public recognition for a job well done goes a long way. There are so many people at Grunder Landscaping Co., and I'm sure at your company too, who do a great job and we likely take them for granted. But I like to make sure my compliments are specific - it's not "Great work this year!" it's "Wow, Amanda, thank you so much for the thought and effort you put into planning and ordering the annuals this year. They looked great, and your organization made such a difference in the efficiency of the teams."
Each person has their own favorites, and I try to notice that so that when I want to thank them I can make sure I'm getting them something I know they love. Team GLC is mostly energy drink people, not coffee drinkers, so we keep those stocked (in a hidden spot) in our office so we can pull them out when snow events hit for example.
And when I'm not sure what they like, everyone likes candy.
I think the best way we can show our team that we care is by investing in them and their career through in-house training, equipment and tools that make their job easier, mentorship, and sending them to events. I realized a long time ago that the best investment I can make is always in myself, and I consider my team an extension of this - our team's development always comes back with the highest ROI.
We're working on planning who from Team Grunder will be at GROW! 2026 in Dallas, TX on February 10-12, 2026. I hope to see you and your team there too, and if you haven't registered yet maybe this is one more way you can show your team that you care about them!
Happy Thanksgiving, I'll talk to you next week!
Founder & CEO
The Grow Group & Grunder Landscaping Co.