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Antonio Garza is a man with a very wide reach across the vast plains of west Texas, and his coverage of the region is expected to extend even farther as he continues operating through the coming years. His exterior property maintenance and construction site services business, Garza Facilities Services, Inc. and his more recently acquired Premier Sweeping Services, together feature a growing pavement sweeping operation that covers an enormous radius.
From Lubbock, which is located very far from any other recognizable commercial market center, Garza traverses the high plains north into the panhandle, west to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and southwest through the Chihuahuan Desert.
Antonio recalls his introduction to the pavement sweeping industry and his business’s progress over
The opportunity to do the parking lot sweeping came up. It required less equipment, employees, and paperwork than the lawn care business...So, I gradually transitioned to the parking lot sweeping only.
more than a decade of its development: While I was in the army, I didn’t have anything in mind for work afterward. Coming back to civilian life, in the beginning, it was hard for me to adjust. I just couldn’t adapt to working for others. So, I started doing lawn care jobs as a last resort. It started picking up pretty fast. I got four employees, and business kept growing pretty rapidly. It got to a point where it was really stressful. So, I
decided I wanted to let that go. The opportunity to do the parking lot sweeping came up. It required less equipment, employees, and paperwork than the lawn care business. Plus, you could only do the lawns once a week, but you could do the parking lots every day, which meant more profitability with fewer customers and I could stop hiring more and more workers. So, I gradually transitioned to the parking lot sweeping only.
with mechanical work, as needed. They’re mechanics. We grease up the sweepers, check the air daily, and keep up other routine truck maintenance.
My normal schedule is working nights. Through the years, it’s been a struggle to keep good workers. I don’t know why; they just don’t want to work. When I bought Premier Sweeping, I kept the two employees but then ended up letting them go. The worker I have has been with me for about eight years now.
Right now, I’m working full-time and have the employee working with me doing the out-of-town routes. My son helps too, mostly doing portering on some properties and trash can service on other sites. He will soon be graduating and plans to come on fulltime then.
For equipment, we currently have 2 street sweepers and 3 parking lot sweepers. Two are Victory sweepers that we use every day. Those are fairly new, and I’ve got a Schwarze Gale Force and a Sweeprite mechanical sweeper.
Walmart... We service those in Clovis, Portales, and Hoss too, and pretty much all of eastern New Mexico.
We provide general maintenance services, including pavement sweeping for parking lots, construction site dust control, track out, site cleanup, industrial sites, HOAs, milling cleanup, apartment complexes, warehouses, and other kinds of properties.
We sweep the Pepsi terminal monthly, and we do highway construction cleanup in Amarillo. We provide warehouse sweeping service a couple of times monthly for a client, and we sweep the semi terminal for a milk company. One customer builds gas stations and calls me when they’re nearly done, and I go do the site cleanup. A company out of Dallas does highways. We go out every two months or so and clean the work areas. We do get snow here, maybe twice a year. We may get some heavy snow. We get huge dust events. We got one last week. We stay really busy having all that sand to pick up during those times.
Out of town, our main customer is Walmart. We have all the Walmarts in the area now. We service those in Clovis, Portales, and Hoss too, and pretty much all of eastern New Mexico. I have good friends I respect who operate toward this direction from the east, so I try not to go as far as their territory around Ft Worth. If I need help, I ask a gentleman from a competitor, and the same goes for him when he needs help from me. He
continued on page 14
MANY BUSINESSES OF ALL SIZES IN THE PAVEMENT SWEEPING INDUSTRY OFFER A FULL BENEFITS PACKAGE TO THEIR EMPLOYEES. MANY OTHERS ASPIRE TO INTEGRATE THESE PROGRAMS FOR THEIR TEAMS AND WORK SYSTEMATICALLY TO BRING THEIR EMPLOYER PROFILES UP TO THE LEVEL OF THE BEST NATIONWIDE. HOWEVER, UNFORTUNATELY, TOO MANY OTHERS SEE THE COSTS AND INCONVENIENCE OF RUNNING SUCH PROGRAMS TO HELP EMPLOYEES MAKE SUCH INITIATIVES SEEM UNNECESSARY OR OUT OF REACH. HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE WORST PROBLEMS EMPLOYEES AND BUSINESS OWNERS FACE AS A CONSEQUENCE OF INSUFFICIENT JOB BENEFITS FOR WORKERS AND WHAT SMALL BUSINESSES CAN DO TO ALLEVIATE THOSE ISSUES FOR THEIR TEAMS AND BOOST THEIR PROFITS AS A RESULT.
...think about the
collective impact
of
the numerous serious difficulties for many workers... some of these are common in pavement sweeping companies
First, think about the collective impact of the numerous serious difficulties for many workers. At least some of these are common in pavement sweeping companies and other businesses where not enough benefits are offered to provide a sustainable source of employment for people. For some examples:
4 Inadequate tools
4 Improper protective gear
4 Absence of practice on OSHA procedures
4 Absence of training on basic safety procedures
4 Absence of training on pavement sweeping industry Best Practices
4 Lack of a sense of job security
4 old outdated equipment
continued on page 18
4 nonresponsive management
4 No financial incentive to bring in new business
4 No healthcare coverage
4 No retirement plan and too few other financial benefits programs
4 No Worker’s Compensation coverage (on the smallest teams)
4 Unemployment insurance (on the smallest teams)
4 No skills and career development programs
4 Isolation, working alone being alone
4 Disorganized office environment
4 Lack of a sense of belonging to a cohesive team
4 Absence of recognition for extra efforts and performance excellence
4 Absence of incentives
4 No feedback allowed to management
4 Overwork (turnover)
4 Burn out, fatigue
4 Slow, low, or no raises
4 No designated break area or set break time
4 Poorly equipped facilities for vehicle care and maintenance
The list above is obviously too long for us to detail the consequences for employees in workplaces where some or all of these problems affect them daily. So, let’s take a closer look at just a few of these situations:
l Improper protective gear and safety training expose workers to higher injuries, respiratory impacts, and other health and safety risks.
l Having no retirement plan and too few other
monetary benefits programs leaves employees working year in and year out with no financial safety net in case of unexpected job termination for any reason, or long-term illness, or for eventual retirement.
l Management that does not encourage or even permit honest feedback and ideas for process improvements to leadership is promoting frustration, distrust, and resentment among their workers. These lead to widespread lack of loyalty or caring about the company, which can devastate the all-important positive internal culture that sustains quality customer service and the willingness of workers to go the extra mile for the company as needed.
l Isolation for drivers and other employees working alone in a vehicle or office throughout their entire shift every workday (especially at night when there are few people even passing by) can have a strong negative impact. Being alone so much over months and years can lead to a sense of disconnectedness from the company, from management and coworkers, and from the rest of the world. Long-term loneliness can cause extreme stress, depression, and a sense that no one cares about their accomplishments, their needs, their future, or their well-being.
l No skills and career development programs are provided for many workers. They do not have the benefit of a company-sponsored career
you’ll need another truck, which means another big expense. Consider dialing back your determination to buy only new equipment and opt to start with good used alternatives. Leverage your loan costs against your increased revenues from the additional accounts.
l Calculate your cost of delivering services to each account and price accordingly. Do not undercut your own threshold of profitability trying to grab accounts from competitors. It’s a long-proven self-defeating strategy. That’s because, if you can’t make a profit, you can’t keep operating. It means you’re paying to work instead of being paid. If you’re being paid enough to profit, you can better afford to share some of your business’s income with
employees by adding a relevant program or two to make your business a more appealing place to work.
You may read the list of problems above and still think the road to paying for substantial improvement in worker benefits looks too long and rough for your small business. Goals of operating among the best places in your market for people to work and thrive, vs. just coping every day, can seem far out of reach. However, as you’ve seen above, there are ways to make significant improvements in working conditions for your employees without breaking the bank. Small sweeping businesses that offer zero incentives
or even basic safety-net programs for workers tend to struggle more, stagnate, and even fail. On their way down they may eventually become even more fearful of spending anything at all to meet the basic needs of employees, perhaps feeling increasingly desperate and urgently slashing worker-related expenses at any cost to revenue generation.
And that’s the second of the two major points of this article: Pushing payroll-related budget minimization to the tipping point, even cutting work hours so low that good customers are forfeited to poor service is the wrong choice, vs. rightly cutting away unprofitable accounts, buying good used instead of brand new equipment, and finding other places to cut that don’t directly impact your service capacity and quality.
To succeed and sustain your success long-term and enjoy your own work life more as a business owner in your chosen industry, look back at your entrepreneurial errors around managing the needs of the employees that work for you. That means recognizing the larger, overarching point here: As it turns out, for all the reasons we’ve discussed above, you really cannot afford not to invest in the well-being of the people who they must rely on to make their business succeed.
to ensure they have not been damaged by the hot grounds.
4. Keep up with maintenance. Along with checking tire conditions in the hot summers, maintenance like flushing the coolant and lubricating grease points is essential to keep sweepers running smoothly. Since sweepers often travel long distances before reaching a dump site, flushing the fuel system, and replacing the filter at the beginning of the season is also vital to getting the most out of each fuel up.
5. A clean broom is a functional broom. Sweeper brooms collect debris on the roads and pass it into the hopper. Since they are designed to collect fine particles, large debris like litter can become stuck in
the bristles and cause blockages during uptake. Be sure to remove large debris the bristles pick up and invest in high-quality brooms.
Street sweeping is an essential part of keeping municipalities clean, so summer break is out of the question. Make summer street sweeping faster and easier with Elgin Sweepers.
delivering infrastructure equipment and solutions across the U.S.
“We are honored by this award and the opportunity to represent industry-leading Federal Signal brands in these territories,” said Michael Rugeroni, vice president of Federal Signal aftermarket. “This is an important step to broaden our coverage and aligns with our strategy to continue to grow our U.S. customer base.”
JJE will support these new territories through expanded sales coverage and branch locations, ensuring exceptional service for municipal and private contractors.
Joe Johnson Equipment (JJE), a subsidiary of Federal Signal, is a premier North American provider of infrastructure maintenance equipment to address the most complex challenges facing municipal and private contractors. JJE offers an extensive inventory of top-tier new and used equipment brands like Elgin, Vactor, TRUVAC, and Guzzler, complemented by OEM parts, service, training, and one of the industry’s largest rental fleets. Headquartered in Innisfil, Ontario, JJE operates 18 locations throughout North America.
For more information, visit jjei.com
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