Hiring and crew
What this is. Who Urth hires, in what order, what each person must hold, how they are paid, and what happens from offer to day 90. It is chapter 10 of the licensing plan (version 1.1), built as the six screens its page specification lists. Nobody is hired today and there is no hiring date. Every trigger, order and pay figure is a simulated figure, a placeholder or a public source, and says which.
How to use it. Read the roles, try a day rate in the pay calculator, and pick a hire date to see the onboarding steps dated. Copy a headhunter brief when you want to send it; nothing has been sent. Ticks and the date are saved on this device only. Names, candidates, offers and pay decisions are private, in Notion.
1. Roles, in order of hire
The order follows what frees Alan's time first. Each hire has a trigger, not a date. All of them are placeholders for the simulation and for Alan to react to.
Owner (Alan)
Sales, site visits, design, estimates, suppliers and partners. Holds licences in his own name as he earns them (see Licensing).
Crew member (landscape worker)
Trigger: enough recurring route work to keep two people busy most days. Alan's rule: a crew leaves if the schedule is not full.
Does: mowing, edging, pruning, planting, clean-up, loading.
Day one: the right to work in the United States (federal form I-9); a Florida driving licence if they will drive.
Soon after: day-one safety sheet (week 1), first aid (weeks 1–2), Green Industries training and the $25 fertilizer certificate (week 2).
Crew leader (foreman); may be hire 1 promoted
Trigger: Alan needs to be off the truck for site visits, sales and estimates.
Does: runs the day's route, quality, customer contact on site, the crew's time and photos in the app.
Day one: all of hire 1's, plus a driving record the insurer accepts; English and Spanish preferred.
Soon after: bed-spraying certificate (about 10 weeks); Horticulture Professional certificate (from month 6). Headhunter brief ›
Crew members 2 and 3
Trigger: installs and hardscape (Alan's modelling note: a two-person crew cannot do hardscape; three or four can), or a second route.
Soon after: for hardscape, the 10-hour construction safety course (weeks 3–4); for chainsaws, chainsaw safety (months 3–6).
Certified pest control operator in charge (Lawn and Ornamental)
Trigger: only if Alan brings lawn spraying in-house; otherwise it stays with a licensed subcontractor.
Holds Urth's pest control business licence; full-time with Urth by law. The hire ›
Office coordinator, part-time
Trigger: leads wait too long for a reply, or Alan spends evenings on invoices and scheduling.
Does: lead replies, scheduling, invoices, supplier orders, certificate expiry dates. Nothing licensed.
Second crew leader
Trigger: a second full crew. As hire 2.
Who must hold what (from the plan's sections 2 and 8; confirmed there)
- Everyone who spreads fertilizer needs their own fertilizer certificate (Green Industries training plus $25).
- Everyone who sprays beds needs their own bed-spraying certificate. No holder may supervise uncertified people.
- Lawn spraying by crew is only possible under a pest control business licence with a full-time certified operator. Each sprayer then carries a $10 identification card and gets 5 days of field training.
- Drivers: a commercial driving licence is needed only for a truck rated at 26,001 pounds or more, or a combination where the trailer is rated over 10,000 pounds. The rating counts, not the load.
- Under 18: 16- and 17-year-olds may use mowers under 20 horsepower and string trimmers with guards, but not wood chippers. School-week hour limits apply (to confirm).
2. Candidates
A pipeline, one column per stage. There are no candidates. When there are, their names and notes live in the private store (Notion today), never on this site.
What each candidate carries: role, source (headhunter, referral, job board), licence numbers checked on the state's public lookups (read only), interview notes, and the answers to the brief's questions. A hire moves to People.
The headhunter brief: crew leader
Title: Landscape crew leader, Miami-Dade, for a new residential and small-commercial landscape company that runs on its own property-intelligence app. Full-time, on payroll. Must have: 3 or more years on South Florida residential maintenance and install crews, 1 or more leading a crew. A valid Florida driving licence and a driving record an insurer will accept. The right to work in the United States. Comfortable with a phone app for photos, time and job notes. Should have: the fertilizer certificate and the bed-spraying certificate, or willing to get them in the first 10 weeks (we pay the study time and fees). Plant identification for South Florida palms, hedges and turf. Trailer handling. English and Spanish. Useful: Florida-Friendly Landscaping training, the Horticulture Professional certificate, experience of small installs and pavers. Pay: please tell us the current Miami range for a crew leader, and whether candidates accept a day rate, with overtime paid as the law requires, plus a quality bonus. Please also send your fee and replacement guarantee.
Typical contingency fees are said to be 15–25% of first-year pay, with a 30–90 day replacement guarantee (to confirm with each firm). Other channels to compare: referrals from nurseries and suppliers, Spanish-language job boards, trade schools. Seasonal work visas are not for year one: the programme's cap for this year's second half was reached on 20 March 2026, and federal filing fees start at $460 plus $150.
3. People
Nobody is on the payroll. Each person will get one card: role, hire date, pay basis, certificates with their numbers and expiry dates, and their study plan with progress. Certificate expiry dates feed the Licensing section and the calendar.
Certificates the cards will track: fertilizer (4 years), bed spraying (yearly), identification card under the operator, first aid, construction safety, chainsaw safety, Horticulture Professional (3 years), driving licence. The crew study plan is in Licensing › Study tracker › The crew.
4. Onboarding a new hire
The plan's 20-step checklist (section 10d), then the crew study plan, each dated from the hire date. A template: nothing here is a real hire.
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Heat. The federal heat rule is still only a proposal (2026). Florida law (House Bill 433, 2024) stops counties and cities from adding their own heat rules. Urth's own rule is the day-one safety sheet: water, shade, rest; no crew goes out when lightning is likely.
5. Pay calculator
A day rate and hours in; the regular rate, the overtime owed and the minimum-wage check out. For a flat day rate, overtime is still owed: the regular rate is the week's day-rate pay divided by the hours actually worked, and every hour over 40 earns an extra half of that rate (federal rule 29 CFR 778.112, confirmed).
Default: the simulation's day rate, $161.91 public source. It is the federal wage-survey median for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the Miami area, $17.99 an hour (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025), times 9 paid hours a day. With the $30 foreman premium, a crew of two costs $353.82 a day in the simulation simulated, plus 12% burden. Florida's minimum wage is $14.00 an hour until 29 September 2026 and $15.00 from 30 September 2026, then adjusted each year. The bonus is added to the regular rate, as most bonuses are under the federal rules (to confirm per bonus type).
What the Miami market pays public source
| Occupation | Median an hour | As a 9-hour day |
|---|---|---|
| Landscaping and groundskeeping workers | $17.99 | about $162 |
| First-line supervisors of landscaping workers | $24.68 | about $222 |
| Vegetation pesticide handlers and applicators | $22.22 | about $200 |
| Tree trimmers and pruners | $23.34 | about $210 |
| Construction laborers (hardscape proxy) | $21.88 | about $197 |
| Light truck drivers | $20.55 | about $185 |
Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach area, read through its public data service on 23 September. These come from employer surveys and are a year old; Miami job-board day rates were not gathered. Costs on top of pay (payroll taxes, Florida reemployment tax of 2.7% on the first $7,000 for a new employer, workers' compensation class 0042 or 9102, paid study time, equipment) are all to confirm with an agent or accountant.
The simulation's crew days, their pay and their routes: Operations › Simulated operations › Crew and routes. Crew messages go through Slack, not WhatsApp, so the day's record is kept.
6. Subcontractors
Not hired: subcontracted. Irrigation, tree removal and large pruning, backflow, structural hardscape, pools and lighting go to licensed subcontractors. None is on file yet.
For each one the app will keep: trade, licence number, insurer, the expiry dates, and the lead-platform categories their licence covers. The subcontractor's licence number and certificate go on the quote, and the platform profile says who does the work (the plan's section 6c).
The certified operator hire
Why one hire matters. Only one pesticide licence belongs to the company: the pest control business licence from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It is issued only when the business has a certified operator in charge who holds the Lawn and Ornamental category, and that person must be a full-time employee whose primary occupation is with the company (section 482.152, Florida Statutes; confirmed 22 September).
The certificate cannot be earned by study alone: the exam needs three years as a service employee of a licensed pest control company (one in Florida), or a qualifying degree plus one year. Once the business licence exists, crew members spray lawns under the operator with a $10 identification card and five days of field training each.
If the operator leaves, the company must tell the department at once and may run under a temporary operator for up to 30 days (rule 5E-14.142). A second person on the path keeps the licence from resting on one person.
Two shapes to present: (a) a working foreman who holds the certificate and runs a crew; (b) a dedicated spray-route lead. Which shape, and when to hire (before the first spring spraying season, or later), are open questions for Alan.
The headhunter brief: certified operator
Title: Certified Pest Control Operator in charge, Lawn and Ornamental, for a new Miami-Dade and Broward landscape company. Full-time, on payroll (not a contractor, not shared with another company). Must hold today: an active Florida certified operator certificate in the Lawn and Ornamental category, current on continuing education, with no disciplinary history. The candidate gives the certificate number; we check it on the department's public licence lookup before any interview. Must be willing to: be named as the operator in charge on our pest control business licence, resign as operator in charge of any other licensee first, and work full time for us as the primary occupation. Should have: the Limited Urban Commercial Fertilizer certificate (or be willing to get it in a week), Green Industries training, three or more years running turf and ornamental routes in South Florida, experience training identification-card employees, record-keeping for restricted-use products, calibration of power sprayers. Useful extras: International Society of Arboriculture Certified Arborist; Spanish and English; a clean driving record; experience leading a two- to four-person crew. Two shapes, please present both: (a) a working foreman who holds the certificate and runs a crew; (b) a dedicated spray-route lead. Pay: please tell us the current Miami range for both shapes, and your fee structure (percentage of first-year salary, guarantee period). Our crew is paid by the day; please ask whether candidates would accept a day rate plus a licence stipend, or need a salary.
Interview questions
When someone leaves
- Final pay.
- Collect equipment.
- Take them off the messaging workspace and the app.
- Keep the I-9 for 3 years after hire or 1 year after leaving, whichever is later.
- If the person was the certified operator in charge, tell the state at once and name a temporary operator for up to 30 days.