Horticultural Resource Management 100 Hours Certificate Course

There are 10 lessons:

1 Horticultural Business Structures

• Introduction
• The Legal Structure of Business
• Business Names
• Points to Watch
• Marketing Guide

2 Management Theories and Procedures

• The Role of Management
• Planning

3 Horticulture & The Law

• Quality Management Systems
• Legislation of Small Businesses
• The Law & Business
• Protection of Consumers
• Stamp Duty

4 Supervision

• Managing Staff
• Interviewing, Recruitment & Staff Induction
• Interviewing Prospective Staff
• The Induction Process
• Staff Training
• Visual Aid Resources for Induction and Training
• Job Descriptions

5 Financial Management

• The Role of the Supervisor
• Supervision
• Communication with Employees
• Communication Barriers
• Improving Leadership Skills

6 Staff Management

• Introduction to Financial Management
• Budgets
• Financial Assistance
• Taxation
• Billing
• Costing Jobs in the Landscape Industry
• Summary of Market for Landscape Services
• The Cost of Employing Labour
• Two Ways to Being in Business: Start to Buy
• Starting Compared to Buying

7 Improving Plant Varieties

• Where Cultivars Come From
• Plant Variety Rights (PVR)
• Owning Plant Names
• Genetics & Plant Breeding

8 Productivity and Risk

• Improving Productivity
• Problem Solving & Decision Making
• Planning Time
• Sensitivity Analysis
• Insuring the Business

9 Managing Physical Resources

• Managing Physical Resources
• Using Flow Charts to Improve Productivity
• Records
• What Sorts of Records do you Need to Keep?
• Record Keeping
• Keeping Records of your Business Activities

10 Developing an Horticultural Business Plan

• Developing a Business
• Manage your Growth
• Example of a Business Plan for a Nursery
• Marketing Guide for Gardening and Landscaping Businesses

The quality of this course is second to none, from the in-depth learning you will get to the expert individual mentoring you will receive throughout your studies. The mentors for this course are:

Susan Stephenson

BSc in Applied Plant Biology (Botany) Univ. London 1983.

City and guilds: Garden Centre Management, Management and Interior Decor (1984)

Management qualifications in training with retail store. Diploma in Hort level 2 (RHS General) Distinction.

Susan Stephenson is a passionate and experienced horticulturist and garden designer. She has authored three books, lectures at 2 Further and Higher Education Colleges, teaching people of all ages and backgrounds about the wonders of plants and garden design, and tutors many students by correspondence from all over the world.

Susan studied botany at Royal Holloway College (Univ of London) and worked in the trading industry before returning to her first love plants and garden design. She is therefore, well placed to combine business knowledge with horticulture and design skills. Her experience is wide and varied and she has designed gardens for families and individuals. Susan is a mentor for garden designers who are just starting out, offering her support and advice and she also writes, delivers and assesses courses for colleges, introducing and encouraging people into horticulture and garden design.

In 2010, Susan authored a complete module for a Foundation degree (FDSC) in Arboriculture.

Susan holds the RHS General with Distinction. She continues to actively learn about horticulture and plants and (as her students will tell you) remains passionate and interested in design and horticulture.

Steven Whitaker

Diploma in Garden Design (Distinction) – The Blackford Centre, Gold Certificate of Achievement in Horticulture, Level 2 NVQ in Amenity Horticulture, Level 1 NOCN Introduction to Gardening, – Joseph Priestly College, BTEC Diploma in Hotel, Catering and Institutional Operations (Merit), Trainer Skills 1, & 2, Group trainer, Interview and Selection Skills – Kirby College of Further Education

Steven has a wealth of Horticultural knowledge, having ran his own Design and Build service, Landscaping company, and been a Head Gardener. His awards include five Gold awards at Leeds in Bloom, two Gold awards at Yorkshire in Bloom and The Yorkshire Rose Award for Permanent Landscaping. Steven has worked with TV’s Phil Spencer as his garden advisor on the Channel 4 TV Programme, “Secret Agent”.

He is qualified to Level 2 NVQ in Amenity Horticulture and has a Diploma in Garden Design which he passed with Distinction. Steven’s Tutor and Mentor was the Chelsea Flower Show Gold Award-winning Garden Designer, Tracy Foster. He also works for a major Horticultural Commercial Grower in the field of Propagation and Craft Gardening. Steven lives in Leeds where he is a Freelance Garden Designer and Garden Advice Consultant.

MANAGING STAFF

The key to success of any organisation is good management. Management aims to exercise control; and
there are many methods used to achieve control, just as there are many different things which need to be
controlled.

It is important for management to have a workforce that is motivated towards achieving the organisation’s
objectives. To this end, financial reward (from income) is obviously very important for motivating workers,
but so too, are job satisfaction and job security.

Job satisfaction can be achieved in the following ways:

• Improving the work environment – this may include restructuring the organization.
• Job design – matching jobs to people’s skills, so that the right people are doing the jobs they are trained to do.
• Job enrichment – making jobs more interesting and challenging, without being so difficult that the employees are struggling to do them.
• Staff training – to improve the company’s productivity and to give employees better skills for future employment.
• Improving leadership style.
• Staff participation in the decision-making processes.
• Recognition of achievements by individuals and groups in the workplace.

Many companies are looking to new ways to manage staff, some of which are based on successful Japanese management techniques. The concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality
Assurance Teams and Team Work are increasingly being adopted in Western countries. They operate on a ‘bottom up’ style of management, where initiatives are allowed to emerge from the lower levels of
the organization.

Different managers/supervisors will lead their subordinates in different ways. Here are just a few of the
different styles which might be adopted by a supervisor:

• Domineering: “I am the boss and you do what I say or else!”
• Laissez-faire: “Let’s just roll along, do a reasonable job and don't rock the boat.”
• Democratic: “Let's work together and make decisions together.”
• Autocratic but humanistic: “I give the orders, but suggestions are welcome.”

There are of course many other different ways of classifying leadership types.

EBook To Compliment This Course

• Changing management practices over time
• Scope of management

• Ineffective management
• Health management – mental & physical
• Finances

• Making decisions
• Meetings

• Maintaining focus and control
• Managing conflict
• How much control?

• Getting the right staff
• Maintaining the workforce
• Giving staff feedback

• What is the right thing to do?

• Productivity/efficiency/risks

• Improve the staff you already have

• How important is studying?
• Types of management roles