Life at Bartlett, employee perspectives

Nish

Nish

Branched out member
Location
North Carolina
Hoping to get some feedback for what it's like, from an employee's perspective, to work for Bartlett. Will a young groundworker, with about a year of solid tree work experience, but who still wants and needs a lot of mentoring and hands-on-training, likely get it working at Bartlett? Does Bartlett give good training and opportunities for tree climbing and honing climbing and rigging skills? Any feedback would be valued. What is the employee work culture like? What are the tradeoffs when compared to, say, working for a smaller but dynamic climber-centric company with a Certified Arborist on each crew, but without the big name, international scope, and deep resources?
 
Honestly, every Bartlett office will be a bit different depending on its size, the quality and competency of the staff, the trees and customers they service, etc etc

Reach out to the employees working at your local bartlett and talk to them directly ...
 
Thanks Stan. I expect there'll be quite a lot of variation from office to office. Still hoping anyone with experiences or familiarity with the company might weigh in.
 
Nish said:
Thanks Stan. I expect there'll be quite a lot of variation from office to office. Still hoping anyone with experiences or familiarity with the company might weigh in.
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I've worked there and I've worked with a number of ex-Bartlett employees in other companies.

From my experience, they're usually above the local standard for arboricultural knowledge. I think the opportunity to learn and advance is quite limited unless they're short on climbers. Good variety of work, most offices have expanded tree care services versus the traditional Prune/Remove/Stump Grind. We're talking soil amendments, fert / PHC programs, risk assessments, consulting, etc. Bartlett has some great internal resources as well in terms of information databases and laboratory access

Remember that you'll be learning from the existing climbers / crew leaders in the office: if you're lucky, you'll land on a crew with an awesome, intelligent, happy-to-teach "boss." Or you could land on a dickhead who has a severe case of "GoHomeItis"

Once again ... talk to the local guys. Go to their yard, talk them up. Buy them a beer. Or do a trial week with the company to see how you like working there
 
Side jobs was (and mebbe still is) prohibited. I know of two former employees who ran afoul of that in my local area. One quit, one was fired.
Pay wasn't decent enough to retain long term employees.
Mebbe things are a lot different / better now, but going back a few years it seemed like turnover was an issue. Climbers would finish their apprenticeship (municipal arborist - Ontario) and quit.
 
I've never worked there but turnover is an issue at our local branch I believe. Competition with some of our better companies here may be the problem but not 100% on that.
 
I’d bet they could learn more faster at a good to great mom and pop shop. I’m not hearing very good things about Seattle Bartlett, most of the Seattle Tree Preservation crew bailed after the buy out.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I tend to encourage employees to do side work, to the point of occasionally sending them clients and letting them borrow equipment. We're also fairly generous, I think, with gear and training. But I do envy what I imagine to be Bartlett's internal resources--info databases and lab access. Just their tree risk assessment report framework that I saw (most of it boilerplate) seemed like a handy resource for their consultants to use. I'm sure I could learn a lot from the way the company is run, especially their PHC program and what they offer to their wealthier clients and non-residential clients. I believe they've priced themselves out of the majority of residential work in our area. Maybe a year ago their sales rep and I bid the same job. I later learned he bid at $35K what I bid for about $8.5K. We got them job and did fine on it. It made me wonder why they have to bid jobs so high.
 
That could be branch by branch. They were the lowest bidder on a big cottonwood we had that snapped at the trunk 40' up or so. Removal, prune out broken branches of adjacent trees, haul debris etc.
 
My new employee just came from STP and Bartlett.. Apparently their PHC guys "speed ball" trees (growth regulators, and then high nitrogen fert). Basically sounds like "Hey we have a pill for that" type attitude.
 
I was there for 2 years and lucky enough to come in at a time with very skilled arborists who happily showed the kid who was game for any work good or bad and a strong desire to learn to climb, how to do it safely. The pay is so bad, as is with other big companies, but I came into the industry cold aside from some chainsaw knowledge so I knew I had to take the hit while I went to school.

Large variety of work, atleast where I was (lowermainland BC), decent enough gear but so much backlogged work it burns a lot of guys out, basically the quickest way to advance when others are hurt or stop showing up. Very little in the way of growth once you become a lead climber.

Learned a lot, had a lot of resources and training, disgruntled about pay, but left with a stacked resume and a lot of good contacts.
 
Barnyard said:
I was there for 2 years and lucky enough to come in at a time with very skilled arborists who happily showed the kid who was game for any work good or bad and a strong desire to learn to climb, how to do it safely. The pay is so bad, as is with other big companies, but I came into the industry cold aside from some chainsaw knowledge so I knew I had to take the hit while I went to school.

Large variety of work, atleast where I was (lowermainland BC), decent enough gear but so much backlogged work it burns a lot of guys out, basically the quickest way to advance when others are hurt or stop showing up. Very little in the way of growth once you become a lead climber.

Learned a lot, had a lot of resources and training, disgruntled about pay, but left with a stacked resume and a lot of good contacts.
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Burnaby or delta?
 
I worked for Davey, great decision. One of the best ways to get real benefits, retirement, insurance and education in this industry. Bartlett is a great company!
 
What prompted the query @Nish ? Such a crew to crew and locale dependent answer. Bartlett around here has done some of the most bassakwards cable jobs I've seen but does tons of spray work, so would depend on the interest I suppose. Corporate has some definite benefits and ways to work the system (like parked on the side of the road collecting OT)...
 
Serf Life said:
What prompted the query @Nish ? Such a crew to crew and locale dependent answer. Bartlett around here has done some of the most bassakwards cable jobs I've seen but does tons of spray work, so would depend on the interest I suppose. Corporate has some definite benefits and ways to work the system (like parked on the side of the road collecting OT)...
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I've got an excellent young employee looking to gain some more experience working for other companies. He's not interested in PHC. He's got a lot of promise so I would hate to see him lose his edge and get used to working the system as you describe.
 
If he has a lot of promise, I’d hesitate to send him to one of the big companies. I’m with one now to learn what it’s like. As an experienced arborist, it’s not been too bad, but for an up-and-coming climber, the pace of opportunity to grow his skill set will be painfully slow.

As was mentioned before, find a good mom-n-pop shop. One in Blacksburg, VA is great for turning hungry people into skilled crew leaders with advanced climbing and rigging experience in two to three years. I’d be happy to connect you, if interested. In NC, Heartwood Asheville will test a climber. They are an insanely skilled team that will push you. It’s grow or go. Check with @rope-a-dope to see if they have room.
 
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