Three grounds staff. A whole community.
At SC Heerenveen, Gertjan Hilarius leads a grounds team of three, supported by volunteers. Their nomination for BVO Grasteam 2026 recognises a story about people as much as pitch care.
The visible result is the playing surface. The working day is much broader: stadium and training pitches, jobs around the grounds, and the facilities that also need attention. Those responsibilities compete for the time of the same small team.
For Gertjan, a useful plan therefore had to answer more than what needed doing on the grass. It also had to show where time was going and which people would be available. A full list of jobs is only a starting point when the same people cover several sites.
A clear plan, wherever the team is.
A schedule needs a view of the people who can carry it out. Listing the jobs alone leaves the grounds manager to reconcile availability separately. Gertjan wanted that information inside the planning process, with the workload connected to the team that would do it.
During the trial, Gertjan brought three connected requirements to turfcoach: allocate time by site, distinguish the types of work completed, and account for staff availability. Each describes a different part of the same planning problem. Together, they turn a schedule into a view of the team’s capacity.
The distinction between a site and a task matters here. Knowing that someone worked at the stadium says where the time went. Knowing the type of work explains what that time was needed for. Gertjan wanted both, because the team’s responsibilities extend beyond the pitch itself.
We also needed to know who was available when, so we could improve planning across our sites.
Make the whole workload visible.
Within a few weeks, Gertjan had a tailored solution running. He describes a practical change in his conversations with management: he could show the time required for the work, rather than leave the workload hidden behind the finished pitch.
This is a useful outcome for a small team. A grounds manager can plan the next day and explain the previous one using the same record. The work around the facilities has a place in that discussion alongside the work on the playing surfaces.
The nomination belongs to the people caring for Heerenveen’s pitches, including the volunteers who support them. turfcoach’s part in this story is specific: helping Gertjan organise that work and make the time behind it easier to see.
