FOCUS ON TRAINING: Training Outline: Ant Treatment Strategies

Summer is here and your service staff may need a refresher course on controlling ants. After all, ants usually result in most pest control service callbacks every summer. Failing to gain control of ant infestations or preventing invasions of ants in homes and commercial buildings can impact negatively on a company’s bottom line. If you are a service professional paid by commission, you have a vested interest in completing each service right the first time. But how do you, as an owner/manager/trainer, get the message across, e.g., the keys to controlling ant infestations?

Training is always a challenge, especially scheduling meetings to fit into your service staff’s busy days and weeks. At most, you might be able to schedule a two-hour meeting, but 45 minutes to an hour is more realistic. Progressive pest control companies may schedule a one-hour meeting at least once per week. Others might limit themselves to a single hour each month. A few don’t schedule any sessions at all, relying on industry-offered meetings and conferences conducted by distributors and universities.

Whatever the number of hours you are able to commit each month to training your employees, it will not seem enough to cover all the topics you’d like (in addition to business-related issues). It is therefore important to maximize your training efforts. This article is the first in a series that will attempt to provide tips and strategies that will be useful in getting the most out of the training time you are able to schedule for your staff.

TYPES OF TRAINING. You can teach topics using two basic strategies: classroom and field training. Classroom is, by far, the one most often used of these two — it is easier and takes less time. Field training requires small groups and takes additional time to travel to the site. Of the two, however, field training is typically the most effective in getting the message across because it is action-oriented.

Adults learn faster and retain the message longer when they see and do the skills being taught. A critical component of classroom training, therefore, is developing exercises that involve the trainees. Simply lecturing seldom “sells” trainees on the message you’re trying to impart. The critical question to ask yourself is: “Are my employees putting into practice the techniques, skills, etc., that we covered in the training session?” Success in training is measured by a visible change in the work behavior of a trainee. If the trainee continues to perform ant control services, for example, the way they always have, then the time spent in training wasn’t worth the investment of time and money.

When you conduct regular training meetings, you must remember that your employees have varying levels of experience and training. Your newest employee may be on the job only a few days while your senior veteran has more than 15 years working in the industry. As you may have discovered with your own company, changing the service behavior of your long-term employees is often more difficult and newer employees are less set in their ways. If you focus your efforts and creativity on succeeding with experienced employees, the newer ones will learn even more effectively. Effective training takes far more planning and effort than simply reading out loud the latest article published in a trade journal.

TEACHING ANT CONTROL SKILLS. Ants are difficult to control for a variety of reasons:
• They are social insects with colonies  often numbering in the tens of thousands.
• One or more different species could be encountered in any given situation.
• Each ant species has its own preferred nesting habits, feeding habits, foraging behavior, etc.
• Many pest species have multiple queens and multiple nesting sites.
• A number of pest ant species do not respond well — or at all — to ant baits.
With all this in mind, you must realize that you cannot possibly cover ant control in its entirety in a single one-hour session (or even in a two-hour meeting). A series of training meetings dedicated to ants will be necessary. The remainder of this article will focus on tips to creating an effective training meeting for treating ant infestations around homes.

When planning a training meeting, it is important to outline your objectives or, more simply, the message you want to get across. For our topic, I might write the following objectives:

At the completion of the program, the trainee:
• Will be able to list seven common nesting sites for Argentine ants.
• Will be able to select the correct treatment technique to use for each of the discussed treatment situations.
• Will be able to list at least five common reasons for ant control failures.
• Will be able to describe four ways to improve the effectiveness of a baiting effort to control ants.
You may be able to list objectives other than those cited; however, these four are more than enough to fill a 45- to 60-minute meeting. Once these objectives are clearly defined, an outline must be developed that will cover each one. In the outline, you will detail the information to be covered and decide on methods and techniques for conveying the message and have it resonate with the trainees. Exercises are an excellent way to get trainees involved.

OBJECTIVE #1. The first objective listed above was for each trainee to name and/or learn seven common nesting sites for Argentine ants. (Argentine ants are used for this example, but you can do the same for any pest ant species.) The easiest way to get your class involved is to make this a group (or shared) exercise. Following a short introduction where you briefly relate the objectives of the training session, instruct each member of the class to turn to the person to his right or left and work together. Have each pair write down on paper at least five common nesting sites where they find Argentine ant colonies. Give them 2 to 3 minutes to complete this task. Be sure to walk around as they are completing the task and observe and even advise, if necessary.

After time is up, ask for a volunteer to come up front and write down the list of nesting sites as they are offered. You will need a flip chart or chalkboard. Having people volunteer gets people active. You can even “select” volunteers by taping a note under one or more chairs and then having the class look for the note when you instruct them to see who “volunteered.” It will be fair because the trainees choose their own seats. You can also sweeten the assignment by attaching a dollar bill, a coupon for a free hamburger, or something similar.

Compile your list by having each of the pairs who worked together, in turn, list one nesting site. Go from pair to pair until you have exhausted all their listed sites. The volunteer will have listed all of these on the flip chart. Once complete, add any you, as the instructor, feel are important to include and then instruct everyone to write down the entire list to keep as a reference. To save time, you can also type the list and distribute it to everyone the next day.

Depending on how much time you have available, select different nesting sites and ask the class to explain why those sites are attractive to Argentine ants as nesting sites. Discuss two to five (or more). Ask for someone to explain why it is important to be able to recognize and find where ants like to nest. Focus on the fact that these are the sources of the ant infestation and will be the primary sites requiring treatment.

This exercise, as outlined here, is the easiest to use and takes advantage of the fact that your class members have experience with the topic and can be used to supply the content of the session. As the instructor, you end up facilitating more than actually teaching. Hearing information from one’s peers holds greater impact both for those with little experience and those with years of pest control work under their belts. List-making exercises should be a standard tool in most training meetings.

OBJECTIVE #2. The second objective was for trainees to be able to choose the correct treatment technique when confronted with a specific situation. You will need to decide ahead of time which situations you will be discussing. You can think of situations where you have found colonies of the target pest ant species for your area and/or you can ask for ideas from the people you work with or for you. Select five of the key situations and type them out and pass the sheets out. Have the pairs who worked together in the first exercise take two minutes and list the treatment technique that will be used to treat the situation and the insecticide product or products that should be used. It helps save time to provide a list of the treatment techniques and products from which they can select.

Once the task has been completed, ask for someone to provide his or her recommendations for situation #1. Discuss the situation in detail by having the class offer thoughts on why that particular treatment technique is correct and why the product(s) selected was the right choice for the situation. For example:
• The situation is: carpenter ants are nesting inside the wall under a bay window.
• The treatment technique that will be used is a “void treatment.”
• One product that would be a good choice is “PT Cy-Kick Residual Aerosol.” An aerosol formulation is necessary because the wall will be insulated and a dust insecticide is less likely than the aerosol to penetrate the insulation and kill the entire carpenter ant satellite colony.

By having your class write their recommendations, you get a sense of how well they are making decisions when they are out in the field. You may discover you need to provide additional training in treatment techniques or insecticide formulations or that you need to spend some one-on-one time with a couple of your employees to improve their individual knowledge and skills.

OBJECTIVE #3. For the third objective, trainees should be able to list five reasons for failing to control ants. Give your class two minutes to write down two key reasons why they think an ant control effort might fail. You will need to have a list prepared ahead of time, and it is a good idea to have it prepared as a handout for your class to take with them afterwards.

When the class has finished their task, ask for volunteers to offer one of their reasons and write these on the flip chart or chalkboard. Keep asking and listing reasons until you have exhausted the class’ ideas. Then complete their combined list with other examples from the list you prepared for the class. Ask the class to rank these in level of importance from most important (#1) to least important. The point of the exercise is to get your employees to think about what they do each time they deal with an ant infestation and how the decisions they make and treatments they choose affect their success in controlling the infestation.

OBJECTIVE #4. The final objective for our training session was for the trainees to be able to describe methods for improving the effectiveness of baiting for ant control. Begin by describing a scenario involving ants where baits will be a primary strategy for controlling the infestation. For example, Pharaoh ants can only be controlled by baiting, and baiting should be attempted first to control pavement ants living beneath a slab floor. Go through the steps for implementing a baiting program by asking the class, “What’s the first step? What do we need to know? Which ant bait do we use? Where should it be placed? How much bait should be placed? When do we follow-up?”

List key factors on your flip chart or chalkboard. Like before, it is a good idea to have prepared a handout listing the keys to successful use of ant baits. (A few examples are listed on page 83.) For a complete discussion of ant baits consult the PCT Field Guide to Managing Structure-Infesting Ants, 2nd Edition or one of the several articles available by searching the archives at PCTonline.com.

SUMMARY. Hopefully, this article will give you some good ideas about how to teach your service and sales professionals about ant treatment strategies and techniques. With experienced learners, it is important to 1) keep them active and involved in the training process, 2) allow them to offer their knowledge and then expand upon it, and 3) use the class to repeat and focus on key objectives. The biggest mistake is trying to cover too much in the time you’ve allowed for the training session. Good luck!

The author is manager of technical services for Terminix International, Memphis, Tenn. He can be reached at shedges@pctonline.com.