Hire Right

Employees put the labor into “labor savings.” Being fully staffed with customer service representatives, sales representatives, technicians and more who are jazzed to work for your company is a great first step in improving productivity.

But while the labor market has recovered some in the last year, some PCOs said it remains challenging to get potential employees to apply for open positions and see a possible career path within the pest control industry.

“With unemployment running below 4 percent, it’s still a challenging labor market. We as an industry need to continue to work to improve wages for our field staff so that they can make a career out of it,” said Jamie Ogle, CEO of Lloyd Pest Control in San Diego.

Here are some creative ways that pest control companies across the nation are attracting, retaining and rewarding their workforce, all of which can lead to better productivity and efficiency.

Focus on hiring the right people. PCOs are dealing with a variety of concerns when it comes to hiring. Wendy Lund, administrative director at Accel Pest & Termite Control, Virginia Beach, Va., said it’s been a challenge to find candidates for entry-level positions such as customer service representatives.

“We’re finding that a lot of our candidates end up being overqualified for that type of position,” said Lund. “And unfortunately, since we’re a smaller company, we don’t have those higher pay positions.”

Meredith Shaw Miller, business manager at Pest-X Exterminating in Winston- Salem, N.C., has been seeing an increase in candidates who agree to an interview then don’t show up. To help combat that, Pest-X increased its base pay to help encourage more candidates to follow through with an interview.

“I think there’s a lot of preconceived notions about the pest control industry,” Shaw Miller said. “Candidates might not know all of the opportunities that our industry offers. But once we get them in for an interview, we can sell them on how wonderful it is.”

And how you market open positions plays a big role as well. Whether you’re advertising positions on ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn or Facebook, the words you use to advertise what the position is can help get the right candidates through the door.

“We started looking at it like we had to market for applicants — be more creative in how we write our ads and more aggressive in where we place job posting,” said Ogle. “We started looking at it as part of a sales and marketing function, not just a hiring function. So we had to change our mindset a little bit.”

That mentality applies to All-American Pest Control in Nashville, Tenn., said President Erin Richardson.

“We have a full-time employee who is consistently recruiting every day,” she said. “We found that one of the key metrics is the time it takes from when we receive a resume to having an interview. There’s so much competition out there for great team members that if we don’t act fast, they will likely have gone to another company that acted faster.”

Lean into employee referrals. Your company may already offer referral bonuses or programs, but utilizing recommendations from current employees can be a vital pipeline for finding qualified people to add to the team.

“The most qualified candidates we get are from employee referrals,” said Lund. “We have an employee referral bonus structure that we are constantly reminding our employees about.”

Pest-X Exterminating also offers an employee referral bonus, and Shaw Miller agrees with Lund that referral candidates tend to have a seamless transition.

“Referrals already have that backing behind them,” said Shaw Miller. “They tend to be a little bit more engaged because they have friends working here.”

And in addition to offering referral bonuses, PCOs are making sure they take the time to invest in new employees and that they’re properly trained.

For Lund, it was vital to establish a process for new hire training within the last year.

“You have to have structured new hire training. That’s one of the mistakes we’ve made in the past where we didn’t have a solid plan when a new employee started,” Lund said. “We’ve really focused in the past year on making sure that we have a structured training plan for when new employees come in, and it makes a world of difference getting them up to that productive employee level faster.”

And it’s not just about training new hires, it’s about being transparent as a company with any career advancement opportunities.

“We have found that the best employees who are going to be rock stars for us want to contribute confidently and quickly, so we have remapped our entire training program in a way that we can get them up to speed and out on their own as fast as possible,” said Richardson.

Promote company culture. We all know how important key performance indicators (KPIs) are in tracking success as a company and using them to retain and reward employees.

But many companies are also finding other fun ways to embrace their company’s culture and reward employees.

It’s one thing to say you have a “great company culture” and then actually take the time to show your employees you mean it.

From kickball tournaments, hand- written birthday cards and company cruises, to a brag channel in Slack, companies are taking a hands-on approach when it comes to making sure their employees feel like part of a team.

“We’ve done a lot of cruises. This past February, we went to Cancun for a long weekend,” said Lund. “It’s just a chance for all of us to get away from the work environment and build that culture. It just gives everybody a reward for the hard work that they do.”

Curtis Rand, vice president of operations at Rose Pest Solutions, Northfield, Ill., said the company started using a digital tool to recognize and reward employees.

“Each of our employees gets a group of points that they can give to their co- workers for a job well-done,” said Rand. “They can build up those points in their bank and then redeem for gift cards. We found that’s been a big help with company culture, and it’s helped our people get to know each other a little bit better.”

Many companies are taking the time throughout the year to poll their employees on what’s working or what they’d like to see — and realizing company culture is a vital component of a company’s overall success.

“The work of culture and team development and leadership development is never-ending. It’s something that there’s not a finish line,” said Richardson. “It’s more of an evolution, and it really starts with getting to know your team members in a different way, and asking for their perspectives and opinions, asking what’s working and what’s not working, and just continuously evolving the culture.”

Don’t be afraid to take chances. It can be easy to keep calm and carry on — not looking for innovative ways to change or improve your company. But taking a calculated risk can pay off.

All-American Pest Control is one of the first pest control companies to implement a four-day work week, according to Richardson. She says her team started doing research in 2016 and quickly realized if the idea was going to work, All-American had to change.

“We couldn’t just hire more people to make up for the extra days off. We had to rework how we did things to make it efficient for a four-day work week,” said Richardson.

And initially, after rolling out the four-day work week with technicians in 2018, Richardson says a few employees left the company.

“I was shocked. I thought it was going to be this golden tool for retention. I had a moment of thinking I did the wrong thing, or maybe there’s something going on with our company culture that I’m not aware of,” said Richardson. “Even though it was a little unsettling at the beginning, it actually turned out to be much better for our company.”

And with rising gas prices — especially in California where Lloyd Pest Control is located — Ogle said his company is making the transition to hybrid vehicles. He considered going with electric vehicles but found that hybrids are that sweet spot of affordability and ease.

“Electric is a little trickier because of ability to charge and needing a plug,” said Ogle. “But hybrids are a nice hedge against gas prices. You can get a little better gas mileage.”

Bottom line? Think about ways you can make strides to retain and reward your employees. Shaw Miller said it’s vital to the overall success of your company.

“Treat every current employee almost as a customer. You have to make your company better than other places that they could work,” said Shaw Miller. “It’s important to work on keeping your current employees happy. I think any way to improve that culture, that’s your best retention tool right there.”