Overall, We’re Doing Well

Pest management employees are generally happy when it comes to work. In fact, 83 percent said they were satisfied with their jobs overall, according to the 2019 PCT/NPMA Workplace Survey.

“I am 110 percent satisfied with my job,” said Antonio Briceno, who has worked as a service coordinator at Truly Nolen of America in Miami Beach, Fla., for eight years. He credits his employer’s “outstanding training” and for paying for his pest control operator certification.

“My job gives me a great sense of identity and through the years I have become the service professional to go to when somebody has a pest control issue,” he said.

More than three-quarters (77 percent) of pest management employees said their jobs were a good match for their professional skills and training, and 55 percent said the work gave them a sense of identity, found the survey.

“People want to have a purpose. They don’t want just a job. They feel satisfied when they feel like they’re making a difference in the world,” explained Leila Haas, director of human resources at Sprague Pest Solutions in Tacoma, Wash. Don’t leave employees to figure this out on their own; instead help them see how their daily tasks impact people’s health, wellness and well-being, she advised.

Still, parts of jobs can rub employees the wrong way. “It’s really simple things that are irritating,” said a pest control technician in Stillwater, Okla., who asked to remain anonymous. For her, these include the challenge of finding addresses in the “middle of nowhere” and not having client cooperation to prepare sites and improve sanitation.

Job dissatisfaction spurs some people, like Nick Madero, to start their own pest control businesses. Madero grew frustrated with his former employer’s compensation package, route schedule and general business practices. He left to start Madero Pest Control in Pueblo, Colo., with his wife Angela in 2014.

“Over time I think your vision gets clearer and you start seeing the bad things and you just don’t want to be attached to that,” Madero said about leaving his old workplace.