Continuing Excellence

No matter how detailed and engaging a company’s initial orientation training might be, over time, technology, regulations, customer needs and expectations, and pest pressures change. Ongoing training is vital for maintaining consistent service and quality customer experiences throughout your service area.  

“Investing in employee training and development is more than a workplace benefit; it’s a strategic decision that shapes your organization’s future,” writes Harvard Business School Online marketing specialist Ally Heinrich. She references research showing that companies with a program of targeted, ongoing training have seen productivity increase by as much as 17%, with profitability improving by 21%.  

PestWorld spoke to three NPMA member companies to learn about their own approaches to ongoing training and its positive impact on service, engagement, and retention.  

Learning to Improve 

After new-hire training, Sprague Pest Solutions in Tacoma, Washington, provides many different opportunities for ongoing learning, with several programs linked to growth within the company. 

“The more training programs employees complete, the higher the level they can reach,” says Technical Director Ashley Roden. 

For example, Sprague offers advanced technical training where employees take a deeper dive into some of the issues in pest management. Typically, 40 people are approved for the program each year, broken into four classes of 10 people each. The classes meet once a week, virtually, for about 15 weeks, starting in the fall.  

“We also have leadership training options for people interested in moving into management positions,” says Roden. “We have two levels, Leadership 1 and Leadership 2, and each program lasts about a year. You have to apply to be accepted into these classes.” 

At Atlanta-based Arrow Exterminators, “Training is an essential part of every position, from a thorough initial onboarding to multicourse instruction for career-pathing to a service center manager academy,” says Alyson Gilleland, vice president of Arrow University, the company’s dedicated training arm. 

Arrow’s career-pathing program, Follow Your Arrow, is intended for everyone in the company’s service center—from administration to technicians to service managers. The self-guided program encourages employees to track their growth through all the levels for their position. Each level requires passing a series of classes covering a wide range of job specifics, including equipment winterization, entomology, and product-based training. 

“In our e-Learning Center, [employees] can easily see what classes they need to pass to qualify for the next level, as well as any additional knowledge, skills, or abilities that must be achieved,” Gilleland says. “There are typically incentives along the way as well,” which may include pay increases and other recognition. 

For individuals seeking to grow into management and other leadership positions, Arrow offers its service center manager training academy, a six-month program that includes online classroom training, mentoring, and in-person, hands-on training. New tracks start every three months and run for six months, consisting of 24 separate live, virtual classes.  

“We may have two people in a class or up to 12,” Gilleland says. “The number depends on the management needs of the company and how many people are interested in becoming a service center manager.” 

At Rottler Pest Solutions, headquartered in St. Louis, ongoing training is tailored to address knowledge and experience gaps, according to Alexandra Taylor, director of team member engagement and support.  

The company’s “Train the Trainer” program, for example, was developed to ensure consistency among team leaders, who are responsible for training and mentoring employees after they complete their initial onboarding. “Team leads, which may change every four to six months to allow a number of team members to gain leadership experience, meet in person every other month for about two to three hours for a director-led course on topics that people have asked for,” Taylor says.  

For individuals seeking a higher level of technical expertise, Rottler offers its technical fellowship program every six months. With just one staff entomologist but approximately 325 employees, “Having more than one person in each office who has a high level of technical experience is really important,” Taylor says. “We need go-to people that we can send to an account when a situation or customer requires more than a standard technician or manager.”  

These classes meet for three hours each month for six months.  

Rottler’s newest training track is for the company’s 30-​person service manager group. “We’re offering ongoing training in the form of two-hour classes that meet once a month,” says Taylor. This program was just weeks old when we spoke, so it is itself a learning experience. “We are continually fine-tuning as we go,” she notes.  

Relevance and Retention 

Constantly fine-tuning things is a necessity when it comes to ongoing training, Gilleland believes. “Otherwise, you’re going to fall behind, and your training will be outdated,” she says.  

Pest management companies need to be prepared to pivot to meet people’s needs and address current concerns. 

“Our technical program is driven by the trends and topics in pest management,” says Roden. “That’s one way to ensure that our training is always relevant to the job.”  

One recent training discussion took inspiration from a Reddit thread in a pest control subreddit that had generated a lot of conversation online. That led to a valuable discussion about small-fly control in bars and restaurants.  

“Of course, someone brought up bleach, because our customers always want to pour bleach down the drain to solve their fly problems,” says Roden. “So, that gave us a jumping-off point to talk about the relevant science, health concerns, and effectiveness, as well as how to talk about it with customers.” 

To aid knowledge retention, Roden tries not to overwhelm people with too much content at once. She also finds it helpful to provide content in a variety of forms. “I may point them to podcasts, because they can listen to those as they drive around, and shorter articles,” she explains.  

Once participants in Arrow University’s service center manager academy have passed their classes, they spend a significant amount of time working hands-on with a mentor.  

“This is where they’re going to put together everything they’ve learned during the first three months of the academy,” Gilleland says. Manager mentors continue to provide information, correct misunderstandings, and help drive home the real-world relevance of everything employees have learned. 

In addition to its other benefits, the program has a positive impact on employee retention, Gilleland reports. Eighty-nine percent of the program’s graduates have remained with the company.  

“That’s a very strong retention rate,” she notes.  

Arrow is not alone in experiencing such results. A survey by Lorman Education Services shows that organizations with successful training programs typically see a 30% to 50% increase in employee retention, largely because workers feel more connected to companies that invest in their growth. Results may be even more dramatic among millennial workers: Lorman found that 86% of millennials—the generation most likely to leave a job due to dissatisfaction—would stay in their current position if their employer offered training and development programs. 

Lifelong Learning 

The initial orientation/onboarding training ensures employees understand the fundamental responsibilities of their position and the company’s mission and key values. But it’s the ongoing training, the learning that may last over the course of a career, that equips—and inspires—employees to grow into effective, informed leaders. That kind of training tends to involve monthslong courses and formal classes, but it’s often supplemented with less formal instruction. 

Sprague, for example, added a series of informal meetings over the lunch hour. These were typically 20-minute presentations/discussions run by the technical department.  

“Those are recorded, so people can watch them later,” Roden explains. The presentation software’s artificial intelligence tool also creates a summary of each session, “so people can access that if they don’t want to watch the whole video,” she adds. 

Roden has since learned that lunch-hour presentations are not ideal for many people’s schedules. “I’ve heard that a lot of people are in the middle of something at that time of day, so I think we might try changing these presentations to ‘Technical Talks’ and schedule them in midafternoon. Our feedback is telling us that’s when people like to attend training.”  

Rottler is similarly open to experimenting with different program structures to meet a need. “That may mean a one-off training class or a series of classes,” Taylor says. “We’ve been able to identify training areas of need and then roll out a lot of different programs that exceed the new-hire training experience.” 

Regardless of the approach, ongoing training is playing a key role in maintaining high-quality service, boosting employee expertise, and creating deeper connections with employees and customers alike.