Use your seasonal slowdown to improve safety
By John Culotta
It’s an unfortunate truth: The end of summer means a business slowdown for many pest management professionals (PMPs). But there are advantages to free time, if you use it wisely. Take this opportunity to look at your internal safety programs, and implement proactive steps to reduce costly insurance claims. Here are three areas of your operations you can examine to make safety improvements:
1. Review and update your employee training procedures.
Such procedures may include eradication methods, new chemicals, new pest issues and all aspects of service for which your employees are responsible. Update training where it is needed. (Remember when bed bug calls were rare?)
You should do this even if your employees attend industry trade shows and earn continuing education (CE) credits for taking classes. That CE training needs to be supplemented by updated internal procedures.
To gauge how well your employees have learned new procedures, consider providing written tests or field tests. Go out in the field with your technicians to watch how they interact with customers and implement procedures. Grade them on their performance, and review your evaluation with them.
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Pest Management Professional - Direct to You Newsletter (Aug 2013)