What’s the number one challenge facing your business? If you’re like the entrepreneurs surveyed in The National Small Business Association’s 2016 Mid- Year Economic Report, it’s economic uncertainty. Forty-nine percent of the respondents, most of them owners of companies with five or fewer employees, say economic uncertainty is the biggest problem they face. Nor are they expecting relief anytime soon: ...

Last year, a number of major companies from Adobe to General Electric announced they were doing away with the annual performance review. Around that same time, new research showed that millennials—who became the largest share of the American workforce in 2015—didn’t like them. It may seem that this annual event is undergoing a slow, spiraling death. Research shows that about ...

Your technicians are a vital part of your pest control operation, so why place a label on them? Carefully identifying whether your technicians are considered independent contractors or full-time employees is actually much more important than you may realize for a variety of legal factors. Health care reform requires applicable employers (ALE) to report to their employees and the IRS ...

Want your firm to flourish? A first-class training program is key. In today’s tough economy, some pest management firms are struggling to stay afloat—and as a result, many have moved training programs to the back burner. However, studies show a lack of continuing education can be harmful to a company’s health. According to a 2010 Louis Harris and Associates poll, ...

Spice up your training program with four flavorful strategies Employee training is a lot like cereal: If you keep serving up the same bland, flavorless brand, your team will eventually refuse to eat it. So how do you keep your pest management company’s training program from going stale? “It has to be fun and engaging, that’s the bottom line,” says ...

Millennials are the fastest-growing generation in the U.S. workforce. The same is true in most countries around the world. In the U.S., there are about 79.8 million Millennials. They are the most diverse generation in U.S. history and have more college degrees (and college debt) than any previous employee generation, and they bring all of these issues to work. Millennials ...

Whether your company is large or small, you’re probably growing, and you probably have some turnover to deal with. In all likelihood, you have veteran employees with many years’ experience; and you have newly hired “rookies” who must step into the shoes of persons who have been promoted, who have retired or left the company for other reasons, or who ...

How to gear up before the busy season As summer approaches, pest control companies across the nation are gearing up for the busiest season of the year. While some companies are plotting out their summer game plan, preparing for growth and training the troops, others are going about their business and hoping everything will fall into place when the busy ...

According to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, 18 percent of service-sector human resource professionals indicated they had more difficulty filling key positions in the first month of 2016 – up nearly four percent from the same time last year. What does this mean for pest management professionals looking to hire qualified service technicians? Is the pool ...

One of the trickiest tasks you’ll have as a pest management professional is hiring employees. The interview process might seem straightforward enough, but business owners often slip up when talking to candidates.

That means it’s critical to prepare before interviewing for a job opening. Here are four common mistakes first-time business owners make when talking to job candidates – and how ...