IPM’s Secret Weapon: Harnessing the Power of People

January 2025 Edition: IPM’s Secret Weapon: Harnessing the Power of People by, Curtis Meyers, Associate Certified Entomologist

 

              Integrated pest management uses many tools and techniques to identify, monitor and address pest activity. From basic snap traps to remote monitored smart traps that provide real-time catch and environmental data at facilities. Pest control professionals perform inspections, risk assessments, and make recommendations to resolve conditions conducive to pest activity. These are all essential components of a good pest management program.

              One sometimes overlooked resource available to a pest management program is the people working at a facility or site. When harnessed properly, the power of people can provide valuable data, observations, and information about facility operations that can influence pest activity.

The power of one pest control professional observing pest activity and conducive conditions at a facility once a week can be multiplied manyfold when the power of the people working at a facility is harnessed. One set of eyes watching a facility once a week can turn into many sets of eyes watching a facility, up to twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.

              I have generally found that the people working in a facility are more than happy to provide information about pest activity they have noticed or sanitation opportunities within a facility. Afterall, most people do not want to work in a dirty, infested facility.

Pest management and sanitation aren’t just a regulatory or quality requirement, they can directly affect employee satisfaction and turnover. Along with their potential to transmit and vector disease causing organisms, the presence of pests in a facility can result in very real psychological effects such as fear, worry, exhaustion, stress, and avoidance behaviors which can affect employee productivity and job satisfaction.

Human Pest Monitors

              Pest monitoring in facilities generally involves documenting captures in devices such as rodent and insect traps. Data from these devices is captured regularly, but usually not more than once a week, and sometimes as little as once a month. This data is useful but limited since we are not capturing data for pests that are not caught in devices, sometimes resulting in false negatives.

 A strong relationship between facility employees and the pest management professional along with a little basic pest management training, facility employees can help collect and provide basic information that can be very valuable to a pest management professional including:

• Pest sightings, including the basic type of pest (“bug”, rodent, bird etc.), location, time, direction of movement and product or materials affected.
• Physical samples of pests or pest evidence for identification/examination by the pest management professional.
• Information related to times of the day and product or areas the pest management professional may rarely see including:
  • Observations from overnight and weekend shift personnel.
  • Observations and samples from the inner workings of equipment that has been shut down for periodic maintenance which is not normally accessible to the pest management professional.
  • Observations from normally off-limit areas of a facility accessible only by authorized personnel.
• Information about policies, practices, and employee culture that can affect pest management at a facility.

Training to Develop Reliable Observers  

              Good basic training is essential to get the best data from people working at a facility or site. It is important for the pest management professionals and facility leaders to agree on the scope of the training and the resources that will be allotted to the training to get the best results. Training should not be focused on making facility personnel pest management experts, the goal should be to make reliable observers that can provide solid information to aid the pest management program.

              Some training elements that can provide value to a pest management program include:

• Training on the general size, shape, and behavior of common pests. Remember, employees do not need to be experts but should know generally what they are looking for so they can report potential pest activity to the designated facility contact, who can then act based on what was observed.
  • Showing the actual size of common stored product insect pests can be eye-opening and help train employees to get used to scanning the facility and materials for pests that can be very small.
  • Training on identifying evidence of pest activity including rodent and insect damage to materials and structures, pest droppings, and insect webbing to name a few.
• Training to identify and report conditions conducive to pest activity that may normally be overlooked, including pest exclusion and sanitation opportunities.
  • Teaching personnel that a very small food spill can support many stored product insect pests, or that mice can fit through a gap roughly the size of a #2 pencil opens their eyes and allows them to identify and report opportunities in their facility.
    • Gaps around doors that weren’t seen as a big deal are now something to report and have been pest-proofed.
    • An area that seemed clean is now seen as an all-you-can-eat buffet for insects by the employee and can be addressed.
• Inspection of incoming materials.
  • Pests often enter facilities on inbound materials, so a thorough inbound inspection program is key to a successful pest management program.
  • Training should be provided to any personnel responsible for unloading trailers and bringing other materials into the facility to help ensure pests are not being brought into the facility.
  • Training should teach personnel what to look for, where to look and what to do if they find potential evidence of pests or pest activity.
  • Identification of inbound materials and vendors and the risk they present can help allot inspection time.
    • All inbound materials should be inspected, but some materials may require a more thorough inspection based on a history of pest activity and some materials may only need a basic inspection based on historic data from previous shipments.
  • Don’t forget to train personnel on inspecting the equipment (trailers, intermodal containers, box trucks) materials were transported on. Pests can infest voids inside of trailers, or spills of materials from previous loads that were not cleaned out before reloading that can then enter a facility on materials being brought into the facility.
• Most importantly, once an observation is made, who do the employees tell? A communication structure should be in place that ensures the observation makes it to someone within the facility that can take action.

 

Recognition and Reinforcement

              When receiving sightings and observations from facility personnel, it is important to take the information seriously, thank the observer, tell them what actions you are going to take and follow up with updates on the actions taken. Recognizing reliable observers also helps reinforce behaviors beneficial to a pest management program. Let people know the power they have to have a positive effect on their workplace and that their help is needed and essential to success.

              When observations are followed up on and results of the observation are communicated to the observer, they tend to feel value and ownership of their facility resulting in employees more engaged in the pest management program and the overall facility cleanliness.

On the other hand, observations that are not followed up on and acknowledged can result in jaded observers that are less likely to provide observations in the future and result in statements like “I used to tell them, but they never did anything about it, so I stopped”.

The Power of People Unleashed

              The strongest pest management programs I have seen in commercial facilities all had one thing in common: well-trained people engaged in their pest control program that felt ownership and pride in their workplace. Harnessing the power of people opens up a world of information that would not be available through conventional pest monitoring alone.