Is pest control a risky or risky business?

For some companies it is unnecessary to consider the concept of risk, with the simple argument of not working for the food industry, in addition to believing that it is only applicable to HACCP programs.

According to ISO 31000, risk can be defined as the effect of uncertainty on established objectives, all within an internally and externally defined context. Risk management involves managing the probability of risk based on its impact. The risk must be evaluated both outside and within the company, from the apparently obvious ones derived from the use of pesticides, as well as in the management of the organization itself.

Pest control companies face numerous risks, practically the same as others, with their particularities. From reputational risk due to an accident or poor service, labor that leads to constant changes of technicians, poor management of physical assets such as application equipment or vehicles, financial related to collection problems, market problems and the constant entry of competitors, operational derived from poor or no training of its applicators or strategic by not correctly implementing marketing plans or poor choice of customer sector.

What is really dangerous is not being able, or not wanting, to identify them to prevent them, mitigate them, avoid them, transfer them or, in many cases, accept them.

According to the assessment of many pest control companies, the risks they identify as the most important for their business are poor pest control, along with poisoning of clients or their pets. If poisoning is managed as the same problem, the third risk is delay or non-payment for services.

Since it is a business that relies heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations, poor pest control will result in a bad recommendation and a reduction in your services. It is normally assumed that this problem is associated with several causes, some internal such as poor training of technicians or supervisors both in aspects of knowledge of pests and the management of equipment and pesticides, which result in poor service. On the other hand, the client is frequently blamed for not applying preventive and maintenance measures against pests, or for lack of conviction about the presence of direct or indirect evidence.

Sometimes, to avoid this risk, pest control companies use more aggressive and dangerous pesticides, which can lead to the following main risks: poisoning of people or animals that inhabit the treated site.

A health problem of clients and pets brings from serious consequences such as lawsuits and legal actions, to the simplest: the loss of client portfolio. If it occurs in employees, the problem could lead to labor lawsuits and closure of the company, or in the best of cases, in the case of non-serious poisoning, medical expenses and loss of labor.

Although delay in payment for the service is the most frequent risk recorded, it probably derives from dissatisfaction on the part of the client, the causes of which could be the aforementioned. Other causes may be of an administrative nature, both for the client and the service provider. The lack of liquidity affects the pest control company by not having resources available for the acquisition of the supplies necessary for the work, as well as could delay the payment of salaries and suppliers.

Large corporations in the industry constantly complain about the services they receive from pest control companies, particularly in aspects related to their competence to work in environments involving the highest demands. To resolve this, sometimes labor competence standards are created whose good intention is questioned when they become the business of companies that play the four roles: service provider, consultant-trainer, auditor and certifier. With this, some companies intend to certify their own competition; a clear case of conflict of interest.

The independence of auditors and certifiers is compromised when what is audited is related to or arises from the activity of another third party hired externally by the organization, like the auditor, or if they will receive a benefit that goes beyond their normal services. In these cases, the risk of making judgments is even more complicated, since it is very likely that they will be directed towards the person who does not issue the payment, involuntarily or, worse still, voluntarily, in which case we would speak of improper conduct.

Independence is closely related to neutrality, formality and critical thinking. Although audits must adhere to a defined scheme, they must often look beyond, for which the auditor must question, seeking answers that help form a more comprehensive scenario. These questions must be clear, precise and simple enough to avoid bias or second interpretations. This way you can compare them as objectively as possible with the corresponding standards.

Therefore, the auditor's thinking must be self-directed, self-disciplined, self-regulated and self-corrected. Submit to rigorous standards of excellence, integrity and conscious mastery of its use, with effective communication oriented to the solution of problems, although it should not be expressed in the moment, and with a commitment to overcome the egocentrism and sociocentrism natural to human beings.

PDCA and continuous improvement

One of the techniques applied in the development of a new methodology is PDCA, modifying processes of companies providing pest control services. In the PDCA cycle, the following steps are established, in the case of the example, for reporting trends in recurring services, in order to prepare the risk report and comply with current regulations.

P (Plan): IPM program planning. Based on the inspection of food production facilities, the results of monitoring using devices such as bait feeders, light or pheromone traps, and risk assessments. Strategies must be established with physical, mechanical and chemical measures, according to the environmental, economic and sociological predictions for the plan.

D (Do): in Spanish, do. Execution of the plan, with the involvement of each area of ​​the contracting company and the support of management, including the communication and definition of actions of each department, in addition to those of the technicians of the pest control company.

C (Check): constant review of results by internal and external supervisors, evaluation and comparison of this data with pre-existing monitoring. Since we are working with living beings, comparisons are made on the same month in consecutive years. Due to seasonality it would not make sense to compare month to month. A true trend analysis plays a fundamental role; It is not enough to present graphs of observations made.

A (Act): according to the results and constant monitoring of the plan, in addition to changes in the operation, new scenarios and modifications to the program itself. At the same time it represents the evaluation and qualification of the service with the consequent improvement. From here, the cycle begins to restart, since a new plan is established continuously, which is implemented, standardized and verified, and is reevaluated and redesigned again and again.

The pest monitoring inspection manager or data analyst must rely on facts and avoid guesswork. This is especially complex because it is common to fall into the temptation of issuing opinions, which transforms the audit into advice. However, many organizations expect from the auditor not only a report of deviations from a standard or a checklist, but also suggestions for compliance with it. It is worth remembering that the absence of continuous improvement makes it impossible to adequately determine the so-called risk appetite, or the level of risk acceptable to the client.

All reasoning has a purpose, seeks to solve or answer specific questions, is based on assumptions and is done from a perspective for which the audit is required. Your job is to seek information based on evidence, which you must transform into clear ideas and concepts to reach conclusions, trying to move away from interpretations and inferences, always present, that you will have to expose to the auditee, or the authority, with their implications and consequences in order to apply the pertinent controls and corrections.

Curiously, and as often happens, these steps that could be considered obvious are the least followed, mainly due to ingrained habits of service providers and ignorance of how to evaluate them on the part of contractors. Its detail, according to each company or facility and established in a supplier evaluation program, has allowed the most demanding regulatory prerequisites to be met.

Most risks are not single-factor; Many times they are a consequence of previous processes, both within the company, processes, people and materials, and outside it, suppliers of goods or services, distribution chain and customers. The risks should not be addressed independently, since with a high probability they will be concatenated in one way or another. In this way, attacking one risk can prevent another.

There is one factor that makes all the others easier to accomplish: simplicity. The principle of parsimony or Olkham's razor is essential in what is undertaken. This establishes that to achieve an objective there may be several paths that can lead to its successful achievement, but of them always the simplest, the one with the fewest steps, the most economical, will be the first one to choose.

In the aspect of risk management, from the estimation of risks and their evaluation to the establishment of controls, processes and the measures to be taken against them, simplicity must be a factor that allows their better understanding and, therefore, their application. Each factor is important, but it will become urgent to the extent that it becomes incomprehensible or too complex.

Failure to establish the identification of risks and their sources in pest control, with all the treatment defined in the process, without the proposal and implementation of improvement actions, will surely lead not only to creating an endless cycle of correction of the same risks, hidden for and by the service provider, but to the inability to recognize risks that could arise from the resulting routine.

If you want to manage the risks inherent and involved in pest control, they must be properly identified and assessed, but first you must recognize their existence and have enough flexibility to adapt what you believe cannot be changed, such as ourselves and our company, before helping the client manage their risks related to pest control. Uncertainty has been and will always be present; Doing things “the way they have always worked for me” only increases the risk of failure.