Building company culture that your team actually knows and lives

“Culture” gets tossed around a lot in business. In the pest control world, where people are your biggest asset, it can’t be an empty word.

As a former owner of Spencer Pest Services and now as an industry business coach, I’ve seen firsthand that a strong workplace culture doesn’t just happen. It takes clarity, consistency and buy-in from the whole team. Unfortunately, many owners say they want a good culture, but can’t name their core values — or worse, they can, but their team can’t.

When I ask owners about their values, I often hear:
▶ “We wrote them years ago.”
▶ “They’re on the wall, but we don’t really talk about them.”
▶ “Our team probably doesn’t know them.”

That’s not culture. That’s decoration.

Talk about it

At Spencer, we did things differently. Our values were posted everywhere. More importantly, they were part of our daily language. We talked about them constantly. We praised team members when they lived them. We held people accountable when they didn’t. We even built our interview questions around them, because we knew culture had to start with hiring.

Now, when I coach pest control owners, I encourage them to involve their team in shaping the culture. If you don’t have core values yet, ask your employees, “How would you describe the values of this business?” You’ll
get meaningful insight and, more importantly, your team will feel ownership in what you build together.

Live it every day

Once you’ve defined your values clearly, make sure your team knows what those values look like in action. For example, if “professionalism” is a core value, then professionalism should be visible in how your team dresses, how your trucks are maintained, and how your team treats customers and one another. Showing up in a wrinkled shirt and driving a filthy truck is not living that core value, no matter how good the technician might be at pest control.

Here’s how you keep culture from becoming a buzzword:
▶ Define it clearly. Don’t use vague fluff. Be specific about the behaviors and values that matter.
▶ Give examples. Help your team understand what each core value looks like, as well as what it doesn’t look like.
▶ Model it from the top. Leaders set the tone. If you want honesty, teamwork or hustle, show it.
▶ Talk about it often. Culture should come up in meetings, shout-outs, performance reviews and everyday decisions.
▶ Hire and train for it. Make your values a part of your interview process, onboarding and ongoing coaching.
▶ Reinforce it daily. Culture is what you reward and what you tolerate. Keep it visible and actionable.
Culture isn’t soft. It’s one of the strongest tools you have to drive performance, improve retention and create a company people are proud to be part of. But it has to be intentional, and it has to be lived.

Spencer Bachman is a second-generation pest management professional and owner of the Pest Control Business Coach consulting firm based in Canton, Ga. You can reach her at Sheri@PestControlBusinessCoach.com.