Meeting The Training Challenge
By Dr. Stuart Mitchell

More and more, pest management professionals are in a “fish-bowl” of scrutiny and evaluation. A challenging co-evolution seemingly exists between social media and invasive pestiferous species. Competency is the key to this challenge. Meeting the training challenge involves effective PMP training. Effective PMP training is delivered through effective meetings

For PMPs training PMPs, the basics of an effective meeting must be learned so the message received is the message sent. For team meetings, easy to follow guidelines will get the message through a quarter inch of skull.

The following are guidelines for pre-meeting, during meeting, and post-meeting events.

• A training meeting should be held both consistently and when necessary to develop team awareness, discipline, dedication, and participation.
• No prisoners, only participants.
• A training meeting must have a clear, actionable purpose.
• A training meeting on a sensitive subject may require an unbiased trainer.
• A training meeting must have an agenda.
• A training meeting must have a topic for discussion.
• A training meeting must have a subject expert for the topic.
• A training meeting must schedule and allocate time for the topic.
• Training meeting information that must be distributed to attendees prior to the meeting.
• Meeting objective.
• Meeting agenda.
• Location, date, time, and duration.
• Relevant background information.
• Assigned meeting items (for preparation).
• The training meeting must start on time to respect attendees that are on time. In addition, punctuality reinforces the urgency of the event.
• Attendees must arrive on time.
• Attendees must be prepared.
• Attendees must be kept on task and avoid sidebars.
• Attendees must participate and contribute.

Meeting the challenge of ants, bed bugs, cockroaches, termites, rodents, and the new invasive and resurgent pests to come happens through training. Training is everything. Whether in the office or in the field, facilitated, instructional, and hands-on training must be completed and reliably updated.

Just as essential as ongoing training is documenting (in writing) the training event topic (noting lecture and/or hands-on training), instructor, date, time and duration, location, attendee sign-in sheet (must be signed for verification), and any pre/post-quiz or pre/post-test results (file with documentation). No documentation, and it NEVER happened.