"Staffing always comes to mind," Mary, a head of operations, told us at PestWorld 2025. "But I feel like saying that is so lame. That's for everybody."
She's right. It is for everybody. We asked more than 15 pest control owners, operators, and department leaders what the hardest part of running their business was this year, and staffing and retention came up first almost every time. Three other challenges followed: scaling operations, keeping up with technology, and holding on to customers across seasons and regions.
The bigger surveys agree. In FieldRoutes' 2025 State of the Pest Industry report, a survey of 1,025 pest control leaders, 45% ranked recruiting and retention as a top business goal and 43% ranked it as a top risk. The pressure comes from growth, not decline: US structural pest control revenue reached $12.65 billion in 2024, up 7.9%, according to Specialty Consultants. More work means more people to hire, train, and keep.
If this year felt harder than it should have, here's what your peers said, and what they're doing about it.
The problem looks the same across markets. An HR leader at a company with offices from California to Tampa named retention and engagement as the hardest part of her job. The incoming president of Mexico's national pest control association described the same cycle there: "You spend money on training and then they leave without telling you." Wages are rising, technicians have more options, and some leave to open competing businesses of their own.
Most companies are already responding with pay. In the FieldRoutes survey, only 11% of leaders said technician pay would stay flat in 2025.
Pay alone doesn't keep people, though. The first few months do. "Retention is the thing that keeps me up at night," said the president of one pest control company, a 30-year industry veteran. "If we can keep them for six months, that's huge."
Growth is a good problem. It's still a problem. "My business is growing, and I've never had lots and lots of employees," one owner said, "so just putting things in place has been different for me." Her advice for anyone in the same spot: hire a business consultant. Three months in, it had taken real pressure off not having to figure out every answer alone.
Others talked about protecting quality while they scale. "Growth and quality have an inverse relationship," one session speaker warned. Danielle, a pest control leader, described the culture she's building instead: "I want people to treat this company like they have ownership in it." Another company cut its mission down to four words so every team member would actually remember it.
"The technology climate is moving so rapidly," Mary said. Just "making sure that you're staying up to where you need to be" is its own challenge.
She sees technology and staffing as the same problem from two angles. Her company is evaluating AI to help handle inbound call volume, though nothing has rolled out yet. Plenty of companies haven't adopted the basics: in the same FieldRoutes survey, just over half (52%) reported using routing software.
Retention isn't only about employees. Kate, an operations manager, said her hardest task is "retaining customers and helping them to figure out what pest packages fit depending on the seasonality." What fits one region doesn't fit another. (Her colleague's summary: "Our country's just so big.")
The stakes are high because pest control runs on repeat customers. Recurring service made up 85.2% of residential pest control revenue in 2024. Daniel, a speaker in one PestWorld session, set the bar: "How many customer mistakes is too many? One."
Asked for his secret, Greg, who runs a 12-person pest control team, said he didn't have one. "It's always about people." Then he named the teammates the business couldn't run without.
Staffing, scaling, technology, customers: all four come back to that. Systems help. They just can't do the whole job. "You can't systematize heart and care for humans," Daniel said. Or, as another line from the same session put it: "Your customer experience will never exceed your employee experience."
Hire Bloom places US-educated team members in pest control support roles like customer service, billing, and scheduling; Banner Pest Services sees 2.8x better retention than it did when hiring US agents.
Methodology behind these interviews: Hire Bloom spoke with 15+ pest control owners, operators, and department leaders on the expo floor and in sessions at PestWorld 2025. Quotes are lightly edited for length and clarity.
Tell us where you're at, and we'll show you what's possible.
Find the right talent for your open roles
Get a custom plan with flat, predictable pricing
Start interviewing in as little as 2–3 days
.avif)
.png)
