Employee turnover in the commercial cleaning industry makes consistency a challenge for building service contractors (BSCs) and in-house providers alike. In this Q&A, I provide the answers to some common questions on how standardized processes and technology can help cleaning organizations maintain quality, improve onboarding, and support frontline teams despite ongoing workforce challenges. Why is standardization so important in high-turnover cleaning environments? When employees leave, they often take years of knowledge about a facility, client preferences, and daily routines with them. Without standardized processes, every new employee must start from scratch. That disadvantage creates inconsistency and increases the amount of time managers spend training new hires. When organizations document their processes, ideally within a digital system, new employees can step into a role with clear instructions instead of relying on guesswork or institutional knowledge. Standardization helps ensure that service quality remains consistent regardless of who is performing the work. What challenges do cleaning organizations face when onboarding new employees? One of the biggest challenges is communicating the scope of work. Many cleaners work independently during evening or overnight shifts, so after an initial walkthrough with a supervisor, they're often responsible for completing tasks on their own. If questions arise while they're in the field, they may not have immediate access to someone who can help. That uncertainty can lead to missed steps, inconsistent service, or frustration for both employees and clients. Having clear documentation, accessible work instructions, and reliable communication channels helps new employees feel supported while shortening the learning curve. How can technology help create consistency across multiple facilities and shifts? Technology brings the standard of work directly to the employee instead of leaving it in a binder or in someone's memory. Whether it's a checklist, QR code, timekeeping tool, or mobile work instructions, employees have immediate access to exactly what needs to be done, including the products, equipment, and procedures required for each location. That consistency is especially valuable when employees are assigned to facilities they've never serviced before. Technology also improves communication. Commercial cleaning is a highly bilingual industry, and tools that offer multilingual support or real-time translation help employees ask questions and receive guidance in their preferred language. That removes uncertainty and helps ensure work is completed according to company standards. What role do inspections and quality checks play in maintaining standards? Inspections establish the benchmark for what success looks like. They allow supervisors to measure performance against client expectations and identify areas that need attention before they cause larger problems. More importantly, inspections create consistency across an organization. Managers can compare performance between locations, identify recurring issues, and ensure every facility meets the same service standards. Rather than relying solely on customer feedback, inspections provide objective data that helps organizations proactively manage quality. How can managers use performance data to improve training and accountability? Performance data is valuable because it supports both coaching and recognition. Too often, employees only hear from management when something goes wrong. Inspection results and task data allow managers to recognize employees for work done well while also providing targeted coaching where improvements are needed. Over time, that data reveals trends. Managers can identify their highest-performing locations, their lowest-performing sites, and the tasks that fail most frequently. Instead of delivering broad training sessions, they can focus on the specific areas where employees need additional support. This specification creates a more efficient training process and helps organizations continuously improve service quality. What advice would you give cleaning organizations struggling with consistency due to turnover? Don't try to hire your way out of the problem. Many organizations respond to turnover by focusing only on recruiting more employees. While hiring is important, it doesn't solve the underlying issue if every new employee must learn processes differently. Instead, focus on building repeatable systems. Clearly define the scope of work, document your processes, and provide employees with the tools they need to succeed from day one. Even if you need to start with written procedures before moving to a digital platform, creating consistent processes will have a much greater long-term impact than simply adding more staff. Don’t try to change everything at once. Start by documenting your core processes, then implement improvements in manageable stages. Organizations that take a thoughtful, step-by-step approach are more likely to achieve lasting consistency than those that try to overhaul every process overnight.
The option of renting instead of purchasing cleaning equipment can offer flexibility to in-house service providers (ISPs) and building service contractors (BSCs) who are challenged with establishing and maintaining efficient cleaning practices while also managing overall operating expenses. Long-term rental solutions can help cleaning and maintenance professionals avoid an ownership model that may not serve their needs or fit their budget. As renting is a fixed monthly cost, it is often easier to manage than a large capital expenditure. Renting also frees up money for emergency expenses, such as a new air conditioning unit in an ISPS’s facility or additional trucks for a BSC’s fleet. Long-term rental details Cleaning operations that require a high level of service and uptime, or that have tight deadlines, are well suited for long-term rentals. Long-term rental solution plans typically range from four to 36 months, depending on the provider or contractor’s needs. Rental solutions providers typically offer discounted rates for longer rental plans, with options to end the agreement early if the equipment is needed for less time than expected. This opt-out involves a discussion with the rental company to pro-rate the agreement in a manner that is agreeable to both parties. Available equipment includes ride-on and walk-behind scrubbers and sweepers, as well as more sophisticated solutions like autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that operate as a “cobot” alongside cleaning staff, allowing them to take on more detailed-orientated tasks like cleaning and disinfecting high-touch areas. Cleaning drones for facility exteriors are also growing in popularity as a rental option, as are large outdoor sweepers for parking areas and walkways. This equipment tends to be expensive, making the option of long-term rental more appealing. While the financial factors may be the primary reason for looking into long-term rental, there are a host of additional benefits. Access to new technology: Rental companies keep a close eye on the latest solutions and can regularly add new equipment to their fleet. This variety allows renters to try new technologies without the risk of making an investment. In addition, access to the latest, highest quality equipment also increases a cleaning organization’s reliability, leading to improved uptime. Flexibility: Long-term rentals provide the flexibility to increase or decrease the amount of equipment within the rental agreement should the scope of work change. There is also flexibility in the type of equipment customers can rent as they are not tied to one serial number throughout the life of that rental. If a piece of equipment no longer suits their needs, or they need a larger scrubber or sweeper, they have the option to make changes. Rental clients can also add equipment to their cleaning program. For example, if a BSC takes on a facility with an adjacent parking garage that is a significant source of dirt brought into the building, it can add a large power broom or outdoor sweeper to its rental fleet to make cleaning more efficient. Immediate equipment needs: Rental solutions providers can quickly fulfill equipment needs when a scrubber or sweeper needs repairs. Most can either fix or replace the necessary piece of equipment within the same day, so that ISPs and BSCs can stay within their scope of work. This benefit brings long-term savings since the responsibility and cost of equipment maintenance and repairs fall to the rental solutions provider. In addition, quick equipment repairs or replacements minimize downtime that could negatively affect project deadlines or increase labor costs. Maximum utilization: Long-term rentals can help facilities maximize utilization of their equipment. For instance, schools may use a floor scrubber regularly during the academic year but put it in storage during summer break. Owning equipment that is only used for a portion of the year can be a costly investment. Long-term rental can offset that cost by providing a rental plan the fits the timeline when the equipment is necessary. It also ensures that the equipment is in working order when it is deployed. Less overhead: As scheduled maintenance is part of a long-term rental agreement, ISPs and BSCs can reduce costs associated with hiring maintenance and repair technicians. BSCs also may be able to reduce the number of vehicles they keep for transporting equipment. Increased BSC competitiveness: With access to a range of flooring equipment through long-term rental, BSCs can position themselves to bid on additional projects—making them more competitive without the concern of capital investments. If they decide to purchase a core piece of equipment to expand their business, long-term rental can fill the lead-time gap while they are waiting to secure their capital. Partnerships with rental providers Rental solutions providers work with their clients to ensure they are entering into the right long-term rental agreement with the right equipment. A representative can analyze their clients’ cleaning program or scope of project—including labor availability—and walk through the facility with them to assess it. They will also discuss the projected utilization of the equipment. For example, if a client will use the equipment over the standard 160 hours a month for a rental, renting a larger more robust scrubber or sweeper may make better sense. By gathering information, the rental solutions provider can provide an accurate recommendation for the size and type of equipment that will introduce the most efficiencies. Upon completion of the rental agreement and the equipment delivery, a representative from the rental company can also provide equipment demonstrations and training. Most rental solutions providers offer free training for the entire length of the rental agreement and for any rental technology upgrades. This ensures that new employees receive the appropriate training on existing equipment and that existing employees receive training on new equipment. In any rental partnership, the goal is to provide ISPs and BSCs with the equipment and support they need to operate a safe and efficient cleaning program benefiting the facilities they serve.
In 2026, one would be hard-pressed to avoid headlines asserting that artificial intelligence is moving from “pilot to production” across industry after industry. The technology has advanced, trust (from a business lens) has increased, and objections have fallen one by one as organizations witness their peers’ deployment scale and fear the cost of being left behind. For facility managers and building service contractors (BSCs), the same is quickly becoming true for cleaning robotics. This year is likely to see more large-scale adoption of autonomous solutions than any year prior. Three trends define where robotics stands today and where the technology is going. 1. The move from consideration to necessity Even just a few years ago, autonomous cleaning equipment occupied a cautiously optimistic corner in the minds of facility managers. Something to pilot, evaluate carefully, and perhaps circle back to in a future budget cycle. But a few key factors have converged to push cleaning robotics firmly into the mainstream today. Safety concerns that once made teams hesitant—particularly in retail and mixed-use spaces—have largely been diminished by considerable improvements to the underlying technology. Obstacle detection and machine response have both made massive leaps. Some autonomous scrubbers can now deftly differentiate between fixed objects and moving ones (like people) and respond accordingly. That reliability, accumulated over years of real-world deployment, has done more to shift the consensus than any novel product demonstration could. Word of mouth and social proof have also played a pivotal role. The cleaning industry is a tight-knit professional community, and when a meaningful share of teams in a given vertical are actively deploying autonomous equipment (and reaping the benefits), the competitive pressure to keep up is difficult to ignore. Additionally, the sharing of best practices across the same and other verticals has been a common theme, sponsored by industry experts, manufacturers and customers. 2. A shift from primary use to additional benefits Every emerging technology goes through a form of metamorphosis. The first stage includes doubt, and maybe a dash of fear. Then, as the technology demonstrates its viability, people ask, “will this work for me?” And once the market has answered that question, the mindset shifts to “how can we integrate it even more into operations and how efficiently can it be realized?” We’ve arrived at that tipping point for cleaning robotics for a few reasons. The persistent labor shortage that pushed many facility managers toward robotics initially remains acute. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects roughly 350,000 annual openings for janitors and building cleaners through 2034, driven not by growth primarily, but by the need to replace workers leaving the field entirely. This is a structural churn that even the most glamorous recruitment effort can’t solve on its own. Robotics addresses this problem head-on and cleaning teams are embracing it. And by doing so, they’re finding that it surfaces more possibilities than just labor relief. One of the more obvious benefits is data. Cleaning robotics collect performance data that trickles into broader facility analytics platforms: areas covered per shift, resource usage, maintenance intervals, and more. For cleaning teams that previously had little to no systematic visibility into cleaning operations, this information can enable smarter scheduling and more efficient resource allocation. Beyond data, cleaning robotic technology is prompting facility managers to think differently about outcomes a cleaning program can achieve. With floor care running essentially on autopilot, staff are freer to address higher-value tasks that rely on the human element. Robotics handle volume and repetition; humans handle complexity. Lastly, there is something commercially meaningful, though perhaps more difficult to quantify, about the general effect of a consistently clean space. Facilities that have transitioned from manual to robotic cleaning programs report that the difference in cleanliness is perceptible, not just to the people responsible for maintenance but to the people using the building. In environments like retail, corporate offices, and healthcare facilities where cleanliness represents safety and care, that perception speaks volumes. 3. Rising adoption among BSCs BSCs have been among the slowest segments to adopt autonomous cleaning and for a fairly evident reason: labor is their chief offering. And if what you sell is labor, a technology that reduces the need for it looks less like an opportunity and more like a threat to the business itself. But that way of framing cleaning robotics is deteriorating. BSCs are recognizing that differentiation has become a crucial competitive advantage and robotics is one of the clearest paths to it. More importantly, the operational logic of adoption is starting to click. A BSC’s field structure has traditionally been organized around square footage and headcount—how many people it takes to clean a certain amount of space. Autonomous floor scrubbers turn that equation on its head. Now, with robotics handling routine floor care, a single field supervisor can oversee multiple locations rather than being anchored to one. That may be a fundamental shift from a tried-and-true model, but it also may be the sound of a door opening to a kind of growth that wasn’t available before. Reading the market The decline of extended pilot periods across the board may be the clearest signal of where the market stands. Facility managers who once spent considerable time proceeding gingerly are now skipping the pilot phase entirely, trusting the evidence the industry has already accumulated rather than feeling the need to generate it themselves. With the groundwork laid, the most useful question now is where to begin.
On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of legislation to strengthen California’s long-term wildfire recovery system, building on the state’s work with survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires, and producing tools for wildfire survivors across the state. The new laws create first-in-the-nation standards for testing and remediating hazardous wildfire smoke contamination for future fires and require insurers to cover qualifying smoke-damage testing, remediation and restoration. The bills also permanently extend mortgage forbearance protections for disaster-affected homeowners. In the wake of the 2025 firestorms, families and communities continue to rebuild after the Eaton and Palisades fires. These new protections will make insurer obligations clearer and give homeowners more financial flexibility when they need it most. As fire seasons across the West become a year-round reality, California’s commitment to recovery must be just as enduring, the government said. The California Department of Insurance estimates that more than 13,000 of the roughly 40,000 insurance claims filed after the January 2025 fires involve smoke damage to homes that never burned. Until now, no state in the country had enforceable standards for how those homes should be tested, cleaned or restored. Assembly Bills 1642 and 1795 direct the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the California Air Resources Board to develop the state’s first protections for testing, remediation and restoration of lead and asbestos contamination from wildfire smoke, for homes within a fire’s zip codes. The bills require DTSC to issue guidance to help schools recover after a wildfire. The legislation also requires insurers to pay for lead and asbestos testing and remediation in smoke-damaged homes within a wildfire zone, cover full cleanup and restoration to pre-loss condition and bars insurers from cutting off Additional Living Expense coverage until a home is actually remediated and safe to occupy. “AB 1642 will set a new national precedent on scientific standards for clearing a home for occupancy after a wildfire,” said California Assemblymember John Harabedian. “Science, not an insurance company’s opinions, will determine whether a home is safe. AB 1842 creates a national model for granting mortgage forbearance to future wildfire survivors, so no family has to immediately pay a mortgage for a home that no longer exists. AB 1847 extends the Mortgage Relief Act (AB 238, Harabedian) for an additional year for survivors of the Los Angeles Fires who are still desperately trying to rebuild.”
ISSA, The Association for Cleaning and Facility Solutions, launched ISSA Academy, a reimagined online learning experience designed to provide cleaning and facility solutions professionals with a clearer path to career advancement while helping organizations build stronger, more skilled workforces. Built around the idea that professional development should be a journey, not simply a catalog of courses, ISSA Academy brings together industry education, training and certification in an intuitive learning environment. The Academy centers around Career Pathways, structured learning journeys designed to guide professionals from foundational knowledge and front-line skills through advanced expertise and enterprise leadership. “With ISSA Academy, we are creating a clearer roadmap for professional growth while giving organizations flexible tools to develop their people,” said ISSA Executive Director Kim Althoff. “Whether someone is beginning a career in the industry, building specialized expertise, or preparing for a leadership role, we want them to be able to see what comes next and have the education to help them get there.” ISSA Academy’s Career Pathways provide a five-level framework that helps professionals progress from frontline fundamentals to technical expertise, supervision, management and enterprise leadership. Along the way, the pathways incorporate many of ISSA’s recognized education and certification programs, giving learners a clear understanding of how individual courses and credentials can contribute to long-term career growth. For example, front-line professionals can build foundational skills through the Cleaning Management Institute’s (CMI) Certified Custodial Technician (CCT) Basic program and the Global Biorisk Advisory Council’s (GBAC) Trained Technician education program before progressing to advanced CMI training. As professionals move into supervisory roles, pathways incorporate programs such as the CMI Custodial Supervisor Certification, with increasingly advanced education supporting continued progression into management and leadership. By connecting these established programs within a structured framework, ISSA Academy helps professionals understand where they are in their careers, what skills they need to develop and what learning opportunities can help them take the next step. ISSA Academy is designed to serve professionals throughout the cleaning and facility solutions industries, including frontline cleaning professionals, building service contractors, facility managers, manufacturers, distributors, residential cleaning professionals and emerging industry leaders. The platform organizes learning around industry sectors and career development needs, making it easier for users to identify education relevant to their role and professional goals. Current sector-specific areas include building service contractors, healthcare, residential cleaning, K-12 and higher education, manufacturers, distributors, emerging leaders, and advocacy and government affairs, with additional areas planned. Beyond individual professional development, ISSA Academy provides organizations with flexible options to support employee onboarding, ongoing training, career development and workforce advancement. Organizations can use ISSA Academy to create more consistent learning experiences across their teams, identify training aligned with employee roles and career goals, and provide employees with opportunities to continue building their skills throughout their careers. Solutions range from individual courses and career-focused learning bundles to team training subscriptions and enterprise learning options, allowing organizations to develop an approach that fits the size and needs of their workforce. The launch of ISSA Academy reflects ISSA’s continued commitment to advancing the cleaning and facility solutions industry by strengthening the knowledge, skills and professional development opportunities available to the people who power it. To explore ISSA Academy and available learning opportunities, visit academy.issa.com.
Held every year during the second full week of September, Environmental Services Week (EVSW)/International Housekeepers Week (IHW) is dedicated to recognizing the efforts of hard-working custodial staff members globally. The true heroes of any building operation, cleaning employees have one of the toughest and most important jobs. Buildings that aren’t properly cleaned can lead to illness and productivity loss for the people who visit, eat, live, work and play there. The Indoor Environmental Healthcare and Hospitality Association (IEHA) is the official sponsor of EVSW/IHW since its founding in 1981. IEHA is a 1,300-plus member professional association devoted to helping managers of facilities such as hospitals, hotels and schools maintain cleaner, safer and healthier buildings. According to IEHA, the week is celebrated in thousands of facilities worldwide. The week offers the perfect opportunity for facilitators to show their gratitude for the efforts of their environmental services (EVS) workers, housekeepers and custodians. IEHA suggests these ideas to help make the week a success at your facility: Host a team celebration. Share staff stories and achievements. Present awards or certificates. Provide meals, treats or appreciation gifts. Highlight team members on social media. Encourage leaders to share messages of thanks. Sign up your team to compete in the 2026 Housekeeping Olympics, taking place on Nov. 16 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. No matter how you choose to celebrate, taking time to acknowledge housekeeping and EVS professionals can make a meaningful impact.
As a building service contractor (BSC), you face daily challenges in serving the needs of your clients while meeting your bottom line. From dealing with labor shortages and high-traffic facility areas to navigating the latest cleaning equipment and technology, it can be helpful to see where you stand amid your BSC colleagues. Join CMM on Nov. 5 at 1 p.m. CT for a free webinar— The BSC Blueprint: Trends, Tech, and Top Challenges— to learn the results of our 2026 BSC Benchmarking Survey. Released every autumn, the survey report details the role of BSCs in managing budgets, equipment, clients and employees. CMM Managing Editor Kathleen Misovic and CMM Editor Elizabeth Christenson will guide participants through the survey results including BSC: Offerings beyond cleaning and disinfecting. Hiring trends including worker pay and benefits. Growth and plans to expand their client base. Preferences regarding training and sources of industry knowledge. Views on autonomous cleaning equipment and other smart technology. The 30-minute webinar will conclude with a Q&A session allowing participants to delve deeper into the survey results. Don’t miss this opportunity to examine the thoughts and actions of your BSC colleagues. Click here to register for CMM’s BSC Benchmarking Survey Report webinar today.