Training Takes Top Spot Among Staffing Concerns in Facility Management Survey

For the first time in five years, facility managers who participated in CMM’s annual In-House Facility Management Benchmarking Survey listed employee training as their biggest concern with their cleaning staff.

Among 2025 survey respondents, 35% listed employee training as their top staffing concern, compared to 29% of respondents in 2024, 23% in 2023, 19% in 2022, and 27% in 2021.

The second most common staffing concern for 2025 was employee health and safety (chosen by 28% of respondents), followed by employee retention (25%), and proper use of products (12%).

In the 2024 survey, employee health and safety was the top concern about cleaning staff, with 30% of survey respondents choosing it as their No. 1 concern. Employee retention was chosen by most (35%) of the survey respondents as their top staffing concern in 2023, yet employee health and safety again took precedence as the top concern in 2022 (42%) and 2021 (34%).

Health and safety of both staff and facility inhabitants is a top five issue identified as important by respondents of the 2025 survey. Among a list of 12 issues, the top five issues survey respondents chose as largely and moderately important included:

• Health and safety (chosen by 96% of survey respondents)
• Improving productivity/efficiencies (95%)
• Training/education of staff (92%)
• Security (91%)
• Validating/proving budget to management (90%)

CMM conducts the In-House/Facility Management Benchmarking survey each spring. Among 2025 survey respondents, 60% manage school facilities, evenly split with 30% in K-12^th grade schools and 30% in colleges/universities. The second largest group (19%) of 2025 respondents manages commercial buildings such as offices and government buildings, followed by facility managers for hospitals and other healthcare facilities (13%). Most (62%) respondents manage more than 20 facilities. One quarter of the respondents spend 51% to 60% of their operating budget on labor.  About one-third (34%) do not outsource any of their cleaning/maintenance tasks while 13% outsource all of their cleaning/maintenance tasks.