What Facility Leaders Get Wrong About Outsourced Cleaning (and How to Fix It)    

The biggest trap in facility management is the belief that “if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.”

I talk to facility leaders often. And they’re exhausted. They’re juggling aging HVAC systems, commercial cleaning services, complex security protocols, tightening compliance standards, and the constant pressure of budget cuts. They’re the silent architects of the daily operations, keeping the wheels turning while everyone else focuses on their day job.

Yet, many of them are still pouring their most valuable resource (time) into trying to micro-manage a commercial cleaning crew or an in-house team that isn’t hitting the mark.

I’ve seen it too often: a senior FM hired to oversee a multi-million dollar capital budget and long-term sustainability strategy spends half their morning managing a janitorial no-show. It’s a total misuse of their expertise

They hesitate to outsource because they’ve been burned by empty promises before. Maybe they hired a low-bidder who disappeared after three months. Or maybe they think outsourcing means handing over the keys and losing the “pulse” of their building. They worry that out of sight will quickly become out of mind for the vendor.

They’re wrong.

But it’s not their fault. They’ve just been looking at outsourcing through an outdated lens. They see it as a “hand-off” when they should be seeing it as a “level-up.”

🔸 The “Control” Fallacy: The number one fear I hear is: “If I outsource, I lose control over the quality.” Actually, the opposite is true. When you manage an in-house team, that’s not all you’re managing. You’re now managing a small business within your building. You’re responsible for the hiring, the training, the payroll, the workers’ comp, the call-outs, and the equipment maintenance.

Think about the hidden “control” killers with an in-house model:

• The training gap: Are your janitorial custodians trained on the latest CDC guidelines? Do they know the dwell time for specific disinfectants on high-touch surfaces? Do they understand cross-contamination?
• Supply chain headaches: Who is tracking the inventory of floor wax, microfibers, and HEPA filters? If a shipment is late, who is scrambling to find a local alternative?
• Human resources drain: When a floor tech calls out on a Tuesday night, you’re the one dealing with the fallout. You aren’t in control – you’re in the weeds.

A strategic partnership doesn’t take away your control; it gives you a dashboard. It moves you from the tactical to the strategic. In a high-performance facility, the FM shouldn’t be the one auditing the closets. They should be the ones reviewing the performance data that proves the work is already done.

With a true strategic partner, control isn’t watching someone mop a floor. It’s leveraging professional systems that provide total transparency:

• Transparent communication logs: Clear details on what was completed, which areas were disinfected, and the project’s completion time – without needing to track someone down late at night
• Systematic inspections: A second set of professional eyes, like stakeholders incentivized to uphold excellence, ensuring standards stay high before you even walk through the door
• Clear KPIs: Data-driven metrics that prove the job is getting done to your specifications – reports showing 99% compliance on high-touch point disinfection give you more control than you had with an in-house team

🔸 The Consistency Gap: I think we’ve all seen it. The “New Vendor Honeymoon.” A new company starts strong. The lobby smells fresh, the brass is polished, and the floors shine for the first three weeks. Then, slowly, the corners get rounded. The dust starts to settle on the high surfaces. The trash starts to linger just a little bit longer.

Facility managers often think this inconsistency is just part of the business. They accept a slow decline as the status quo because they don’t think there’s a better way.

But it’s not part of the business. Inconsistency is a symptom of a lack of scalable systems. Most cleaning companies are just “mop and bucket in a van” operations that scaled too fast. They’re personality-driven, not process-driven. If the owner is having a bad day or if their best cleaner quits, the quality at your facility drops off a cliff. They lack the infrastructure to handle a flu season call-out or a specialized emergency floor care need on short notice. They’re one flat tire or one sick day away from a service failure.

When you move to a franchised model, you’re getting the best of both worlds: a local business owner who has skin in the game and is personally invested in your satisfaction, backed by a global system of accountability and support.

Think about the psychology of a franchise owner. They aren’t just an hourly employee punching a clock – they’re a business owner building an asset. Their name is on the line. Their success is directly tied to your retention. If someone doesn’t show up, there’s a built-in redundancy and a system in place to ensure your building doesn’t suffer. And that’s much more than cleaning. That’s a fail-safe for your brand reputation. Consistency is born from systems, not just effort.

🔸 Cleaning is an Investment, Not a Commodity: This is the hardest mindset shift for some leaders. If you view cleaning as a line-item expense to be cut, you’ll always be disappointed with the results. In the facilities services sector, you get what you pay for – and often, you pay more in the long run for the cheap bid in the form of ruined assets and disgruntled tenants.

Your building is one of your organization’s largest assets. Neglecting it to shave costs on a low-bid contract is the fastest way to accelerate depreciation and tank employee morale. A dingy office tells your staff that details don’t matter. It tells your clients that you’re cutting corners.

Strategic outsourcing is an investment in the health of your entire business:

1. Brand reputation: What does a high-value prospect or a future employee think the moment they walk into your lobby? They’ll form an opinion in the first ten feet. If the air smells stale or the carpets are stained, you’ve lost the trust battle before the meeting even begins.
2. Employee health and retention: We’re in a new era of workplace expectations. Productivity drops in a dusty, germ-ridden environment. In the war for talent, a clean, vibrant workspace is a silent but powerful recruiting tool. It shows your people that you value their well-being.
3. Asset longevity: Proper floor and surface care adds years of life to expensive carpets, stone, and finishes. I’ve seen $50,000 worth of marble ruined because an untrained, low-bid cleaner used the wrong acidic chemical. Prevention always costs less than replacement.
4. Risk mitigation: Professional partners carry the right insurance, follow OSHA standards, and understand the liability of slip-and-fall hazards. An in-house slip-and-fall is your headache, and a partner-managed facility shifts that risk to experts who specialize in preventing it. 

🔸 The Silent Cost of In-House Management: Let’s talk about numbers. When you calculate the cost of an in-house team, most FMs just look at the hourly wage. They forget to calculate:

• The cost of recruiting and background checks in a high-turnover industry
• The managerial tax – the hours you spend every week supervising, scheduling, and disciplining
• The cost of idle equipment and the depreciation of machines that aren’t maintained by experts
• The premium you pay for supplies when you don’t have the bulk-buying power of a global brand

When you add those up, that expensive outsourcing contract suddenly looks like the most fiscally responsible decision you could make.

🔸 The Fix: Shift Your Mindset: Stop looking for a vendor. A vendor is someone you pay to perform a task. A partner is someone you trust to manage an outcome. A vendor wants to check a box and move to the next account. A partner wants to protect your assets, mitigate your risks, and clear your plate so you can focus on high-level facility strategy – the stuff you were actually hired to do.

I challenge every facility leader to look at their “To-Do” list for tomorrow. How much of it is spent on janitorial issues? If it’s more than 5%, you have a partnership problem, not a cleaning problem.

Outsourcing isn’t about giving up. It’s about leveling up. It’s about admitting that specialized tasks require specialized experts. You wouldn’t try to build your own servers if you weren’t an IT company, so why would you try to build a cleaning company inside your office?

Stop managing mops and start managing standards. When you have the right systems behind you, you don’t lose control – you finally get it back. You get the freedom to think big, to plan for the future, and to lead.

Your building and your staff (and your stress levels) will thank you.

Adam Povlitz, CEO & President