Survey: Management Priorities in 2014 - Member Content

Custodial executives in healthcare, K-12 schools, colleges/universities, hospitality, government and other large facilities all have different management challenges. In this survey, executives rank their top management priorities as they relate to their department and reveal some subtle changes from years past.

The survey also touches on technology issues affecting departments. As technology progresses, managers are looking for easier ways to keep the lines of communication open with their staff.

This means incorporating smartphones, tablets and two-way radios into the list of cleaning supplies and equipment. In fact, the use of smartphones in custodial operations has gone up 15 percentage points in the last year and tablets are growing in popularity — up 8 percentage points.

In this section of the survey, managers also comment on which areas are the most challenging for their staff to keep clean and which issues drive the cleaning mission.

Lastly, the burning question most readers want to know — managers comment on whether or not their departments are threatened by outsourcing (building service contractors).

As respondents share their success stories in keeping outsourcing at bay, other managers comment on which specialty custodial tasks they do look to contractors for help. Overall, the outsourcing of specialty tasks has dropped as more departments expand their services in-house.