Management Challenges Facility Executives Encounter

Facility Cleaning Decisions' Advisory Board discusses industry advancements, IoT, management challenges and staffing

What do you consider to be your biggest management challenge and how have you overcome it?

Employee turnover has been a struggle that I have yet to overcome and I know it plagues other facilities throughout the industry — both private and public. It’s especially problematic in the entry level positions.
Michael Gutierrez
Manager of Building Operations
Milwaukee Public Schools

The biggest management challenge for me continues to be ensuring clear and concise communication to and among the staff. I make a conscious effort to establish a climate in which communication flows accurately to the staff, but it’s a challenge because the grapevine between staff members is fully charged and is always moving.
Ada Baldwin, M.R.E.H.
Director of University Housekeeping
North Carolina State University

As a manager, I have faced many challenges. But one challenge I’m excited to be part of is changing our work culture from top-down management to an employee-engagement culture, which will empower frontline workers. I spend a lot of my energy coaching my teams toward this work culture of continuous improvement and it’s paying off. Recently, two of my teams received a visit from the UW President (first time in my long career at UW) and the President was really inspired by the teams and how they had a system in place that empowered them to improve their daily work and achieve their goals. It was one of my proudest moments.
Another challenge is managing customer expectations and sustaining effective communication with our customers. Due to funding and many unfilled positions, we’re not able to consistently achieve the cleaning level our customers expect. Even if we were fully staffed, we wouldn’t be able to achieve the level of cleanliness we aspired to. However, we are outperforming industry standards, and we think we have initiatives and processes that enable us to be as effective as we can be. Customers are supportive to a point, but we must make the extra effort to continuously keep them informed about what we are doing.
Finally, salaries of cleaning workers continues to be a challenge. The cost-of-living in Seattle is extremely high, and I would love for my team members to earn higher incomes for the very important work that they do.
Gene Woodard, R.E.H.
Director of Building Services
University of Washington

Staffing continues to be my biggest management challenge. And that includes both obtaining quality people and maintaining the staff currently employed.
Doreen Bessert, C.E.H.
Worksite Placement Coordinator, Custodial Supervisor & Central Purchasing Agent
Manitowoc County DPW

One of my biggest challenges has been convincing and implementing Daytime Cleaning and Cooperative Cleaning into the organization and the industry. But I’m proud to say that I’ve accomplished this task by streamlining the process, identifying the benefits both financially and environmentally, reviewing the process for improvement, writing articles, teaching classes and getting to the right levels to present the process.
Steven Spencer
Facilities Specialist
State Farm Insurance

My biggest management challenge has been time management. My day-to-day activities keep me so busy, staying on task can be challenging at times. It takes constant effort and I’m getting better, but as in life, things come up that continue to make this a challenge.
Babette Beene
Environmental Services Manager
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center