KEY TAKEAWAYS 

  • Review what has changed in your buildings, staffing, and cleaning needs.  
  • Strengthen quality, safety and communication across your custodial operation.  
  • Align budgets and resources with measurable outcomes. 

By Mark and Susan Cashman

Annual planning can become routine for in-house environmental services and custodial departments. We understand why. When a hospital, university, school district, or commercial facility has familiar buildings, familiar trouble spots and familiar expectations, it is easy to carry last year’s plan forward and assume it still fits. But buildings rarely stay the same for long, and cleaning plans should not either. 

For facility cleaning managers responsible for their own buildings, the annual review should feel less like paperwork and more like a walk through the facility with fresh eyes. 

A useful review starts with a simple question: What has changed in the building since this plan was written? 

Maybe a campus added buildings, a hospital opened a new wing, an office shifted to hybrid work, or a school expanded after-hours use. Restrooms, entrances, classrooms, patient areas, cafeterias and public spaces may now carry different traffic patterns than they did a year ago. 

That is why facility cleaning managers should compare current building use with existing cleaning frequencies, routes and staffing levels, then schedule recurring specialty work such as floor care, carpet extraction, disinfection, event cleanup and deep cleaning before those needs become last-minute disruptions for the department. 

1. Review Staffing Stability 

A clean building depends on dependable people. In our experience, staffing is often where an in-house cleaning plan succeeds or starts to break down, because even the best schedule depends on having trained employees in the right places at the right time. 

Recruiting and retaining reliable frontline custodial workers remains a real challenge, so the review should look honestly at which areas are most vulnerable when someone calls out, whether routes are realistic and whether cross-training covers critical spaces. 

Those questions are not about assigning blame. They protect service continuity and support the people delivering it. 

2. Evaluate Quality Control 

Custodial programs are built around tasks, but a completed checklist does not always tell the whole story. Facility cleaning managers also need a practical way to see whether the work meets expectations in the spaces occupants, students, patients, visitors, and staff use every day. 

That may mean supervisor inspections, digital checklists, photo documentation, corrective action logs, occupant feedback, work order data, or walkthroughs with facility leadership. The goal is not to prove a contract was met; it is to understand how well the department is supporting the building. 

If the only quality control system is waiting for complaints, it is not strong enough. Good documentation clarifies expectations, identifies training needs, and helps an in-house team show progress over time. 

3. Revisit Safety and Compliance 

Cleaning is also safety work. Equipment, chemicals, training documentation and regulatory awareness shape how a custodial team performs, especially when employees work independently after hours or in occupied facilities. 

Managers should confirm that employees understand product use, surface compatibility, chemical storage, Safety Data Sheets, spill response, exposure procedures, equipment use, personal protective equipment, and site-specific requirements. Compliance cannot live in a binder; it must be reinforced through training, documentation, and supervision. 

4. Look Closely at Communication 

Many cleaning problems start small: a supply issue, a recurring spill, a room missed after an event, a locked office, a high-use restroom that needs attention, or a complaint that never reached the right supervisor. Those small problems grow when there is no clear path to report them and no expectation of follow-up. 

Because in-house cleaning often happens in late afternoons, nights and weekends, facility cleaning managers need communication systems that work when they are not standing beside the team. Frontline employees usually see building issues first, and their observations should have a routine way to reach supervisors and facility leadership. 

5. Evaluate Technology 

Technology does not replace good cleaning, and it certainly does not replace hands-on supervision. Used well, though, it can make an in-house program easier to see, explain, and improve. 

Digital inspections, work order systems, scheduling tools, inventory tracking, equipment logs and communication platforms can improve visibility and document needs for staffing, supplies, equipment or training support. Even simple tools can help facility cleaning managers track work, spot patterns and communicate the value of custodial operations to leadership. 

6. Review Budget 

Cost always matters, but the budget conversation should be grounded in facility outcomes. Labor, supplies, equipment, overtime and specialty work all affect the standard an in-house team can realistically maintain. 

If expectations rise but staffing, equipment or supply budgets do not, the gap will eventually show up in quality. Facility cleaning managers should be ready to explain what current resources can deliver, where risk is increasing, and which investments would make the most practical difference for the facility. 

7. Strengthen Accountability 

The best annual reviews clarify, not defend. They give facility cleaning managers a chance to define success in practical terms: inspection scores, response times, restroom readiness, supply availability, event support, safety training, reduced complaints, retention, and productivity inside the operation they already manage. 

Strong in-house cleaning departments are built on clear standards, trained employees, visible supervision, and consistent follow-through. Cleaning is too important to facility operations, occupant experience and risk management to treat the annual plan as a copy-and-paste exercise. 

For facility cleaning managers, the review is a chance to step back, look honestly at how their buildings are being used, and strengthen how those buildings are cared for every day. 

Mark and Susan Cashman are the Master Franchise Owners?for Anago of?Baltimore, part of the Anago Cleaning Systems brand,?supporting over 1,800 franchises across the U.S. and Canada. For more information about Anago of?Baltimore, visit?www.AnagoCleaning.com/Baltimore. 


posted on 9/21/2026