The Facilities Workforce

Employers facing skilled labor shortages can expand their workforce by recruiting from underrepresented communities, but hiring efforts need to be accompanied by workplaces where employees feel safe and respected, hiring specialists say.

Practical barriers can prevent employers from reaching otherwise available workers. Early start times can conflict with public transportation or childcare schedules, while language barriers can make training and safety information difficult to understand, panelists said at a recent Construction Dive virtual event.

Employers can improve recruitment and retention by training managers and supervisors to work with employees from different backgrounds, providing multilingual training and safety information, improving access to properly fitting personal protective equipment and developing relationships with schools, mentoring programs and local communities, panelists said.

Expanding the pool of skilled workers requires employers to look beyond recruitment and examine whether their workplaces inadvertently make it difficult for some employees to succeed, panelists said during the event. 

“We need more people. We need to cast a wider net,” said Lyn Hewitt, vice president of human resources at Clark Construction Company. “And to do this successfully, we need inclusion and we need workplaces and environments where people have safety, belonging and dignity.”

Construction continues to have a significant demographic imbalance. Women account for about 11% of the industry's workforce, while 86% of construction workers are classified as white, Construction Dive Senior Editor Zachary Phillips said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The workforce challenges discussed by the panel can also affect facilities departments and the contractors they rely on for building operations, maintenance, renovations and capital projects. Expanding recruitment therefore may require these employers to examine everyday workplace practices that unnecessarily narrow the available labor pool.

Hewitt pointed to scheduling as one example. Traditional construction schedules can make employment difficult for workers with family responsibilities, she said. Finding childcare that allows a parent to drop off a child early enough to report to a jobsite at 6 a.m. can be difficult.

During the panel, Wendell Stemley, president of the National Association of Minority Contractors, cited a similar problem involving transportation. On a large project at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, he said, the project's start time did not align with bus schedules serving an underserved community, preventing potential workers who relied on public transportation from arriving on time.

“We have to start looking at the real world,” Stemley said. “If we want to grow the industry, how do we get those people included in the process?”

Employers should also consider whether equipment and workplace conditions meet the needs of a broader workforce, the panelists said. Hewitt cited increased availability of properly fitting PPE as one area where construction has improved. Diana Eidenshink, president of the ACE Mentor Program, pointed to something even more basic: women citing concerns about porta-potties and clean restroom facilities. Employers sometimes don't recognize such barriers until workers tell them about their experiences, she said.

Language access is another consideration as employers seek workers from a broader range of backgrounds.

Clark uses translation services during safety events that allow workers to hear information in their own languages through headsets, Hewitt said. The company also provides voiceovers in multiple languages for safety orientation videos.

Providing those resources can improve safety and prevent employers from relying on multilingual employees to serve informally as translators for their co-workers, adding responsibilities to their existing jobs, Hewitt said. English-as-a-second-language programs can also help with retention and employees' professional and personal acclimation.

Recruiting efforts can begin well before workers enter the labor force.

Eidenshink said mentoring middle and high school students can expose young people to construction and related careers they may never have considered. Seeing successful workers who share their backgrounds can make those career possibilities more tangible.

Employers should also look locally for workers, Stemley said. Construction jobs are tied to particular locations, and businesses may be overlooking potential employees in nearby communities with high unemployment.

For facilities leaders, the same principle can apply when building internal maintenance and operations teams or evaluating the workforce capabilities of contractors bidding on work: employers can broaden the labor pipeline by looking for available workers in the communities surrounding the facilities they operate.

Once those workers arrive, supervisors play an important role in whether they stay.

Eidenshink recommended training managers, supervisors and executives to work effectively with people from different backgrounds and understand cultural differences. Hewitt said active listening can help managers identify workplace problems that might otherwise cause an employee to leave.

“Genuinely taking the time to get to know people, understand their perspective [and] understand the things that are being said” can help employers identify solutions and create a workplace where employees remain respected, Hewitt said.

Those improvements can ultimately benefit more than the particular groups they were initially designed to help, she said. Changes to scheduling, workplace facilities, training and management practices can make the workplace better for all of the workforce as employers compete for a limited supply of skilled labor.

When Southern Home Services hired Matt Ellenberg to be its senior technical training manager in 2023, he had a mandate from the company: increase the number of training opportunities for employees. It was a challenging task for a company with 27 locations across 11 cities, from the East Coast to Austin, Texas.

“The day I got hired, it was very clear that there was a total lack of technical training,” Ellenberg, director of training at SHS, told Facilities Dive. “It just didn't exist at all.” 

That first year he spent 240 nights in hotels, traveling the country to train the company’s employees on the latest advances in HVAC technology, plumbing and facilities management. To find a way to do it more efficiently, Ellenberg contacted a company called Interplay Learning that, in part, offers simulations using Meta Quest VR headsets.  

The software gives workers the impression they’re in the customer’s location. Looking down, employees see their hands wearing work gloves. They then do tasks like changing a filter or testing the equipment. 

If a worker reaches for an electrified component before turning off the breaker, the joystick vibrates to simulate being shocked. 

Virtual training remains a small part of how SHS uses Interplay Learning’s resources, Ellenberg said; his company mostly uses Interplay’s e-learning tools, like videos and quizzes. 

The VR technology, while helpful, can’t solve all of SHS’s training needs, he said, so it acquired a facility in the Orlando area with HVAC and plumbing labs that enable employees to get more hands-on training in person. 

“I think that using only Interplay without a hands-on component is a pipe dream as of now,” Ellenberg said. Right now it serves as an effective supplemental tool, he said. 

VR limitations

The skilled trades are facing a worker shortage. The HVAC industry has 110,000 unfilled positions nationwide, according to the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association, or SMACNA. Bridging that gap will require a massive training effort, SMACNA says. But instructors say virtual reality has its limitations. 

First, there’s a shortage of qualified instructors, Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, a senior fellow at the National Skills Coalition, says. 

“You want instructors who have hands-on experience in the industry, but the reality is that the education field doesn't pay as well in many cases as the jobs themselves,” she said. Paying high school technical instructors to teach night classes for adults is a possible solution, she said, but it’s not clear having them teach using virtual reality is the way to go.   

“I have not seen any rigorous data about the comparison of folks who've been through VR training versus folks who've been through traditional training in terms of their pass rates for exams or occupational licensure,” she said. 

One employer in Louisiana who was training employees to dig trenches for fiber optic cables expressed concerns about how much more serious the consequences are in the real world, she said. Hitting a live electrical wire has the potential to injure or even kill a worker. Is a vibrating joystick enough to convey the seriousness of making a mistake?  

Santa Rosa District Schools in Florida has been using virtual reality simulations in workforce education since the 2024-2025 school year. It introduces students to the technology as early as fifth grade. Jennifer Hines, the school district’s workforce education director, said approximately 10,000 students are enrolled in career and technical education. The program is mainly to introduce students to work they might like. It doesn’t go into detail on how the work is done. 

One school has 20 VR headsets. Hines says the technology helps students complete a welding project, climb a tower or work in an emergency room. 

“Just as much as they realize that something is interesting to them, they realize that they may not like blood, or they may not like height,” she said. 

Hines said it brings learning to another level compared to watching a video or researching a career online. However, when it comes to training students, real-world experience remains the go-to teaching path. 

“As much as we get advanced, there's nothing that can replace the true hands-on, in-the-field learning,” she said.

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By Staples Business

Facility teams are expected to keep buildings safe, stocked and running smoothly, often while budgets tighten and staffing remains a challenge. The supplies you order matter, but so do the systems, service and expertise behind them. The right distributor should do more than supply products. They should help keep your facilities running. 

The challenge is knowing whether a distributor can truly support the way your facilities work. Broad promises about selection and service do not explain how orders will be filled during a disruption, how spending will be tracked across locations or who will step in when an issue arises. The right questions help you determine what a distributor can actually deliver. 

What are your typical turnaround times, product fill rates, order minimums and delivery frequency?  

Look beyond the averages. A useful answer should explain how performance differs for stocked and non-stocked items, what happens when something is unavailable and how substitutions are handled. Those details can show whether a distributor will keep critical work moving without forcing your team to carry excess inventory. 

What ordering methods do you provide, and how do you keep purchasing simple, consistent and controlled across sites?  

If you oversee multiple locations, control matters as much as convenience. Look for mobile-friendly ordering, preapproved product lists, role-based access, spending limits and approval workflows. These controls can save time while helping facility leaders manage what gets purchased, where and by whom. 

What supply chain redundancies help prevent disruptions in product availability?  

Find out whether orders can be rerouted when a facility, carrier lane, region or product line is disrupted. Confirm that critical items have approved alternatives or secondary sources. Multiple fulfillment and delivery points can help keep one disruption from interrupting operations. 

How do you provide clear insight into site-level spend and the products delivered to each location?  

Reporting should break down purchases by site, department, cost center, requester and item. It should show what was ordered, what arrived, when it was delivered and where it went. That visibility can help you manage budgets, identify inconsistencies and make informed decisions across locations. 

Can you support enhanced delivery services beyond drop-off at the dock?  

Delivery should match the realities inside your buildings, extending to supply rooms or other destinations where supplies are actually needed. These services can reduce the time facility teams spend receiving, sorting and moving orders, freeing them to focus on the work that keeps facilities running. 

What technology can help facility teams work more effectively?  

Look for tools that support forecasting, inventory planning and real-time monitoring. The right technology can help your team anticipate demand, prevent overstocking and stockouts and make more informed purchasing decisions. 

Will my facility have a single, knowledgeable point of contact?  

One accountable contact, backed by specialists in pricing, service, supply chain and key product areas, can connect your team with the right answers. It also helps ensure that ordering issues, reporting needs and opportunities to improve are handled by someone who understands your facilities. 

Partnerships that go beyond supply and demand

Facility executives carry significant responsibility, and a strategic distributor can help lighten the load. The key is finding one that is reliable, transparent, innovative and adaptable, with experts who understand your organization and offer solutions tailored to its needs. From training staff and supporting maintenance and repairs to recommending products, this level of service gives facility leaders more time to focus on long-term priorities and future growth.

The questions above are adapted from the Staples Business^TM and Facility Executive report, Key Questions to Ask Your Distributor. Use them to evaluate potential partners and determine which one can best support your operation.

To learn more please visit StaplesBusiness.com/FacilitySolutions

The rapid expansion of data centers across the U.S. is creating demand for electricians, pipefitters, plumbers, welders and other skilled workers, pushing contractors and other employers to rethink how they recruit, develop and retain talent, executives from Turner Construction, Clayco and DPR Construction said during a virtual event.

Employers are expanding beyond traditional pay and benefits to attract workers to large projects, particularly those in remote locations. DPR Construction offers workers participating in its mobility program living allowances, project incentives, mobilization bonuses, travel stipends and increased pay.

Retaining workers requires employers to focus on career development, workplace culture and quality of life as well as compensation, panelists said. Building local pipelines through apprenticeships, trade partners and community relationships will also be critical to meeting long-term labor needs, including the workers needed to operate and maintain facilities after construction is complete.

The scale of data center development makes the labor challenge different from staffing a single large project, said Jerry Crawford, managing director at Turner Construction.

Data centers are being built simultaneously across the country and require workers with sophisticated electrical and mechanical skills, Crawford said during a session at Construction Dive’s Courting Construction 2026: Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent event.

“There is a workforce shortage … but it's also a tremendous workforce opportunity,” Crawford said.

That competition for workers has implications beyond data center contractors. Facility managers depend on many of the same electricians, HVAC technicians and other skilled tradespeople to maintain buildings, replace equipment and complete renovations and capital projects. The growth of data centers and digital infrastructure is exacerbating shortages of skilled workers, with the average hiring time for skilled workers reaching 56 days, according to Randstad North America.

DPR has responded in part by building a more formal mobility program to persuade employees to take assignments in locations where workers are particularly difficult to find, Talent Acquisition Manager Brian Schneider said during the Aug. 26 event.

In addition to per diem or living allowances, the company provides a project incentive, mobilization bonus, travel stipend and a pay differential while employees participate in the program, Schneider said.

These are the kinds of things that DPR has identified as being competitive, he said.

Clayco Chief Talent Officer Katie Lane said her company has launched a “first of its kind” student loan repayment assistance program, where the company helps people with outstanding student loan debt.

But money alone is unlikely to keep workers on projects, the panelists said.

Clayco uses what Lane calls “re-recruiting” — continually engaging people who already work for the company rather than assuming recruitment ends once an employee is hired.

The company has focused on leadership development, site visits by senior executives, team activities and an extended onboarding program that provides additional support during an employee's first six months to a year. Clayco also offers training programs designed to show employees how they can advance within the company, Lane said.

Those efforts become particularly important on remote data center projects, where employees may spend extended periods away from home.

“Nobody's going to win retention on compensation alone,” Lane said.

Developing a larger labor pool will also require companies to look beyond competition for existing skilled workers, the speakers said. Contractors need to bring additional people into construction through apprenticeships, technical education and other workforce development programs. They must also make the industry's career paths more visible to younger workers, speakers said.

Local partnerships are another piece of that strategy. Turner, Clayco and DPR said they work with local subcontractors, government officials and communities where major projects are being developed rather than relying entirely on traveling workers.

Those relationships can provide a longer-term workforce benefit, Crawford said, because local workers will still be needed after builders finish a project.

“Who's going to operate and maintain these facilities after we leave and go build the next project?” Crawford asked. The local workforce, he said.

The rapid scaling of data centers and digital infrastructure in the United States is exacerbating challenges in hiring skilled labor, according to a report by Randstad North America. 

It’s now more time-consuming to hire an HVAC professional and an electrician than a software developer, the report says. The average hiring time for a skilled worker is 56 days, compared to 54 days for a tech worker.

"While much of the conversation surrounding AI focuses on job displacement, we're overlooking the demand it’s creating for the skilled trade workforce," Greg Dyer, chief commercial officer of Randstad North America, said in a statement. “AI can't build data centers, upgrade power grids, or maintain its own infrastructure.” 

Randstad USA analyzed more than 150 million job postings in the U.S. for key roles between 2022 and 2026 to identify labor demand. 

The country is going through a generational shift as seasoned workers retire, taking with them skills that have helped prevent downtime and costly errors, the report says. Workers in the current wave aren’t always getting what they need to grow in their roles, it says. 

Although 82% of Gen Z workers — generally those born between 1997 and 2012 — are confident they can acquire skills, more than 30% have left a job in the past year due to lack of advancement opportunities.

In its report, Randstad recommends organizations replace reactive with strategic hiring to fill their jobs and help younger workers deepen their skills.

“Work on your existing rosters for flexibility and take inventory of your staff’s skill profiles,” the report says. “​Create a talent strategy that promises schedule autonomy, long-term skill upgrades and flexibility in decision-making, knowledge transfer and taking stock of the facility.”

Employers’ concerns over inflation and economic uncertainty are adding to worker insecurities, says the report. The “skilled workforce [is leaving] their jobs” because of those concerns, it says. 

The report recommends employers adopt a blended workforce model that incorporates contract workers. “Fill urgent talent gaps with expert skilled trades talent on a contract payroll,” it says. “This talent mix protects your operational continuity without inflating fixed costs.”

Leaders can also attract and retain skilled labor by offering policies that promote work-life balance. In a survey, more workers voted for work-life balance as a decisive factor in accepting a job offer than those voting for an attractive salary and benefits.

Since remote work is typically not an option in the context of skilled trades, work-life balance must mean something different, the report says. Facility leaders can instead provide flexibility by offering predictability and being aware of their employees’ needs, the report says. 

“Go the extra mile to compress their weekly schedule and make rotations more predictable,” it says. “Audit [their] day-one experience…. Take stock of whether your lockers are ready, tools available and leads aligned to instill safety culture in new hires. Take effort to train your front-line leaders on respect and clarity. Train them on aspects of work assignment and how feedback is given.” 

Another tactic is upskilling and treating apprentices like they’re part of a program rather than just a hire. By mapping out clear progression paths and shoring up coaching capacity, operators can ensure that training doesn’t “fizzle out before it even takes off,” the report says.  

“Leaders must reposition skilled trades as a top-tier career track,” the report says. “Leaders must prioritize investments in education, upskilling, and training.”

The high-end hourly wage for a facilities technician is $36, according to the job-search platform Indeed. Even if your organization can’t afford to pay that, good leadership can still attract and retain talented technicians, says Bryan Decker, co-founder and CEO of the Rockwall, Texas-based consulting and facility management firm Compass Facilities. The company isn’t affiliated with foodservice and facilities management giant Compass Group USA.      

The key is to get employees invested in the organization’s goals, show them how they’re a part of those goals, give them a voice in how things are done and make sure they have a path for professional growth, Decker said in a webcast hosted by maintenance management software company UpKeep. 

“If you’re a small company, and you don’t have a bunch of paths for them to [grow], it’s important for them to know they’re part of the nexus of that company and, as it grows, they grow as well,” Decker said. “So, it’s important to understand what they want.”

When an employee decides to leave, if it’s just money that they’re looking for, there’s little you can do about that, Decker said. “Sometimes, it’s black and white,” he said.

But often money is a proxy for something else. “Have that real conversation,” he said. “Knowing why is hugely important; other people could be feeling the same way.”

Technicians quit far more frequently because of their boss than because of the pay or the broader organization, said Decker, who started Compass in 2023 after 15 years as a technician in other organizations, including Facebook parent company Meta. “People quit bosses, not companies,” he said.

It’s not unusual for technicians who advance into a leadership role to assume it’s their job to figure out solutions to problems and then impose that decision on the technicians who work for them, he said. “They’re like, ‘Alright, I’ve arrived, and I’ve got all the answers,’” he said.

But that can demoralize the team, Decker said. The people reporting to that manager “were hired into this position to bring their skills to bear, and they’re not being allowed to use those skills,” he said. “Ensure that doesn’t become part of your culture.”

New leaders would benefit from formal leadership training and mentoring because the best leaders recognize it’s not about them, he said, it’s about setting up their team for success. 

“Once you move from an individual contributor to a leader, it’s all about how you’re removing roadblocks for each person on your team and enabling their success,” he said. “It’s not about you at all. That’s a core tenet of leadership.”

Making people feel invested in what they’re doing starts with leaders articulating the organization’s goals and then showing each technician the role they’re playing in reaching the goals. 

“Back when [the United States] was in the race to put a person on the moon, JFK was walking through the NASA space center and stopped to talk to a janitor,” said Decker, illustrating his point with a widely shared story from John F. Kennedy’s presidency in the early 1960s. “He asked the janitor, ‘Hey, what do you do here?’ and the janitor said, ‘We’re putting someone on the moon, sir.’” That’s exactly what we want to see. The janitor was part of that team that was going to make that happen and he recognized that. That’s due to great communication.”

Higher-level technician jobs, like engineering technologists and technicians, can earn as much as $109,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data shared on the webcast. That’s not affordable for many small and midsized organizations, Ollie Whitfield, who does marketing for UpKeep, said on the webcast.   

But the same leadership rules apply to these more senior people, Decker said. “You wish you could pay all these folks more,” he said. “But I’m going to give you growth opportunities from the get-go. I see you doing [these great things]. I want to partner with you to make sure you hit your targets. That’s a way to keep folks, even if your pay is lower than some of the larger companies. Invest in that person.”

Many facility managers sign a cleaning contract without asking how the vendor classifies its workforce. Not knowing that creates legal and financial exposure that an indemnification clause won’t fully protect managers from.

Joint employer liability doctrines in many states mean the facility operator can get pulled into disputes over worker classification, especially if they exercised any control over scheduling, uniforms, building access or supervision of the workers. Telling your cleaning crew what time to show up, which entrance to use or what to wear in your building is enough in some jurisdictions to establish an employer relationship. That is normal facility management. It is also what a labor agency looks at when determining joint employer status.

Worker misclassification in commercial cleaning is common. It rarely makes headlines because companies tend to settle quietly. A cleaning vendor gets caught, pays a penalty to a state labor board or the IRS and moves on. You never hear about it. But when the dispute gets triggered, whether by a workplace injury, wage complaint or audit, the investigation doesn’t stop at the cleaning company; it comes to your door, too.

How misclassification works

The pattern is consistent. A cleaning company staffs a building using workers classified as independent contractors or subcontracts through a shell entity to avoid payroll taxes, workers' compensation obligations and employee benefits. On the surface everything looks fine. There is a certificate of insurance. There is an indemnification clause in the contract. The work is getting done.

Labor agencies in states that make enforcement a priority like California, Massachusetts and New York have targeted the commercial cleaning industry for misclassification sweeps. These are not random audits. Regulators know misclassification is common in the industry. Facility managers caught in these enforcement actions discover that their vendor has been cutting corners for years, and that their indemnification clause offered far less protection than they assumed.

The financial logic is straightforward. A cleaning company that misclassifies workers as independent contractors avoids employer-side payroll taxes, workers' compensation premiums and unemployment insurance. That cost avoidance can produce a 15% to 30% price advantage over competitors operating legally. When you’re comparing bids, that looks like efficiency. In most cases it’s not.

The procurement gap

Worker classification is almost never part of the standard procurement conversation. Facility managers focus on scope of work, pricing, insurance certificates and references. Some larger procurement teams ask for workers' compensation documentation. But that is not the same as verifying how workers are classified on the vendor's payroll.

Facility managers are operationally focused. They’re thinking about whether the floors will be clean and the trash emptied, not whether the person doing the work is on a W-2 or a 1099. The manager’s focus is reasonable. It’s also where the risk lives. The factors that facility managers prioritize, including price, scope and responsiveness, can steer them toward vendors who misclassify, because those vendors can underbid compliant competitors by avoiding the labor costs the law requires them to pay.

I have seen this dynamic play out. We bid on a small college contract that required multiple full-time employees. After we submitted our proposal, the college called us back to say the incumbent had rebid the same hours at a substantially lower rate. A basic look at the numbers made it clear: no company could operate at that price while paying minimum wage, carrying proper insurance and running a legal payroll. Either workers were being paid below legal minimums, the company was operating without proper coverage or both.

We walked the college through what that meant. If the company was violating wage laws, it could be shut down overnight, leaving the building without service. If the company was uninsured, the university itself could be held liable for damages the contractor's insurance policy would normally cover. The college changed direction. That conversation never happens in most procurement processes. The exposure it reveals is real.

Contract protections

The biggest misconception is that an indemnification clause and a certificate of insurance make you fully protected. That assumption fails for two reasons.

First, indemnification is only as strong as the indemnitor's ability to pay. If a cleaning company facing a judgment for back wages, penalties and unpaid taxes doesn’t have the assets to cover it, the indemnification clause means nothing. Small cleaning operations running thin margins rarely have the balance sheet to absorb a six-figure judgment. The clause is a contractual promise, not a guarantee of payment.

Second, in many jurisdictions you can’t contractually indemnify yourself out of joint employer liability. If a court or agency determines you functioned as a joint employer of the misclassified workers, the contract language becomes largely irrelevant. Joint employer status is determined by the facts of the working relationship, not by what the contract says. California, Massachusetts and New York have state-level tests that apply regardless of where the federal standard sits at any given moment.

The certificate of insurance is similarly misunderstood. An COI tells you a policy existed on the date it was issued. It does not tell you whether the vendor's payroll is accurately reported to the insurer or whether the policy will respond to a misclassification claim. A vendor carrying workers' compensation coverage for five employees while deploying forty people across multiple sites is underreporting payroll to the insurer. That can void coverage at exactly the moment a claim is filed.

Red flags

A bid that comes in significantly below other competitors is the clearest warning sign. Cleaning is a labor-intensive business. Labor typically represents 60% to 70% of total operating cost. If a vendor is dramatically cheaper, the savings are coming from the labor line.

The math is simple. If a contract is 100 hours per month and every other bid lands around $2,500, and one vendor bids $1,600, that works out to $16 per hour in gross revenue. After overhead, supplies and insurance, there is no legal path to profitability at that number while paying minimum wage. Ask the vendor how they intend to profit at that price. A compliant company answers that question without hesitation.

A vendor who uses language like "staffing partners," "independent cleaning teams," or "subcontracted crews" without being able to name their employer of record is describing an arrangement that carries risk. The more layers between you and the person doing the work, the higher your joint employer exposure. Get a direct answer about who employs the people in your building.

A vendor who cannot produce workers' compensation documentation alongside their general liability certificate is a concern. Its absence is not an administrative gap. It is a signal about how the workforce is being classified. Even when they can produce it, check whether the coverage level reflects the vendor's actual workforce size.

A vendor who does not ask you detailed questions before pricing the job is also a signal. A professional cleaning company wants to understand your site, your schedule, your security requirements and your standards before putting a number on paper. A vendor who just says "We can do it. Here's the price" has not thought through what the job actually requires.

What to verify

First, ask whether the people cleaning your building are W-2 employees or independent contractors. If workers are classified as contractors, ask for the legal and operational basis for that classification. A vendor who can’t answer clearly and confidently is a red flag.

Second, request workers' compensation documentation and confirm it matches the vendor's headcount and payroll, not just the minimum required to get a certificate. A policy covering a fraction of the real workforce means payroll is being underreported, and the coverage will not be there when it’s needed.

Third, ask about the vendor's compliance infrastructure. Do they have an internal HR function? Do they run background checks? Do they handle hiring, training and supervision themselves or do they push that through layers of subcontractors? A company that cannot describe its internal compliance processes probably doesn’t have them.

Price differences aren’t random

Building a W-2 workforce is operationally complex and expensive. Payroll taxes, workers' comp, benefits administration and the HR infrastructure to manage it all represent a real cost. It would have been much simpler to go the subcontractor route, like most of the industry does.

But that model makes real accountability impossible. When you work with subcontractors, you have very little control over who shows up, how they were trained or whether they meet your standards. With W-2 employees, you control the hiring, training and the standards. If something goes wrong, you can address it because they are on your team.

The price gap between a compliant vendor and a non-compliant one reflects decisions a company has made about handling labor costs. As the facility manager who signs the contract, you’re the one who absorbs the consequences when those decisions turn out to be illegal.

Those three questions added to your procurement process take five minutes to ask. Recovering from a joint employer enforcement action takes years.

Integrated facility management company ABM is taking over janitorial services at Truist Park, the 41,000-seat home field of Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves, the company announced.

The company’s system for tracking and communicating with cleaning staff is a value-added part of the contract, according to ABM’s press release. The company is “deploying technology-enabled communication tools that include live translation capabilities to help streamline communication among a diverse event workforce, along real-time location functionality to enhance team coordination and visibility across the venue,” ABM says.

Atlanta-based CleanWell Services has been providing commercial cleaning solutions to the Atlanta Braves since at least 2021, according to a company video and Facebook post. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it continues to provide services to the team.

New York City-based ABM provides services to more than 100 sports-related venues, according to the company. With its Truist Park contract, ABM has grown its professional baseball portfolio to 10 teams and their stadiums, including the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park and the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field. 

“Organizations are looking for experienced partners that can help deliver consistent, high-quality venue operations at scale,” Valerie Burd, ABM’s president of business & industry, said in the company’s announcement.

The 1.1 million-square-foot Truist Park arena hosts about 3 million people and about 150-200 events a year, according to ABM.  

The company provides parking, engineering, HVAC and other types of building services, but it started out as a cleaning company and that remains one of its core services, ABM says. On its website, it says it’s developed operating procedures and proprietary processes that enable it to provide cleaning services efficiently without reducing quality. 

“ABM’s commercial janitorial and cleaning services [use] customized programs and tech-enabled innovation,” the company says. 

To improve their relationship with cleaning service contractors, facility managers must be clear about their needs during the RFP process, establish regular communication and not be afraid to ask questions, according to a consultant speaking at NFMT East 2026. 

“Ask what their service framework is,” Jeff Carmon, manager of member services at consulting company Elite BSC, said during a conference session this week. “What is your plan for making sure the work gets done every day? What’s your plan [for] when we have requests? How often will we meet? Who is going to be responsible for your account, and what’s their frequency of visits?” 

Examine what the onboarding process looks like for cleaning contractors, especially the first 90 to 120 days of the contract, Carmon said. “You’re putting your neck out there by selecting a vendor, and [you] better make sure the first 120 days come off really well, or it’s going to reflect on your decision-making,” he said. 

The best way to build a relationship, or mend it, is by setting regular meetings, said Carmon. “At least once a month, [set] what we call a partnership meeting, where [the contract cleaner] brings an agenda in and there are items [to discuss]  that make sense,” he said. 

That practice can make conversations easier when a tough situation arises, like a stolen item or trash that isn’t being emptied at night, Carmon said. “Not that they’re not touchy, but I think it makes sense to say, ‘Hey, I have an issue. I need to talk with you about some missing items. We think your team member did it because we’ve got [it on] camera. How are we going to resolve that?’”

If you’re too busy to set such a meeting, ask the contractor to provide a report on a regular basis so that the flow of communication continues, he said. 

Communications and a good relationship can help if your budget goes down, Carmon said. You can ask the contractor to point out areas where cleaning does not need to occur on a regular schedule. 

Face-to-face meetings are a great time to let those conversations bubble up, he said. “And nine times out of 10, we’re able to [have those meetings],” he said. 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is rescinding the embattled Biden-era overtime rule, more than a year after federal courts vacated the 2024 regulations.

The 2024 rule raised the earnings threshold to qualify for overtime to $844 per week in July 2024, from the 2019-issued threshold of $684 per week. It was then set to increase again to $1,128 per week on Jan. 1, 2025, and would have increased periodically from then on.

In late 2024, two Texas district courts vacated that year’s final rule. After DOL dropped its appeals of the decisions earlier this month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the cases and the orders remain final judgments, DOL said.

This rescission of the 2024 final rule is unsurprising given President Donald Trump’s administration signaling it would revisit the rule, Keith Kopplin, co-chair of Ogletree Deakins’ wage and hour practice group, and Zachary Zagger, senior marketing counsel at Ogletree, said in a blog post.

Back in September, DOL did say as much: On its agenda, along with joint employer status and independent contractor classification, DOL said it “will determine whether certain salaried employees are exempt from FLSA minimum wage and overtime requirements.”

Kopplin said that with this rule, Trump’s DOL is restoring the threshold to the levels of the 2019 rule. “Notably, this removes the 2024 rule’s automatic triennial threshold adjustments,” Kopplin added.

What else should HR keep in mind? The salary threshold is only one part of the three-part conjunctive test, Jim Paretti, a co-chair of Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute, said via email.

Along with earning the minimum salary, to be exempt under FLSA, the employee “must be paid a fixed, predetermined sum each week regardless of the quantity or quality of the work they perform” Paretti said, outlining the “salary basis” test. Likewise, the employee’s “primary work must be the performance of exempt EAP duties,” he said, which is called the “duties test.” 

“Simply earning above the threshold does not make an employee automatically exempt. Where that criterion is met, employers must still make certain that the employee is paid on a salaried basis (versus hourly or by the piece), and that their work is primarily performing tasks that fall within the ‘duties test’ exemption,” Paretti said.

“The Wage and Hour Division is committed to ensuring that its regulations accurately reflect the proper standards and requirements that we enforce,” WHD Administrator Andrew Rogers said in a statement. “It is critical that each element of the section 13(a)(1) exemptions – duties, salary basis, and salary level requirements – be clearly framed for the benefit of both employees and employers.” 

HR Dive reached out to DOL for additional comment but did not hear back by the time of publication. Looking ahead, DOL also has expressed intent to iron out standard salary levels for workers in the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as for talent in the motion picture industry.