The single most common complaint about janitorial service in Washington County, MN — and what it actually tells you about your contractor.
If you have managed a commercial facility in the Lakeland area for more than a few years, you have probably experienced this: you agree to a janitorial contract, the first crew is good, and three months later you are seeing a different face each week. Quality becomes inconsistent. Small problems accumulate. You call the contractor, things improve briefly, and then the cycle repeats.
This is not bad luck. It is a structural feature of how most janitorial contractors are organized, and it is worth understanding what causes it so you can evaluate whether your next contractor is set up differently.
The commercial cleaning industry has historically had annual turnover rates well above the average for service industries. The reasons are structural, not accidental:
Evening and night cleaning work is not a first-choice shift for most workers. Contractors who compete on price by keeping labor costs at the floor of what the market requires tend to attract workers with limited alternatives — and lose them as soon as a daytime opportunity appears. A contractor paying a few dollars per hour above the minimum wage for this shift, with predictable scheduling and consistent hours, retains workers at a substantially higher rate. That wage premium shows up in the monthly quote, which is one reason the cheapest bid often has the highest turnover.
Many janitorial contractors manage a pool of workers and assign them to buildings based on who is available each night. From the contractor's perspective, this is efficient — it allows them to absorb absences without rescheduling the whole program. From the facilities manager's perspective, it means a different person is cleaning your building most visits, none of them knows it well, and quality is whatever the pool average is that night.
Contractors who make consistent crew assignment a structural commitment — meaning the same crew is assigned to your building every visit and that assignment is changed only when the facilities manager is notified — are solving a different problem and usually running a different business model.
National franchise janitorial networks are optimized for urban density. Their franchisee model works in markets where one franchise territory covers a dense cluster of buildings. In a rural corridor like Washington County east of Saint Paul — where buildings are spread across 25 miles of highway — the franchise model struggles to retain workers who are spending a significant portion of their evening driving between facilities. This is a structural mismatch, not a management failure.
Beyond the obvious quality inconsistency, frequent crew changes in your building carry costs that do not appear on the janitorial invoice:
Before signing a janitorial contract in Washington County, ask these questions:
A contractor who cannot answer these questions specifically — or who hedges on crew assignment being "the goal" rather than a structural commitment — is likely running a routing pool. That is not necessarily disqualifying depending on your facility's requirements, but it is something to know before you sign.
We assign specific crews to specific facilities and maintain that assignment as a default rather than an exception. When an assigned crew member leaves — which happens — we notify the facilities manager before the replacement's first visit and conduct an orientation walk before they clean unsupervised. We have operated in Washington County for 22 years, which gives us a track record on crew stability that a new contractor cannot replicate on paper.
Related: Our Process | Quality Inspections | Why Choose Us