From Compliance to Culture: How Facility Managers Can Transform Hygiene into Competitive Advantage

In today’s buildings, hygiene and facility cleanliness can often be treated as a compliance task or something to be checked off a list during inspections or audits. However, as facility expectations continue to rise, hygiene is emerging as a strategic lever for improving experience and driving better business—whether that’s enabling an office environment that employees want to spend more time in or creating a space where guests feel comfortable and safe.

Facility managers are uniquely positioned to lead this shift. By embedding hygiene into the values and behaviors of their organizations, they can move beyond just meeting cleaning standards and instead, exceed them—fostering environments that are clean, accessible, and welcoming.

The Gap Between Hygiene Expectations and Reality

When it comes to restroom hygiene specifically, recent global research shows a significant disconnect between people’s expectations and reality. While nearly three-quarters (74%) of people expect moderate to high hygiene standards in public restrooms, only one in five facilities consistently meet those expectations.^[1] The consequences are considerable: over half of users change their behavior after a poor restroom experience^[2]—spending less time in the facility, limiting purchases, filing complaints, or even avoiding return visits altogether. When it comes to employee experience, 17% of survey respondents stated they had quit a job due to inadequate restroom facilities.^[3] No matter the type of commercial building, hygiene directly influences employee and guest satisfaction, business reputation, and overall revenue.

Empowering Staff on Hygiene Excellence

So how can facility managers encourage staff to take an even more empowered and prioritized approach to hygiene? It’s all about embedding hygiene into facility culture and viewing hygiene as a shared responsibility that goes beyond the role of cleaning staff.

One example of a facility that does this very well is Gathering Place Public Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Clean facilities are so important to them, as it's a key method to manifest community, which is core to their mission. Park staff are trained not just in cleaning protocols, but in how hygiene contributes to visitors’ comfort, dignity, and trust. The result? Team members who feel empowered to play an active role in maintaining the park’s safety and cleanliness—delivering a public space that is welcoming and accessible to all guests.

Supporting the Cleaning Workforce

Cleaning teams are essential to facility operations, so it’s critical that they feel empowered to tackle their responsibilities. Research shows that 80% of cleaning staff report mental health challenges,^[4] and many leave their roles due to burnout, unrelated to compensation.

How do we reverse this trend? It comes down to how we manage and communicate. When cleaning staff feel supported and understand the part they play in the broader organization’s success, they’re more likely to deliver consistent, high-quality results—and stay in their roles longer. There are multiple ways this hygiene management approach can come to life in the culture of the team:

• Facility managers can better recognize and celebrate staff contributions and achievements, communicating how a certain task led to positive guest feedback, for example. This helps to highlight that hygiene is a respected and valued part of the organization’s operations.
• Help teams find meaning in their most challenging tasks, especially restroom care. One way of doing this is embracing the principles in the Inclusive Hygiene Playbook—which helps facilities enable a restroom environment that considers the full range of individual abilities and circumstances—and discussing how cleaning teams’ work can contribute to more accessible hygiene.
• Ensure hygiene education and training are ongoing and not just a focus in the onboarding experience. Prioritizing this kind of continued training shows that professional development of cleaning staff is important to the organization.
• Describe how new products work and why these selections were made to drive better efficiency and experience for cleaning staff. Data-driven cleaning technology, which uses metrics from connected devices like dispensers or people counters to provide facility managers with specific, real-time insights into service and restock needs across the entire facility, is one example. By optimizing cleaning schedules, staff can avoid unnecessary dispenser checks, saving valuable time. In addition, high-capacity systems for key hygiene products like soaps, sanitizers, and hand towels mean dispensers can stay stocked and ready to serve guests for longer periods before requiring a refill.

Hygiene is no longer just about meeting standards; it’s about creating environments that are safe and welcoming to all. By creating a strong culture around hygiene within cleaning staff, facility managers can help improve employee and guest experience and drive business more broadly for the organization; ultimately proving that hygiene is more than a task, but rather a statement of care.