.svg)
Transcript
A more integrated approach to campus operations
Colleges and universities are being asked to deliver more from their campus environments than ever before. The places where students learn, live, compete, and connect influence everything from recruitment and retention to sustainability, financial performance, and institutional reputation.
At the same time, staffing pressures, aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance, and rising expectations are making operations more complex.
Leading institutions are responding with a Connected Campus approach—an operating model that aligns people, services, systems, and accountability around shared goals. Custodial, maintenance, engineering, grounds, energy, infrastructure, and reporting work together through one coordinated strategy with clear accountability and measurable outcomes.
ABM helps higher education leaders create that connection. Through self-performed services, integrated facility solutions, engineering expertise, and operational insight, ABM helps institutions strengthen performance, support campus teams, and create more resilient, efficient environments.
- Consistent standards across academic, residential, athletic, and public spaces
- Better visibility into work, assets, service quality, and operational risk
- Workforce recruiting, training, supervision, and retention practices
- Infrastructure strategies tied to capital planning, savings, and resilience
- A cleaner, safer, more welcoming experience for students, faculty, staff, families, and visitors
- Operational alignment with enrollment, retention, sustainability, and financial goals
Why higher education institutions partner with ABM
ABM supports more than 250 higher education institutions with integrated facility, engineering, janitorial, energy, infrastructure, and campus operations solutions. Our teams help institutions improve consistency, reduce administrative burden, support healthier environments, and make operational decisions with better data.
Campus performance influences institutional value
Facilities and environments shape the campus experience.
From the first tour to graduation day, the condition of buildings, grounds, and shared spaces influences how students, families, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors perceive the institution.
Clean and well-maintained grounds, classrooms, residence halls, study spaces, and common areas help create that experience.
At the same time, institutions are balancing workforce challenges, aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance, sustainability goals, and budget pressures.
Campus teams know the stakes. The opportunity now is connecting operations more intentionally with priorities such as enrollment, retention, stewardship, resilience, sustainability, and risk reduction.
In this guide, we explore the five operational priorities shaping higher education and the practices that create stronger, more connected campus environments.
Turning operational complexity into coordinated performance
Most campuses are not short on effort. They are managing growing complexity across buildings, stakeholders, technologies, events, infrastructure, and seasonal demands.
A Connected Campus helps bring those moving parts together. By aligning people, services, systems, and accountability around a common set of standards and outcomes, institutions can improve visibility, strengthen coordination, and create a more consistent campus experience.
ABM brings together the people, services, systems, and insights that keep campuses operating at their best.
Strong campus teams need stronger support
People are one of the most important factors in a high-performing campus environment. Custodial, maintenance, grounds, engineering, and event teams help keep classrooms, residence halls, research facilities, athletic venues, and public spaces operating safely and reliably every day.
For higher education leaders, workforce challenges extend beyond staffing levels. They affect continuity, employee morale, institutional knowledge, service consistency, and the campus experience itself. Labor relations, workforce transitions, retirements, vacancies, and changing expectations all influence how institutions plan, operate, and adapt.
As campuses evolve, so do demands. Skilled labor markets remain competitive, making critical roles difficult to recruit and retain. The challenge is creating workforce models that support people, supervisors, institutional knowledge, and consistent performance through seasonal demand, special events, emergency response, and changing campus priorities.
Higher education leaders understand what’s at stake. Institutions that invest in workforce stability are better positioned to support employees, maintain service quality, and create environments that feel cared for every day.
In a changing labor environment, supporting people may be one of the most important investments an institution can make.
- Facilities turnover often exceeds 15–20% annually.1
- Over 60% of facilities leaders report staffing shortages.2 Staffing gaps are affecting maintenance, custodial, and technical roles.
1 https://www.cupahr.org/resource/higher-ed-workforce-turnover
How ABM supports campus teams:
- Workforce transition planning that minimizes disruption
- Recruiting support and labor-market reach for hard-to-fill positions
- Structured onboarding and site-specific training programs
- Safety, compliance, and regulatory-related instruction
- Frontline leadership development that reinforces service standards
- Flexible staffing for seasonal demand, events, and campus priorities
- Recognition and retention practices that strengthen morale
Building a more resilient workforce model
Hiring alone is not enough. Institutions need workforce models that help people succeed, maintain consistent service standards, and protect the knowledge that already exists across campus.
That starts with aligning staffing approaches to the realities of the institution. Structured onboarding, campus-specific training, clear expectations, and safety practices help employees contribute more quickly and confidently.
Equally important is investing in frontline leadership. Supervisors play a critical role in reinforcing standards, supporting employees, communicating priorities, and maintaining service quality across diverse campus environments.
Flexibility is also essential. Changing campus needs can quickly shift operational demands. A resilient, connected workforce model adapts to those realities and helps maintain service levels without creating unnecessary strain on teams.
- Hiring is just the start. Workforce stability is built through support, development, and leadership.
Elements of a resilient workforce model:
- Staffing aligned to buildings, use patterns, events, and service levels
- Onboarding based on institutional culture, safety, and expectations
- Supervisory routines for coaching, quality review, and communication
- Training for custodial, maintenance, engineering, and leadership roles
- Coverage for residence turns, admissions, athletics, events, and emergency needs
- Performance reporting connecting people, schedules, work activity, and outcomes
When campus teams are supported, performance improves
When teams are trained, supported, and aligned, campuses gain more than operational coverage. They gain consistency. Workforce stability creates continuity that people can feel.
Work orders move more efficiently. Preventive maintenance is easier to protect. Cleaning standards are reinforced. Issues are identified earlier and addressed before they escalate. Across campus, service becomes more predictable and reliable.
For administrators, the value is clearer accountability, greater visibility, and fewer surprises. For frontline employees, it creates safer work practices, stronger supervision, clearer communication, and greater confidence in what is expected of them. Experienced teams help maintain service standards, respond to changing campus needs, and support a more consistent experience across the institution.
For students, faculty, staff, and visitors, that consistency builds confidence in a campus that feels cared for every day.
- ABM service team members receive an average of 39 hours of annual training, including safety, compliance, and role-specific instruction.
How ABM helps strengthen workforce performance:
- Structured onboarding programs designed around campus environments
- Culture and Values Training reinforcing service expectations and team engagement
- Frontline Leader Program focused on coaching, communication, and accountability
- Safety, compliance, and regulatory-related instruction
- Recognition programs that support morale and retention
- Performance management tools that provide visibility into quality and productivity
- Ongoing training pathways that support career growth and workforce continuity
Campus experience shapes recruitment and retention
For prospective students and their families, the campus experience is proof. It shows what daily life could feel like.
Clean classrooms, comfortable study spaces, inviting residence halls, well-maintained grounds, working systems, and cared-for common areas send a clear message. Together, they help create an environment that feels welcoming, organized, and ready to support student success.
These impressions matter beyond campus tours. Each interaction students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors have with the campus either reinforces or weakens confidence in the institution.
ABM helps colleges and universities maintain campus standards and the experience it promises to deliver. From daily cleaning and grounds care to event readiness, athletics support, and rapid response, ABM supports the moments that convey an institution’s values, priorities, and commitment to its community.
- 75% of higher-ed students factor campus facilities into their college decision.³
How ABM helps keep campus tour-ready every day:
- Integrated cleaning and facility services that maintain consistent presentation
- Grounds and landscaping programs that strengthen curb appeal
- Day porter and high-visibility support during peak activity
- Residence hall, classroom, athletics, and event readiness support
- Quality assurance inspections that reinforce standards across buildings
- Response procedures for issues affecting students, visitors, and campus spaces
Maintaining quality across a complex campus—at scale
Creating a positive campus experience is one challenge. Coordinating and delivering it consistently across an entire campus is another. Consistent quality is harder when operations are disconnected.
Academic buildings, residence halls, athletic facilities, research spaces, public areas, and outdoor environments each have different use patterns and stakeholder expectations. Small inconsistencies such as delayed repairs, uneven cleaning, missed inspections, or unclear ownership can become visible quickly.
The challenge is rarely the level of effort. It’s the level of coordination. When services are spread across separate vendors, teams, systems, and reporting practices, leaders must spend more time reconciling status updates and less time improving outcomes.
A connected approach helps campus leaders define standards, prioritize work, and hold performance steady across the full campus environment. ABM ensures that facilities and grounds continue to reflect the quality, care, and experience the institution strives to provide every day.
- Institutions that invest in campus experience see higher retention rates.4
- Colleges and universities face a 32% funding gap for needed campus renewal projects.
4 https://www.gordian.com/uploads/2025/04/2025-State-of-Facilities-Report.20250331220235713.pdf
How ABM helps large-scale campuses gain an advantage:
- Single-source accountability across cleaning, engineering, maintenance, grounds, and specialty support
- Preventive maintenance programs that reduce disruption and extend asset life
- Facility assessments that help prioritize repair and renewal needs
- Centralized management and reporting for better visibility and control
- Scalable service models that adapt to campus size, building types, and seasonal demand
Turning campus quality into a competitive advantage
Recruitment, retention, alumni engagement, athletics, events, and daily campus life may seem like separate priorities. Yet, each is influenced by the same thing: the quality of the environments people experience every day.
A connected operations model helps institutions maintain a high standard of care across every aspect of the campus experience. Rather than treating campus quality as a baseline expectation, leaders can use it as a competitive advantage and a visible expression of their values.
More than occasional deep cleaning or reactive maintenance, this requires coordinated standards, preventive planning, event readiness, grounds care, responsive maintenance, and clear data visibility and reporting. Every interaction contributes to the campus experience—and reputation.
When these functions operate independently, small issues go unnoticed, priorities are harder to coordinate, and the campus experience varies from one building, event, or season to the next.
ABM brings those functions together around shared priorities and measurable outcomes. The result is a connected campus—an environment that is maintained more intentionally, experienced more consistently, and better aligned with the goals and strengths of the institution.
- 90.4% of students say the quality and condition of campus facilities impact their decision to stay enrolled.5
5 https://www.gordian.com/uploads/2025/04/2025-State-of-Facilities-Report.20250331220235713.pdf
The campus environment shapes how students learn
Facilities do not replace teaching, advising, academic support, or student services. But they do shape the daily conditions in which learning happens.
Clean classrooms, comfortable temperatures, reliable lighting, good indoor air quality, responsive maintenance, and safe common areas all help create an environment where students can focus, participate, and feel supported.
These factors influence how campus spaces are experienced throughout the academic year.
When facilities fall short, students notice. Poor air quality, distracting noise, inconsistent temperatures, maintenance issues, or spaces that feel neglected can become a source of frustration, particularly in classrooms, residence halls, libraries, labs, dining areas, and other places students rely on each day.
Through integrated cleaning, maintenance, engineering, HVAC, waste management, and operational support, ABM partners with institutions to create healthier, more reliable campus spaces that allow students to learn, connect, and succeed.
- Nearly 30% of students report that poor maintenance, cleaning, or general building conditions affect their ability to focus and learn.6
How ABM helps create spaces where students can thrive:
- Cleaning programs designed for high-traffic academic, residential, and public spaces
- HVAC optimization and indoor air quality support
- Daytime cleaning strategies that improve visibility and responsiveness
- Preventive maintenance programs that reduce disruptions and equipment issues
- Integrated facility services that support consistent campus conditions
- Waste, recycling, and sustainability programs aligned to campus goals
Supporting healthy, high-performing spaces every day
The conditions students experience every day are interconnected. Air quality, temperature, lighting, noise, cleanliness, safety, and maintenance all depend on people, services, and systems working together. When one function falls behind, the impact is often felt across the broader campus experience.
Maintaining those conditions becomes more difficult as infrastructure ages and deferred maintenance accumulates, all while expectations continue to rise around health, comfort, sustainability, accessibility, and responsiveness.
A reactive approach can help address immediate issues, but it does not always provide the visibility needed to identify recurring problems, coordinate priorities, or plan effectively for the future. As a result, institutions can find themselves addressing symptoms rather than underlying causes.
A connected approach helps bring cleaning, preventive maintenance, HVAC, energy management, inspections, work orders, and capital planning together around the spaces students rely on most. With greater visibility and coordination, leaders can make more informed decisions, address issues earlier, and maintain more consistent conditions across campus.
Institutions partner with ABM to create learning environments that feel more reliable, more supportive, and better equipped to meet the evolving needs of students and the institution.
- 61% Improved air quality and ventilation increased cognitive performance scores by 61%.7
7 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health / Green building cognitive function study
How ABM supports learning, comfort, and well-being:
- Indoor air quality assessments and HVAC optimization
- Lighting retrofits and energy-efficient upgrades
- Preventive maintenance that extends equipment life
- Green cleaning practices that support student health and sustainability goals
- CMMS and operational planning tools that improve visibility and response
- Strategies for comfort, noise, and operational improvements in learning and residential spaces
Creating supportive environments students can count on
Students notice when campus environments work the way they should. Classrooms are comfortable. Residence halls are well maintained. Repairs happen quickly. Shared spaces feel clean, safe, and ready to use.
These moments may seem small on their own, but together they shape how students experience daily life on campus. When distractions are reduced and services are reliable, students can spend more time focusing on learning, relationships, activities, and the opportunities that brought them to campus in the first place.
For administrators, the opportunity is to move beyond reacting to individual issues and gain a clearer understanding of broader patterns. Connecting inspections, work orders, maintenance activities, service requests, and facility conditions helps leaders make more informed decisions and direct resources where they can have the greatest impact.
When operations work together, campus environments become more reliable, more responsive, and easier to manage. Students may never see the systems behind that work—but they experience the results every day.
- Schools partnering with ABM report student satisfaction rates averaging 5% above the national average.8
8 MyPlan.com / ABM higher education benchmarking
KPIs that make the student environment measurable:
- Inspection scores by building or space type
- Work order response and completion times
- Preventive maintenance completion rate
- Comfort complaints and resolution times
- Residence hall service requests and close-out trends
- Event readiness and post-event quality checks
- Complaint volume, issue recurrence, and service recovery performance
Infrastructure modernization can protect capital and improve resilience
For finance and operations leaders, the question is not whether infrastructure matters. It is how to modernize while reducing costs, protecting capital, improving reliability, and supporting sustainability goals.
Utilities, maintenance, and infrastructure costs continue to pressure higher education budgets. Aging HVAC systems, outdated controls, inefficient lighting, deferred renewal, and central plant needs can increase energy use, maintenance demand, comfort issues, and operational risk.
Many campuses are balancing growing infrastructure needs against limited capital resources. Delaying improvements may defer spending in the short term, but it can also increase operating costs, accelerate equipment failures, and make future investments more expensive.
When infrastructure strategy is aligned with operational and financial priorities, institutions gain more than efficient buildings. They gain greater control over costs, risk, and long-term planning.
ABM helps institutions evaluate energy, infrastructure, and building-system opportunities through an operational lens. The goal is practical modernization: reducing waste, improving performance, extending asset life, and creating clearer pathways for reinvestment.
- Higher education facilities face more than $112 billion in deferred maintenance needs.9
9 https://www.gordian.com/resources/critical-role-of-campus-facilities/
How ABM delivers smarter infrastructure for financial resilience:
- Energy assessments that identify operational inefficiencies
- HVAC, lighting, controls, and building automation optimization
- Preventive maintenance strategies that extend equipment life
- Building automation and smart facility technologies
- Engineering expertise across complex campus environments
- Data-driven insights that support capital planning and prioritization
- Infrastructure strategies aligned to cost, resilience, and sustainability goals
Upgrading critical systems without relying solely on new capital
Many institutions know which systems need attention. The barrier is often funding. Large-scale upgrades can compete with academic priorities, student services, housing, athletics, research, and other capital needs.
As a result, important improvements can be delayed even when the operational and financial benefits are well understood. Aging systems continue to consume energy, require more maintenance, and create growing pressure on operating budgets.
Energy Savings Performance Contracting provides a practical path forward. By pairing infrastructure improvements with guaranteed energy and operational savings, institutions can pursue modernization while preserving capital for other priorities.
These projects often extend beyond energy reduction alone. Upgrades to HVAC systems, lighting, controls, central plants, and related infrastructure can improve reliability, support indoor environmental quality, reduce maintenance demands, and strengthen long-term campus performance.
ABM helps institutions evaluate, design, implement, and support infrastructure improvements tied to measurable operational and financial outcomes.
- ABM helped one university reduce nearly 40% in energy usage and generate $35.8 million in operating savings over 15 years.10
10 https://investor.abm.com/node/11671/pdf
How ABM helps institutions modernize economically:
- Energy Savings Performance Contracting (ESPC) solutions
- Central plant and HVAC modernization programs
- Campus-wide lighting and controls upgrades
- Retro-commissioning and building optimization
- Infrastructure improvements funded through operational savings
- Long-term maintenance, technical support, and performance monitoring
Sustainability as an operational strategy
More than an environmental initiative, sustainability is now closely tied to campus operations, financial performance, and long-term strategic planning.
Students, faculty, and stakeholders increasingly expect institutions to demonstrate measurable progress toward sustainability goals. In tandem, campuses are looking for practical ways to reduce utility costs, improve system performance, and strengthen resilience.
Operational strategies such as energy optimization, waste reduction, electrification, and smart building technologies are helping address both priorities at once. These efforts can reduce carbon impact while improving reliability, lowering operating expenses, and creating healthier campus environments.
- 85% of college students say it is important for campuses to prioritize sustainability.11
- As infrastructure needs continue to evolve, sustainability is becoming an increasingly practical framework for long-term operational decisions.
How ABM develops a practical operational roadmap for institutions:
- Energy efficiency and decarbonization strategies
- Electrification and EV charging infrastructure support
- Green cleaning and sustainable facility programs
- Waste reduction, recycling, and diversion planning
- LEED®, ENERGY STAR®, and sustainability support services
- Smart infrastructure solutions that improve energy visibility and performance
The challenge isn’t effort—it’s coordination
Campus operations depend on many functions working together. Custodial, maintenance, engineering, grounds, energy, housing, athletics, events, research facilities, vendors, and technology systems all play a role in the campus experience.
Each function matters. But when they operate separately, leaders can spend significant time reconciling reports, chasing updates, coordinating vendors, resolving handoffs, and responding to issues after they have already affected students, employees, or campus operations.
The result is not necessarily poor performance. More often, it is limited visibility. Important information exists, but it is scattered across departments, systems, teams, and service providers. That can make it difficult to identify patterns, align priorities, and understand how one issue may be affecting another.
A connected operating model helps bring those functions together. Shared standards, coordinated communication, and clearer ownership of services allow leaders to move from managing individual activities to managing campus performance as a whole.
As campuses become more complex, integration becomes increasingly important—not simply to improve efficiency, but to support better decision-making and a more consistent campus experience.
- A connected operating model creates a clearer line of accountability that improves communication, visibility, and responsiveness across campus facilities.
Common signs facility services need more connection:
- Different service standards by building, vendor, or department
- Unclear ownership when issues cross service lines
- Multiple reports that do not create a single operating picture
- Reactive work consuming time that should go to prevention
- Limited visibility into assets, labor, quality, and cost drivers
- Difficulty prioritizing work across student-facing and infrastructure needs
From fragmented services to clearer, more connected operations
Campus operations already involve dedicated teams, established processes, and significant resources. Moving to connected operations does not mean giving up control. It means creating greater visibility into activities across campus and the connection between daily functions and institutional priorities.
ABM helps institutions connect service delivery through integrated facilities models, site-specific operating procedures, quality assurance programs, safety practices, CMMS-supported workflows, operational reviews, and structured communication. The approach can be scaled to the campus—supporting a single service line, multiple services, or integrated operations across cleaning, maintenance, engineering, grounds, and energy.
A connected operating model helps leaders spend less time reconciling reports, chasing updates, resolving handoffs, and responding to avoidable issues. Instead, teams work from shared priorities, clearer escalation paths, consistent reporting, and a common understanding of success.
The result is a more practical management rhythm—one that strengthens accountability, improves visibility,
and helps campus leaders make more informed decisions across the campus environment.
- 76% of facilities leaders say maintenance prioritization is critical to operational effectiveness.12
How ABM connects campus facility services:
- Integrated Facilities Services and ABM Performance Solutions delivery models
- Quality assurance programs that track compliance and responsiveness
- Structured communication and operational reporting
- Ongoing facility assessments and planning reviews
- Safety programs, inspections, and regulatory support
- Campus-specific operating procedures and workforce protocols
Better data visibility creates more confidence
Modern campus leaders need to know where work is happening, where service quality is inconsistent, which assets are driving costs, and where investments will have the greatest impact.
That visibility often exists across inspections, work orders, CMMS platforms, preventive maintenance schedules, quality reviews, energy reports, operational meetings, and other systems. The challenge is bringing those pieces together in a way that helps leaders understand what is happening across the campus environment.
Connected data from inspections, CMMS platforms, work orders, preventive maintenance schedules, quality assurance reviews, energy reports, and operational meetings helps leaders prioritize resources and explain decisions with confidence.
ABM helps institutions turn operational data into practical visibility. That may include CMMS implementation or optimization, performance dashboards, asset tracking, inspection programs, building-condition insights, and executive reporting tailored to campus priorities.
The goal is not more data. It is a clearer understanding of performance, risk, resource allocation, and stronger long-term planning. With better visibility, leaders can prioritize investments more effectively, respond more quickly to emerging issues, and communicate decisions with greater confidence.
- Data-driven preventive maintenance improves operational efficiency and long-term asset performance.
Key indicators of Connected Campus performance:
- Inspection score by building, space type, or service line
- Work order response time, completion time, and aging
- Preventive maintenance completion rate
- Asset uptime and recurring failure trends
- Energy consumption, utility savings, and emissions indicators
- Cost per square foot and budget variance
- Complaint volume, recurrence, and resolution time
- Training hours, turnover indicators, and safety incidents
- Waste diversion and sustainability metrics
The future of campus operations is connected
The campus experience is shaped by thousands of daily details: clean classrooms, reliable systems, comfortable spaces, safe environments, maintained grounds, responsive service, and facilities that work the way they should.
Behind those details are the operational decisions that keep campuses running smoothly, efficiently, and sustainably, every day. As expectations continue to rise, institutions need more than isolated services. They need a connected approach—that aligns people, systems, data, and accountability around the campus experience.
ABM helps colleges and universities create that connection. Through integrated services, engineering expertise, self-performed delivery, and data-driven operational visibility, institutions can strengthen campus performance, modernize infrastructure, support campus teams, and make more informed decisions about the future.
When campus operations are connected, institutions are better positioned to deliver the experiences, environments, and outcomes their communities depend on.
Schedule a Connected Campus Assessment
ABM can identify opportunities to improve cleaning consistency, maintenance performance, workforce stability, energy efficiency, infrastructure reliability, and operational visibility.
Assessment focus areas:
- Cleaning standards, inspections, and campus presentation
- Maintenance workload, work orders, and preventive maintenance
- Workforce model, training, supervision, and seasonal demand
- Infrastructure, energy, asset condition, and modernization opportunities
- Data, reporting, CMMS workflows, and executive visibility
- High-impact moments: tours, move-in, residence hall turns, athletics, commencement, and events
ABM Operating Path:
- Assess current operations, assets, service levels, and pain points
- Align services to institutional priorities, building needs, and stakeholder expectations
- Mobilize teams, training, technology, schedules, and communication
- Manage performance through KPIs, inspections, preventive maintenance, and reviews
- Optimize over time through data, planning, savings opportunities, and continuous improvement
Supporting the campus experience from the ground up
Whether an institution needs support for a single service line or a more integrated operating model, ABM helps strengthen campus performance while supporting the people and spaces that make learning possible.
- Cleaning Services
- Operations & Maintenance
- Landscape & Turf
- EV Charging
- HVAC Services
- Infrastructure Solutions
- Waste Management & Recycling
- Specialty Services
- Preventive maintenance
- Operational Assessments
- CMMS & Reporting Support
- ABM Performance Solutions
- ABM Connect™
Strengthening workforce stability for a Rhode Island University
Challenge
ABM helped a Rhode Island university strengthen workforce support, improve service consistency, and create a more sustainable operating model across campus.
The university was experiencing inconsistent janitorial service levels, declining inspection scores, and limited visibility into performance trends. Leaders were facing many of the workforce pressures affecting institutions nationwide.
More than filling positions, they needed a way to support employees, maintain service quality, and ensure that campus expectations could be met consistently throughout the academic year.
Solution
ABM partnered with the college to implement a workforce strategy centered on recruiting support, structured onboarding, frontline leadership, and ongoing performance management. The approach helped create clearer expectations, stronger supervision, and more consistent communication across campus operations.
Training programs reinforced safety, service standards, and site-specific requirements, while leadership routines helped teams stay aligned around campus priorities. Team member engagement and recognition initiatives were implemented to improve morale and reinforce accountability.
Benefits
- Inspection scores improved from the low 70s to nearly 90 within five months
- Productivity increased while labor hours and supply use were reduced
- Stronger engagement and accountability among frontline staff
- Improved service consistency across campus environments
- Reduced disruption during workforce transitions
- Issue resolution and collaboration improved across teams
- Better communication between supervisors and team members
Improving the campus experience while managing budget pressure
Challenge
A private liberal arts college in Ohio needed to improve facilities and campus appearance while navigating enrollment and budget pressure.
Solution
ABM implemented an integrated facilities approach combining janitorial, landscaping, maintenance, preventive planning, green cleaning, workforce retention practices, and CMMS-supported operations.
Benefits
- Improved student retention by 7%
- Enhanced the appearance and condition of campus grounds
- Expanded sustainable cleaning practices through ABM GreenCare®
- Improved campus quality while supporting a more efficient operating model
Georgia Institute of Technology: Reducing energy costs without upfront capital expenditure
With over 50,000 undergrad and graduate students, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has the largest student enrollment across the state’s university system.
While its research capabilities have led to numerous innovations, the University discovered that 5% of their campus square footage was driving nearly 30% of their energy use.
Challenge
Much of the demand came from aging laboratory environments that required intensive ventilation and mechanical support. After identifying this imbalance, Georgia Tech partnered with ABM to modernize ventilation and controls in approximately 140 research labs—all without upfront capital.
Solution
ABM implemented an Energy Savings Performance Contract focused on improving efficiency across high-demand laboratory spaces. The project included HVAC optimization, controls modernization, retro-commissioning, and laboratory airflow improvements designed to improve reliability and reduce energy demand.
The program allowed the university to modernize critical infrastructure through guaranteed operational savings rather than upfront capital investment.
Benefits
The project created a savings-funded path to modernization while minimizing disruption to research teams. ABM self-performed core controls installation and commissioning, coordinating work with university stakeholders.
- More than 140 laboratory spaces were upgraded without upfront costs.
- Energy use was reduced by 73.7% and 52.7% in two key science buildings for fiscal year 2020 versus the measured baseline.
- Guaranteed utility savings were exceeded, with an additional $173,167 in cost reduction for that period.
- $11.7 million in guaranteed energy and operating cost savings over ten years.
“The ABM team completed construction ahead of schedule and the project has helped reduce energy usage.”
— Greg Spiro, Senior Mechanical Engineer, Design and Construction, The Georgia Institute of Technology
Improving visibility, productivity, and cost savings for a Pennsylvania university
Challenge
A private university in Pennsylvania was struggling to manage custodial operations across academic buildings, residence halls, athletic facilities, and event spaces. Fragmented oversight and inconsistent reporting made it difficult to maintain quality while controlling costs.
Solution
ABM implemented a more data-driven operating approach that combined performance reporting, facility-specific training, standardized processes, and operational reviews. Monthly reporting and ongoing collaboration helped identify inefficiencies, improve accountability, and align staffing and service delivery with campus needs.
Benefits
- Increased productivity levels
- Improved cleaning quality and operational consistency
- Reduced staffing inefficiencies
- Lowered annual operating expenses by more than $100,000
