For building service contractors, frontline turnover can start to feel like weather. Something to complain about, plan around and accept. Industry estimates put janitorial frontline turnover near 200%, at an average cost of roughly $3,500 each time someone walks out the door.

KB Building Services in Omaha, Nebraska, stopped accepting it. Channing Johnson, president of the 40-year-old company, walked fellow BSC leaders through what KB calls its People Playbook at the October 2026 Altus Collective Community Forum.

The numbers she shared are hard to ignore. Before the playbook, 58.5% of KB’s new hires left before reaching their 90-day anniversary. Today, 80.1% make it past that mark. Overall employee retention sits at 91.4%, and among employees who have been promoted it climbs to 97.2%.

The Altus Collective is ISSA’s leadership community for BSCs, built around Altus Academy, the Altus Principals and the Altus Summit. Its monthly online forum sessions, free to ISSA BSC members, open with an Altus Principal leading a discussion on a core business topic before participants move into small peer groups known as Altus Six. Johnson serves as the Altus Principal for human resources. She holds the Certified Building Service Executive (CBSE) designation, and KB was the first BSC in Nebraska to earn ISSA’s CIMS-GB with Honors certification, which the company has held since 2014.

Two danger zones in the data

The playbook grew out of KB’s own turnover records, which showed two moments when people were most likely to leave: before 90 days and right around the two-year anniversary. The first was a problem. The second turned out to be an opportunity. Employees who made it to two years tended to stay a long time, with 61% moving well past that mark and some reaching eight years or more.

“Listening to that data, we said, how do we look at this terrible metric of over half of our employees leaving before they hit 90 days and really hone in on how to improve that?” Johnson said. “And then on the flip side saying, how do we take a really good metric of 61% over two years and improve on that and get more people to that moment.”

The answers came from conversations with current employees and with those who never made it to 90 days. “Really talking to them and actually hearing them,” Johnson explained. “Not pushing my ideas off on them, not speaking more than I’m listening, really truly hearing them.”

What came out of those conversations is a framework built on five milestones: recruiting and hiring, the first 90 days, 91 days to one year, one to two years and two years onward. Each one carries a nickname, its own set of programs and a specific metric KB tracks to see whether the effort is paying off.

Winning them before day one

KB calls the recruiting and hiring stage “the hook.” Job postings still list duties and pay ranges, though they lead with culture. One opens by asking applicants whether they have a PLA, or positive life attitude, a phrase KB uses internally all the time. Another asks if they want to join a team that says thank you for hard work.

Referrals carry real weight. KB pays a referral bonus at 90 days, two years and five years, and the employee with the most referrals still on the team at year’s end earns the annual Referral Rockstar award. During phone interviews, recruiters talk up the person who made the referral, so a candidate referred by a coworker named Jose hears right away that Jose is a rock star at KB.

Every role also has a “wanted, not wanted” list of traits used throughout the hiring process. A customer-facing account manager needs to care deeply. Someone who sees everything in black and white probably won’t thrive there.

“We can teach you how to use a vacuum. We can teach you how to clean a bathroom,” Johnson said. “I cannot teach you how to be an innately dependable person who shows up at work every day, punches in and out properly and does a good job.”

Candidates who pass a phone interview are invited to a required culture class, which works as a try-before-you-buy period for both sides. The class covers mission, vision, values and appreciation rather than technical skills. Meanwhile, KB staff quietly watch whether people arrive on time, look presentable, stay off their phones and interact with strangers in the room. Johnson said the class also helps match personalities to positions. A trash collector doesn’t need to be detail-oriented, while a restroom cleaner or duster absolutely does.

New hires fill out a “fun questionnaire” about hobbies, family and favorite things, which goes into KB’s CRM. Down the road, that information turns a generic gift card into one for the most popular Mexican restaurant in South Omaha. During the hired interview, KB also shows each new employee a printed path to leadership, with separate day team and night team versions showing every step up the ladder and the benefits that come with it.

Three metrics measure this stage: how many culture class attendees offered a job actually start, how many stay in the role and location they were first hired for and how many are still on the payroll at 30 days.

“Culture isn’t a slogan, it’s an operational strategy,” Johnson noted. “If it isn’t a strategy and it isn’t prioritized, it doesn’t get done.”

12 weeks of deliberate contact

Milestone two, “the foundation,” follows a fixed 12-week rhythm for every field employee. In weeks one and two, the day or night operations supervisor assigned to the account makes an in-person visit. In most cases that person isn’t the employee’s direct supervisor, and that’s by design. KB wants its people to know several faces in the company, much the way a BSC wants relationships that run high, wide and deep with its customers.

In weeks three through five, the same supervisor mails a handwritten welcome card to the employee’s home. Weeks six through eight bring an in-person “good, better, best” conversation, praising one thing, coaching on another and closing with a strength. A new hire might hear she’s doing a great job showing up on time, could improve on restroom mirrors and is the best on the team at clocking in and reporting through KB’s technology.

In weeks nine through 12, KB’s employee experience manager, Autumn, meets the employee face to face, revisits that “better” item and pulls out the path to leadership again to ask whether advancement is something the employee wants.

“Essentially this is the person at the end of the day that can hire or fire this person,” Johnson said. “We want to create more of a relationship and break the walls down so there isn’t fear.”

Every interaction, down to a phone call about a missed punch, is a chance to gather what KB calls FORD: family, occupation, recreation and dreams. Those details are logged in the CRM, so leaders know something about employees before they ever meet them. The targeted metric for this stage is simple: the percentage of new hires who reach their 90-day anniversary.

Language shouldn’t be the ceiling

Milestone three, from 91 days to one year, is “the climb.” It kicks off with a handwritten 90-day thank-you note mailed home with $10 in KB Bucks. Employees can spend those on a prize wheel, either virtually or on a physical wheel at KB’s Omaha headquarters, where office staff ring a bell to celebrate each spin.

English instruction is one of the most important pieces. Nationally, 35.6% of the janitorial frontline is Hispanic, and at KB that figure is 93%. KB developed two levels of instruction, KB Command English, built around roughly 30 essential phrases, and KB Fluent English, along with classes to help employees move between them.

“We don’t want language to be the ceiling that they can’t move past,” Johnson said.

She was candid about a misstep on the technology side. When KB launched its own custom software four years ago, she assumed it was simple enough to pick up in a quick walkthrough.

“I built it, I thought it seemed easy, I thought it was simple, and we lost employees because of it, because I didn’t take a step back and say, wait a second, how do they need to learn this?” Johnson admitted. KB now offers technology classes that teach both how and why the system works, since employees take on more of it as they advance.

Employees eyeing a new role can job shadow someone who already holds that title for at least three shifts. Skill development classes cover carpet cleaning, hard floor maintenance and financial planning and budgeting, along with the leadership, communication and healthy conflict skills needed to move up.

KB’s four core values are consistent, dependable, proactive communication and do what you say. Every Friday, the office’s 9:41 a.m. huddle stretches from about six minutes to 15 as staff nominate employees for core value salutes. The list goes out to all 350 people in the company, and employees who don’t see their name start asking how to get on it.

A program called You Said We Implemented rewards frontline ideas. Johnson compared it to an architect who designs a janitor’s closet too small to fit a tilt truck because nobody asked the people who use it. When KB adopts an employee’s idea, that person gets a full shift of paid time off, a thank-you card mailed home and companywide recognition.

At 90 days, employees also receive a magnetic name tag that becomes part of the uniform. Badges get added over time: novice at 90 days, an English badge, a “ninja” badge for mastering more than one skill and a veteran badge at two years. Customers get an email when someone earns a new badge, which also helps them know who they can communicate with directly in English.

This stage’s metric is potential advancement rate, comparing how many employees say they want to climb with how many actually sign up for at least one class.

“Recognition costs nothing and changes everything,” Johnson said.

Pay tied to the right KPIs

Milestone four, one to two years, is “breaking the ceiling.” Next level leaders, the first supervisory tier above full-time frontline staff, qualify for pay for performance bonuses tied to KPIs at their own service location. KB groups everything under four Rs: repeats, relationships, revenue and retention.

An employee concierge scorecard tracks repeat customer concerns, repeat findings on quality control inspections, write-ups as a percentage of the team, total customer concerns, average inspection scores and 90-day retention of new hires. Inspection scores need to land at 95% or higher, well into KB’s “exceeds” range, to count.

“You can tell us once as a customer, hey, you missed this trash can,” Johnson said. “You should not tell us twice.”

Supervisors can earn an extra $600 a quarter. Johnson said the return on that money pays off time and time again, particularly on new hire retention, since a direct supervisor is the biggest reason an employee stays or goes.

KB also maps decision rights. Many frontline workers have been told in past jobs that they were free to make a call, only to get their hands slapped when they did. KB put that authority on paper in a decision-making matrix, laid out like a standard operating procedure, so leaders know exactly what they can handle without asking.

Then there’s the 22-month visit. Because the two-year mark is such a turning point, Johnson personally visits every employee in their 22nd or 23rd month, alongside the day or night operations supervisor. Some months that takes three or four nights plus a couple of days.

“If I walk into a building, it exudes fear. That’s how my world was five years ago,” she shared. “That’s just the notion of our industry. And so we’ve worked really hard to change that, where when I come in, it’s not because something’s wrong.”

Before each visit, she reviews the employee’s FORD notes and questionnaire. Asking someone how his son is doing in his first semester of college, when he has no idea how she knew, is what KB jokingly calls Secret Service.

“Now we’ve broken the wall down,” Johnson said. “And now we’re building a relationship and now we’re building trust.”

When an employee hits two years, Johnson writes a personal thank-you card and mails it home with a $20 gift card chosen from what she learned about them. She estimated about 80% of recipients call KB’s employee relations team afterward to say how proud their families were. This stage’s metric is the internal promotion rate, comparing promotions offered with promotions accepted.

The ongoing payoff

Milestone five covers two years and beyond. Employees working toward a promotion get ongoing one-on-one coaching, even when no opening exists yet, so they know KB is still committed. Customer concierges, KB’s account managers, are required as part of their own pay for performance plans to deliver in-person thank-yous to employees whose inspection scores improve, such as a jump from 91 to 98.

Two-year employees film video testimonials about their climb, which KB shares companywide.

“Our employees don’t want to hear me,” Johnson said. “They want to hear their story, they want to see their face.”

Next level leaders receive monthly appreciation cash, scaled to team size, to spend however they see fit, with photos and the story shared back to the company. In one case, an employee concierge at a downtown Omaha building overheard a day maker, KB’s term for a day porter, say she needed a heavier coat for her walk to work. He used the money to buy her one. She was in tears.

Employees with two or more years are invited to KB’s annual veterans party in late November, a sit-down dinner with a DJ, dancing, awards and a guest for each attendee. This year marks roughly the seventh party, and attendance has grown to more than 80% of those invited. Johnson said she signed certificates for about 171 employees with at least two years at KB. The targeted metric here is retention among promoted employees, tracked at years two, three, four and five.

One frontline employee summed up what that stability means: “I got the dream life of owning a house and working a 9-to-5.”

Advancement equals retention

Johnson said the work earns KB something money can’t buy. Employees trust that leadership is on their side, can picture themselves at the company five years from now and feel respected and appreciated in an industry where they often go unseen.

“Promotion is not just a reward, it’s the single strongest retention tool that we have,” she said.

The urgency grows with an aging workforce. The average frontline janitorial employee is 45, compared with 39 at KB, and many longtime workers across the industry will stop working over the next decade. Finding the right fit for the right role and moving people up, Johnson argued, is the cheapest way to replace that experience.

She described the effect as a flywheel. Winning the first 90 days sets up the long tenure that follows, and showing people the ladder gives them a reason to stay. “When one person rises, they reach back and they pull the next one up,” Johnson explained.

“Employees don’t work for us. They work for their families,” Johnson said. “And it’s our responsibility as leaders to respect them, appreciate them and help them grow.”