The workplace looks nothing like it did six years ago. Labor shortages, hybrid offices, automation, robots, IoT sensors, and the highest inflation in decades have reshaped how buildings get cleaned and how cleaning companies survive.

For Jill Frey of Cummins Facility Services, every one of those pressure points aims in the same direction: technology, and the discipline to actually use it. She shared her thoughts in a session at the Altus Summit at ISSA headquarters on June 9.

The new moat is … technology!

Frey frames technology as the modern version of a castle’s defenses. “Historically, a moat protected the castle,” she said. “Today, technology creates separation between companies as competition increases.” With private equity continuing to enter the industry, she argued, the gap between companies that adopt and companies that stall keeps widening.

The moat, in her view, is not the hardware itself. “Your real moat is not the technology itself,” Frey said. “It’s how you adopt, create, and utilize the technology. That’s the moat. That sets you apart.”

Adoption starts with understanding

Cummins started building that culture back in 2015, when Frey gathered her employees and told them they were going to learn what IoT meant. Soon, she said, workers were spotting the term everywhere, even on their refrigerators. The company added “Tech Talk Tuesdays,” sessions built around conversations and hands-on time with new machines and robots and let its own leaders decide which products to buy. It also ran technology road shows, dropping equipment at client sites for a week to see how it would get used.

“Technology adoption starts with understanding, not just purchasing,” Frey said. She compared the alternative to the impulse buys that pile up at home, like the closet organizer that sits unopened on the dining room table for six months. Tools only pay off, she said, when companies teach people how to use them.

Robots and an aging workforce

The average age of Frey’s workforce is 54, and that shapes how she thinks about automation. “Robots handle most of the autonomous tasks. They reduce physical strain,” she said. The payoff shows up in safety numbers: trips and falls had been the top driver of the company’s workers’ compensation claims, and Frey credited automation with bringing them down. “We have less trips and falls because of our robots,” she said.

The machines also make the remaining work more appealing. A company survey found employees were more willing to stay. “Our employees want to work for us longer if they have someone helping them, or if they have a robot helping them,” Frey said.

Because the demand comes from the floor, she built a process around it. Employees who want a robot add their name to a list, then complete roughly six weeks of education on how the machines fill labor gaps, improve consistency, and increase productivity before they earn the right to run and maintain one. The result is ownership in every sense. Crews name their robots, give them faces, and even run Instagram accounts for them. “They’re part of their family,” Frey said, and that personalization, she noted, tends to push productivity higher.

Data becomes the deliverable

Since 2017, Cummins has used IoT and occupancy data to rewrite its scope of work, shifting toward cleaning on demand and giving clients hard evidence of the service. Robot reports document hours worked, square footage covered, and water saved, and monthly summaries show exactly how much chemical the building used. Frey treats sustainability as part of the technology story, not a separate one.

Why Europe matters in Chicago

Frey, who does extensive work in Europe, believes the continent runs about three years ahead of the United States. She pointed to the European Data Act, passed this year, which requires buildings to share their data securely and at no cost. The change is controversial for an obvious reason. “Data’s gold,” she said. “You’re giving up the gold.” It also raises the stakes on cybersecurity.

The reason a Chicago audience should care, she said, is that standards set in Europe tend to migrate. Any building headquartered in Germany or Amsterdam pulls those expectations across the Atlantic, and Frey expects them to arrive regardless of the current political climate. That means contractors will need to track consumption closely. “We have to understand our water consumption. We have to understand our chemical consumption. We have to consider our energy consumption,” she said.

AI is not optional

Frey placed the industry in the early, narrow stage of artificial intelligence, with more general capability likely within a few years and a far more powerful super intelligence arriving in roughly five to eight. Whatever the timeline, her message to the room was blunt. “Please use AI. You haven’t started? Please start. It’s not going anywhere, and it’s only going to get faster,” she said. Companies that sit it out, she warned, risk becoming someone else’s acquisition.

Smart buildings, new revenue

The same shift opens a door. Sensors, indoor air quality monitoring, and energy management give building service contractors a way to diversify, Frey said, and offering energy services can help protect janitorial budgets that otherwise get squeezed on price every few years in a race to the lowest bid. She framed it as a chance to deepen client relationships and add new revenue streams rather than defend old ones.

Training is the future

None of it works, Frey argued, without training. Cummins employs an ambassador named Jerry whose job is to make sure people understand and enjoy their work, and the company runs a mandatory annual training event that stretches four to five hours and is offered both in person and online. The curriculum used to center on OSHA compliance, safety data sheets, and basics like ladder and cord safety. Now it covers smart buildings, tools, building data, robotics, and technology adoption, and completion is tied to the company’s CIMS certification.

“Training has to be the future,” Frey said. “We can’t allow our employees to go into buildings and not understand what they’re doing.”

She closed with a simple test of survival: The companies that learn fastest, adopt fastest, and train their people best are the ones that will still be standing for the next generation. Automation, she stressed, does not erase the human role. “There is always room for humans,” Frey said. “Always, but robots have a spot too.”

Be sure to watch for the next Altus Summit event!