In hospitality environments shaped by fluctuating demand, high guest expectations, and AI-aggregated online reviews and summaries, janitorial programs must evolve alongside other staffing platforms. Flexibility and scalability are key to protecting the brand.
We sat down with three senior staff members – Karla Dougherty, Gisela Gomez, and Jim White at Xclusive – to get their insights on today’s janitorial programs.
In hospitality, variability is constant. Occupancy shifts, guest traffic fluctuates, and demand changes not just seasonally but daily and often hourly.
To manage that complexity, hotel operators have long relied on a mix of in-house teams and outsourced labor to place room attendants, stewards, cater-watiers, and culinary support staff. All of these functions are essential to delivering a consistently superior guest experience.
Janitorial, however, has often been treated differently. It is frequently structured as a fixed, transactional service rather than a dynamic operational function. It’s an outdated approach that no longer holds up. Today, janitorial is just as critical and just as dynamic as any other staffing area inside the hotel. In many ways, it is becoming one of the most important.
A surprising number of janitorial programs are still governed by contracts that assume consistency: fixed scope, fixed frequency, and fixed cost. On paper that creates control. In practice it creates drift.
“When occupancy is low, cleaning every public space at the same frequency may not be necessary,” says Karla Dougherty, Chief Customer Officer at Xclusive Services. “But when demand spikes, those same areas may require more attention. Too often, contracts dictate the service, when in reality, service should adapt to the day-to-day reality at the hotel.”
That gap between contract and reality shows up quickly. During slower periods, hotels carry unnecessary labor. During peak periods, they scramble to maintain standards. Over time, both sides of that equation erode performance.
Dougherty reframes the issue more directly. “The question isn’t just whether you’re paying too much for janitorial,” she says. “It’s whether your program reflects what’s actually happening on your property.”
Other areas of the operation have already solved for this. Staffing flexes with occupancy. Event support scales with demand. Janitorial should not be the exception. When it is structured to move with the business, it stops being a source of friction and starts behaving like the rest of a well-staffed operation.
The cost of misalignment is no longer just operational. It is reputational.
A missed detail used to be a contained issue. Today, it rarely stays that way. Consider a dirty floor and rubbish in the lobby. A guest notices, takes a photo (maybe with snarky commentary), and posts it on Insta. Within minutes, what seems like a small lapse becomes part of a much larger conversation.
“A dirty lobby can go viral in seconds, and the impact can last weeks or months,” Dougherty says.
What has changed is not just the speed, but the accumulation. Feedback is no longer experienced one review at a time. It is pulled together, summarized, and interpreted across platforms. AI tools scan thousands of inputs and turn them into simple narratives that shape how a property is understood.
At that point, patterns matter more than isolated incidents. And cleanliness is one of the fastest ways for a pattern to emerge. From an executive standpoint, the implication is straightforward.
“The reality is that everything is visible now,” says Jim White, Senior Vice President of Field Operations. “Guest feedback gets shared, scored, and amplified very quickly. In hospitality, you’re operating in a constant spotlight.”
That spotlight changes the role of janitorial. It is no longer just about maintaining standards. It is about protecting perception at scale.
Thinking about janitorial as brand insurance is useful, but only if the comparison holds up. Effective insurance is not reactive. It is built on a clear understanding of risk, backed by structure, and actively managed over time.
“It starts with understanding the full scope of the property,” says Gisela Gomez, Senior Vice President of Outsourcing at Xclusive Services. “Front-of-house, back-of-house, kitchens, public areas, and how they actually operate day to day.”
Gomez advises starting with a comprehensive and detailed overview of all spaces serviced by janitorial. “That initial assessment is where most programs either get grounded in reality or drift away from it,” says Gomez. “What is assumed to be sufficient often is not, frequencies do not reflect actual usage, and critical details get missed because they were never fully accounted for.”
Once that baseline is established, consistency becomes the priority.
Without that structure, cleaning can go off course very quickly. Gomez says that hotels need visibility into what’s getting done, and today that “increasingly means digital tracking, real-time reporting, and accountability built into the process.”
Even with strong design and oversight, however, a program will fall short if it cannot evolve.
Traditional insurance plans and policies are not static. They are updated as circumstances change. New risks emerge, assets change, and coverage evolves to keep pace.
The brand insurance provided by optimal cleaning programs should work the same way. Hotels are not fixed environments. Occupancy shifts, amenities change, and brand standards are updated. A program that cannot adjust to those realities does not hold its value for long.
“A lot of providers lock clients into fixed costs regardless of what’s happening operationally,” Gomez says. “We take a different approach. If the operation changes, the service adjusts; that’s what a true partnership looks like.”
That flexibility is what separates a static service from a functional system. It allows janitorial to operate in sync with the rest of the business instead of lagging behind it.
Part of the reason this matters so much is that hospitality operates under a different set of expectations than most industries.
“Hotels are on a completely different level,” Gomez says. “You are balancing guest expectations, brand standards, and health inspections all at once. There is no room for inconsistency.”
Guests do not evaluate cleanliness in isolation. They experience it as part of everything else the property promises to deliver. As Dougherty puts it, “A space can feel premium even if it is older, as long as it is spotless. But even a newly renovated property can feel subpar if cleanliness slips.”
That is what makes janitorial uniquely powerful. It cuts across every part of the experience. When it works, it reinforces the brand. When it does not, it undermines it quickly.
Operators who are getting this right are not treating janitorial as a stand-alone decision. They are bringing it into alignment with the broader operating model.
“The best programs are the ones that flex with operational needs, align with brand standards, and deliver consistent quality,” Dougherty says.
When that alignment is in place, the benefits are practical and immediate. Labor tracks with demand more closely. Standards hold during peak periods. Teams respond faster when conditions change.
Just as importantly, something less visible but equally important happens. Risk begins to come down. Not just operational risk, but reputational risk as well.
For a long time, the conversation around janitorial has centered on cost. That framing no longer captures what is at stake. In an industry where perception is shaped in real time and shared widely, cleanliness is not a background concern. It is one of the clearest signals a hotel sends to its guests.
Janitorial is no longer just a service but a key component of the hotel’s totality of operations. It directly impacts the guest experience and is one of the most practical and cost-effective investments a hotel can make in brand insurance.
Karla Dougherty is Chief Customer Officer at Xclusive Services, where she leads customer experience strategy and service innovation. With more than 20 years of experience across hospitality operations and outsourced services, she brings a practical, operator-focused perspective to helping hotels improve performance, efficiency, and guest satisfaction.
Gisela Gomez is Senior Vice President of Outsourcing at Xclusive Services, where she leads national outsourcing strategy and execution. With deep expertise in workforce management and hospitality operations, she focuses on scalable, flexible staffing solutions that align service delivery with real-time operational demands.
Jim White is Senior Vice President of Field Operations at Xclusive Services, overseeing all field teams supporting hospitality clients nationwide. With more than 30 years in the staffing industry, including the last decade focused on hospitality, he specializes in building high-performing teams that deliver consistently in complex, guest-driven environments.
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