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Your own custodial staff or a contracted janitorial company?
Weighing an in-house custodial crew against a contracted janitorial company? This comparison covers staffing, supervision, insurance, supplies and the hours each one takes to run.
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Who employs the crew, and who manages it
Every commercial property needs someone to clean it. The real decision is who employs those people and who carries the work of managing them. With an in-house crew, the cleaners are on your payroll and every part of running the team sits with your organization. With a janitorial company, the cleaners belong to the vendor, and you manage the vendor instead of the people.
Neither model is right for every building. A single owner-occupied office with a long-serving custodian is a very different situation from a property manager running several multi-tenant buildings. The comparison below lays out what changes hands when you move from one model to the other, so you can judge it against your own property.
The two models side by side
Read each row as a question of who handles it. On the in-house side, the answer is your organization. On the company side, it is the vendor, and the details are what Continental provides.
| What you weigh | Your own in-house crew | Continental as your janitorial company |
|---|---|---|
| Hiring and screening | You recruit, interview and run every check | Crews arrive already background-checked |
| Sick days and vacations | Your team finds cover from its own roster | Crew scheduling and time off stay with the company |
| Supplies and equipment | You buy, store and replace all of it | Floor machines come with the work; supplies optional |
| Training and supervision | A manager on your payroll trains and checks | Supervisors inspect against the written checklist |
| Insurance and workers’ comp | Your organization’s policies have to cover the crew | Bonded and insured, with workers’ comp and a COI per client |
| When your needs change | Retrain, add hours or hire again | The written program and schedule get revised |
| Floors, porters and exteriors | Usually extra contractors to find and manage | Run in the same program as nightly cleaning |
| Your management time | Scheduling, payroll and HR stay on your desk | One service manager coordinates every service |
The table leaves out cost, because pay rates, benefits, supply prices and overhead differ by building and organization, and a fair comparison needs your own numbers. Our facility services cost guide walks through the factors that drive a contracted price, and the cleaning cost calculator gives a starting point for the company side.
When an in-house crew makes sense
An in-house team gives you direct control over every person in the building. That suits organizations with a stable custodian who already knows the property, buildings where cleaning blends into other daytime duties such as setting up rooms or receiving deliveries, and owners who already run an HR and payroll function that can absorb a few more employees.
The trade-off is that everything around the cleaning becomes your job too: recruiting, screening, training, scheduling, covering time off, buying supplies and equipment, and checking the work. Specialized tasks such as floor refinishing, carpet extraction or pressure washing usually still go to outside contractors, so an in-house property rarely escapes vendor management completely.
When a janitorial company makes sense
A contracted company makes the most sense when management time is the scarce resource. Property and facility managers responsible for several buildings, multi-tenant properties with high expectations, and owners without an HR function tend to find that one vendor relationship is far simpler than a staff of their own.
With Continental, janitorial service sits in one program with porter coverage, floor care, exterior work and light maintenance, managed by one service manager. Our crews are background-checked. The company is bonded and insured and carries workers’ compensation, and we hand every client our certificate of insurance. Supervisors inspect each building against its written checklist, which gives you a standard to hold us to.
Keeping your crew and adding the rest
Many buildings mix the two models. One workable arrangement pairs a small in-house team for daytime duties with a company for the work that needs equipment, scheduling or extra hands. Continental can supply janitorial supplies on a recurring delivery to your own staff without adding cleaning. We can also take on the outside of the property first, with pressure washing, parking lot sweeping and grounds, while your crew handles the inside, or add floor care on a periodic calendar so your team does not need to own scrubbers and burnishers.
A hybrid setup works best when the line between the two teams is written down: which areas, which tasks and which hours belong to each. That prevents gaps where each side assumes the other has it covered.
Questions to settle before you decide
- How many hours a week does managing cleaners take today, and who does it?
- What happens on the night your custodian is out sick?
- Who buys, stores and tracks supplies and equipment?
- Which periodic tasks already go to outside contractors?
- Do your tenants or leases require a vendor’s certificate of insurance?
- Would one service manager for several properties save you time?
If most of your answers point toward time you would rather spend elsewhere, a walkthrough with a janitorial company will show you what the contracted version looks like for your building. If they point toward control and a stable team you already trust, a hybrid that adds only the specialized work is usually the better fit.
Whichever way you lean, write the answers down and keep them with your building records. They make the next budget conversation easier, and they give any vendor you invite to walk the property a clear picture of what you need from the start.
A few useful answers
Common questions.
What does a janitorial company take off my plate?
Hiring, screening, training, scheduling and supervising the crew, plus the equipment for floor and carpet work. You manage one relationship instead of a team of employees.
Can I keep my in-house custodian and still use Continental?
Yes. Properties with their own custodial staff can buy supplies from us, hand us exterior work, or add floor care and porter coverage around the in-house team.
Who carries workers' compensation for a contracted cleaning crew?
The company that employs the crew. Continental covers its own crews under its workers’ compensation policy, and you receive our certificate of insurance at onboarding.
Are Continental's cleaners background-checked?
Yes. Background checks are part of joining a Continental crew, so nobody new walks into your building unscreened.
How do I compare the cost of each option?
List every cost line on both sides, not only hourly pay: benefits, supplies, equipment, supervision time and the outside contractors you already use. Then request a written quote for the company side.