We are seeking a Custodial Services Manager who will provide leadership, oversight, and daily operational accountability for custodial services in Johns Hopkins University residential facilities and other assigned student-facing spaces.
This position leads housing custodial operations within an integrated University Student Services (USS) model and is responsible for ensuring that residential facilities are clean, safe, welcoming, and ready to support student life, summer programs, conferences, move-in, move-out, and other university activities.
The Housing Custodial Services Manager serves as a key operational liaison among Facilities Operations, On-Campus Living, Student Affairs, USS, bargaining unit employees, contractors, vendors, and other university partners. The position requires strong field leadership, sound labor relations judgment, disciplined work planning, and the ability to manage both routine operations and peak operational periods.
This role is expected to build a culture of accountability, professionalism, respect, service quality, safety, and operational reliability while ensuring compliance with university policies, collective bargaining agreements, safety standards, and budget expectations.
Specific Duties & Responsibilities
Operational Leadership and Service Delivery
- Plan, coordinate, and manage custodial operations for assigned university housing facilities and related student-facing spaces.
- Establish clear cleaning standards, service expectations, work procedures, staffing assignments, inspection protocols, and accountability measures.
- Manage daily custodial operations, including routine cleaning, project cleaning, emergency response, event support, move-in and move-out support, summer turnover, and special requests.
- Ensure residential facilities are maintained at an appropriate level of cleanliness, safety, and readiness for students, residents, families, guests, and campus partners.
- Monitor building conditions and escalate recurring maintenance issues, damage patterns, pest concerns, safety issues, or operational risks to the appropriate Facilities Operations partners.
- Coordinate with USS partners, including campus custodial operations, waste and recycling, grounds, customer service, CMMS, and facilities maintenance, to support consistent service delivery.
- Support operational readiness for new or renovated residential facilities, including staffing forecasts, cleaning plans, equipment needs, supply planning, and transition into steady-state operations.
Housing, Student Experience, and Institutional Interface
- Serve as a primary custodial operations point of contact for Housing and Residence Life, Student Affairs, and other assigned campus partners.
- Recognize housing facilities as high-impact student experience environments where cleanliness, responsiveness, and professionalism directly affect institutional confidence.
- Communicate proactively with campus partners regarding service impacts, staffing constraints, project cleaning, turnover schedules, event needs, emergencies, and recurring concerns.
- Support a service culture that is responsive, respectful, and consistent, while also setting appropriate expectations for what the custodial team can reasonably deliver.
- Represent Facilities Operations professionally in interactions with students, parents, staff, faculty, vendors, contractors, and university leadership.
- Work collaboratively across departments to resolve operational issues, clarify ownership, and support reliable service delivery.
Staff Supervision and Labor Relations
- Provide direct supervision, coaching, direction, and performance management for custodial supervisors and assigned bargaining unit staff.
- Hire, train, motivate, evaluate, and discipline staff in accordance with university policies, Human Resources guidance, and applicable collective bargaining agreements.
- Maintain a strong working knowledge of the applicable bargaining unit contract and apply labor practices consistently and fairly.
- Partner with Human Resources and Labor Relations on employee relations matters, grievances, attendance issues, performance concerns, workplace conduct, and contract interpretation.
- Conduct regular field check-ins, staff meetings, and supervisor meetings to reinforce expectations, safety practices, work standards, and operational priorities.
- Build trust with staff through clear communication, consistent accountability, respectful engagement, and follow-through on issues affecting the team.
- Promote a workplace culture that values professionalism, safety, reliability, teamwork, and respect for frontline employees.
Summer Turnover, Move-In, Move-Out, and Program Support
- Lead custodial planning and execution for summer turnover, student move-out, student move-in, summer conferences, and other high-volume transition periods.
- Coordinate with On-Campus Living, USS, Facilities Operations, contractors, and vendors to establish realistic work plans, schedules, staffing models, quality expectations, and escalation paths.
- Develop turnover plans that identify building priorities, room readiness requirements, inspection processes, staffing needs, contractor support, supply requirements, and unresolved deficiencies.
- Track progress during turnover and other peak periods to ensure spaces are ready for occupancy and issues are escalated quickly.
- Manage overtime use in a disciplined and sustainable manner, ensuring it is tied to operational need, budget expectations, employee safety, and collective bargaining requirements.
- Identify when contractor support is necessary to supplement university staff capacity and ensure work can be completed within required timeframes.
Quality Assurance, Standards, and Continuous Improvement
- Develop and administer a custodial quality assurance program, including inspections, deficiency tracking, corrective actions, and service quality reporting.
- Establish and implement written cleaning standards, work procedures, balanced assignments, and performance expectations for supervisors and custodial staff.
- Use custodial management software, work order systems, inspection tools, and reporting platforms to manage workload, staffing, service quality, supplies, equipment, and productivity.
- Analyze customer feedback, inspection results, recurring service issues, staffing patterns, and productivity data to identify opportunities for improvement.
- Recommend and implement improvements to cleaning methods, equipment, products, training, scheduling, quality control, and service delivery.
- Evaluate new cleaning technologies, equipment, tools, and practices that improve effectiveness, safety, sustainability, efficiency, and employee experience.
Contract and Vendor Management
- Assist in selecting, coordinating, and managing contractors and vendors supporting custodial operations, supplemental labor, special cleaning, pest management, waste handling, recycling, and related services.
- Ensure contractor work is clearly scoped, scheduled, monitored, inspected, and aligned with university standards.
- Validate contractor performance, document deficiencies, and escalate concerns when work does not meet expectations.
- Coordinate vendor support during summer turnover, conferences, emergencies, special events, and periods of compressed operational demand.
Budget, Inventory, and Resource Management
- Administer assigned custodial operating budgets, including labor, overtime, supplies, equipment, contracts, project cleaning, and special program support.
- Monitor, control, and reconcile expenses; identify budget pressures and recommend corrective actions.
- Provide input into annual operating budgets, capital needs, summer conference budgets, turnover planning, and special program budgets.
- Maintain appropriate inventory controls for custodial equipment, supplies, tools, and materials.
- Forecast personnel, equipment, supply, and contractor needs for new buildings, occupancy changes, service changes, and major program periods.
- Support identification and prioritization of capital renewal or operational improvement needs related to custodial closets, equipment storage, waste handling, finishes, fixtures, pest prevention, and maintainability.
Safety, Training, and Compliance
- Ensure custodial operations comply with applicable OSHA requirements, university safety policies, environmental requirements, product handling procedures, PPE requirements, and other regulatory standards.
- Organize, plan, and direct training for supervisors and custodial staff, including cleaning methods, equipment use, chemical safety, ergonomics, customer service, emergency response, and workplace expectations.
- Ensure staff understand and follow safe work practices, incident reporting procedures, equipment requirements, and university standards.
- Partner with Environmental Health and Safety, Sustainability, Housing, Facilities Operations, and other university partners as needed to support safe and compliant operations.
Waste, Recycling, Pest Management, and Sustainability
- Coordinate housing-related solid waste, recycling, composting, pest management, and related services in partnership with USS program leads and vendors.
- Support university sustainability goals through responsible product selection, waste reduction, recycling practices, and environmentally preferable cleaning methods.
- Identify opportunities to improve diversion, standardize collection practices, reduce contamination, improve communication with residents, and strengthen service reliability.
- Ensure pest concerns are addressed promptly through coordinated service response, preventive practices, and communication with building partners.
Minimum Qualifications
- High school diploma or graduation equivalent.
- Minimum of six years of custodial, facilities, housing operations, hospitality, or related service management experience.
- Working knowledge of custodial operations, cleaning standards, staffing models, work loading, quality assurance, equipment, supplies, safety practices, and service delivery.
- Demonstrated ability to manage staff, schedules, budgets, contractors, customer expectations, and operational priorities in a complex environment.
- Strong verbal, written, interpersonal, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with diverse groups inside and outside the university.
- Computer proficiency and ability to learn and use work management, custodial management, inspection, procurement, inventory, and reporting systems.
- Valid driver’s license required.
- Additional education may substitute for required experience, and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond a high school diploma/graduation equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.
Preferred Qualifications
Technical qualifications and specialized certifications
- Experience in higher education, student housing, healthcare, hospitality, or another complex institutional environment.
- Bachelor’s degree preferred, or equivalent combination of education and progressively responsible experience.
- Experience supervising staff in a union or collective bargaining environment strongly preferred.
- Experience managing move-in, move-out, summer turnover, conference housing, event support, or similar high-volume operational programs.
- Experience with custodial work loading, APPA service levels, quality assurance systems, CMMS/work order systems, inventory control, and contractor oversight.
- Demonstrated success improving service quality, employee accountability, communication, morale, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
- Knowledge of sustainable cleaning practices, waste diversion, recycling programs, pest prevention, and environmentally preferable products.
Core Competencies
- Operational accountability.
- Labor relations judgment.
- Field leadership.
- Customer service orientation.
- Staff development and performance management.
- Planning and scheduling discipline.
- Budget and resource management.
- Communication and stakeholder management.
- Safety and compliance focus.
- Quality assurance and continuous improvement.
- Institutional stewardship.
- Cultural awareness and professionalism.
Classified Title: Custodial Services Manager
Role/Level/Range: ATO 40/E/03/OI
Starting Salary Range: $64,688 - $113,360 Annually (Commensurate w/exp.)
Employee group: Full Time
Schedule: Varies: M-F 7.5
FLSA Status: Exempt
Location: Homewood Campus
Department name: Housing Operations and Maintenance
Personnel area: University Administration
