In & Out Privileges

Keith Reid has more than 20 years of experience in the facilities service industry and, for the last three years, has worked at OneSource, where he is vice president of education services. The company provides outsourced facility services, focusing primarily on the engineering, landscaping, and custodial fields. Mr. Reid is responsible for maintaining the company’s relationships in the educational sector, concentrating mostly on colleges and universities. We talk with him about the conditions of today’s college campuses, how schools are handling facility services, and the future of the industry.

Jay Schneider: What does a school get from hiring OneSource?

Keith Reid: We’re a contractor that basically covers the general market. We’re broken down into three service areas: engineering, landscaping, and custodial-mainly the service areas that many schools and colleges want to outsource, with the exception of food service. We’re not in the food service business.

What generally separates us from a lot of our competition is how the company is broken down regionally across the United States. We have approximately 125 district offices across the country and we have division presidents who head up those particular regions.

A lot of times schools and colleges outsource because of quality control. We tend to hire people who have worked in the market segments we cover and we develop those individuals through training programs and so forth so that when they are placed in a position at a school or university, they are able to function well and represent our company very, very well.

JS: In many cases, colleges and universities hire your firm to help them reduce costs; why are their costs so high?

KR: I think over time, the way that schools and colleges hire-based on relationships and so forth-they normally overstaff an operation just to make sure the jobs are done. I don’t think they staff the way a contractor does. It’s not unusual for a contractor to go in and cut 10 percent of the staff because an operation is staffed so excessively.

As I travel around the country, I see this a great deal. Some physical plant directors do not have access to methods used to refine what staffing needs are for plant operation, whereas a contractor does have access to that information. So, to some extent, they’re really working at a disadvantage. A contractor will come in, conduct a study to determine the optimum staff required for a job, and provide supervision to make sure the work is done.

JS: Are high costs then mostly because of overstaffing?

KR: I think some of your more seasoned veterans will tell you that staff is not really the major issue in terms of cost savings; the savings really are on the energy side. We go in and evaluate the energy side as well.

JS: I’ve read in some cases you negotiated a reduction in staff with the unions? How does a proposal like that go over?

KR: If you don’t reduce staff, the community feels very good about it. What we try to do is reallocate staff, meaning that if we go in and do a study and find out that an optimum staff level for that operation is X and we have five, six, or 10 extra employees, we tend to redeploy those employees to other areas of the campus where services may presently be outsourced. We can add value by eliminating that outsourcing cost, bringing the work in-house, and bringing savings to the university. We don’t release employees just to release them because it would be financially wise for a campus to do so.

JS: How do you work with a school’s existing facility maintenance staff?

KR: We operate in many different ways; we’re very flexible in terms of meeting the client’s needs. There are times in our contract where we may hire the staff that’s presently on site and make them our staff. There are times we may manage the existing staff, thereby providing leadership. Or there are contracts where we have a combination of both. It depends on the client and what they feel best fits their operational needs.

In higher education, one of the issues that many schools face is community pressure. There are times that institutions feel they can get a tremendous value from contracting out, but it depends on how everything is structured.

JS: How do you arrive at the decision to implement the programs you do? What is the process for evaluating a school or campus?

KR: Well, a school will have a set of standards-certain expectations they demand from a contractor-which is the first thing we have to look at. We have our engineers go in and determine the optimum staffing for the cleaning side or look at the equipment they have from a engineering standpoint and come up with a determination about what needs to be done. Those standards and specs really are what drive your work on any campus. No two schools are the same and, each time we look at a set of specifications, the clients have different needs. We don’t have a cookie cutter approach.

JS: What do you think are the greatest changes/topics currently facing the facility maintenance industry?

KR: I think that what challenges any major facility management department or company is finding the right manager. You only have so many trained mangers out there, and it’s really a challenge to find strong, qualified individuals.

Our segment of the business is growing tremendously. Back in the 1980s, very few colleges and universities would discuss outsourcing with a contractor. They would not sit with you to talk about it. Today, you find the segment of the market is growing continuously, mainly because of the economy and because of the challenges facing schools and colleges. They want to get away from the areas of maintenance.

JS: What are the most common problems you’re hired to correct? Are there many commonalities from school to school?

KR: Schools feel very comfortable outsourcing the custodial and the landscaping work because colleges and universities are in the business of educating students, retaining them, and graduating them. From an aesthetic standpoint, they want to make sure their schools look good because that’s what they’re selling to parents and students. That image.

From a mechanical standpoint, a lot of schools and institutions across the country have some serious problems. However, they don’t feel comfortable outsourcing in that particular area because it’s such a critical part of their overall operating process and they cannot afford to have a contractor fail in that area. There has to be a great deal of trust for the college to outsource that aspect of the business.

My feeling is that one of the reasons you find schools normally outsourcing their cleaning and landscaping is because it’s not as high risk an area as the more technical areas.

JS: From what you’ve noticed, how would you rate the condition of today’s colleges and universities?

KR: I go across the country and see different conditions at schools and colleges. For schools that transition work from in-house to a contractor, there’s generally a specific reason that move is taken-the school has a major need, especially from an engineering standpoint.

A lot of schools, as I mentioned earlier, hire based on relationships rather than on specific needs. As technology changes, it really puts the pressure on many colleges and universities to upgrade their skill sets internally. I see physical plants that do not have licensed people working there. Those people have to interface with the most highly technical areas for plant operation with very little skill to maintain that equipment once it’s no longer under warranty. And, they might not have the ability to learn all the new technologies-that’s really our job. When the work is done in-house, it’s very difficult for a plant director to gather all this knowledge because they are tasked everyday just processing the daily operating needs of the campus. They do not have the downtime to learn all of these processes. To put all that asset at risk-it really challenges a lot of institutions.

JS: One of your company’s claims to fame is landscaping and ground maintenance. What have you noticed about the conditions of our nation’s campuses?

KR: There are schools across the country that do a very good job-and I always say not all schools should outsource. There are some schools that I feel are doing as equally good a job as a contractor could do. So, if there’s no advantage in going out, there’s no reason for that. But, as I go across the country, I do see a lot of schools where the landscaping is really poorly kept. Some are state institutions, some are private schools and colleges. There could be many reasons the landscaping is not kept up. It could be because of training-just a lack of knowledge on how best to do the work. It could be an equipment issue. It could be a combination of reasons.

JS: How do you see facility and maintenances services evolving? Where would you like to see things headed?

KR: I feel you’ll find more and more schools becoming comfortable with outsourcing. Schools and colleges have outsourced for many years in areas where they’ve felt comfortable, including food service, the bookstore, their printing, etcetera. Outsourcing facility management is an area that schools and colleges are just now seriously considering. Even state institutions, which are more union-driven and therefore find it hard to outsource services, are strongly looking at outsourcing because they know there’s value a contractor can bring to the campus that they’re not able to achieve at the present time.

JS: Mold is the hot topic these days. Is this an issue with which your firm frequently contends?

KR: Yes, that issue is important to us. It is an area we focus on from a safety standpoint, and it’s something we’ve written documents about. It’s an area of concern to any contractor.

JS: Are there any areas in which your firm doesn’t currently provide services but might offer such services in the future?

KR: We’re really focusing on our core area of service and whatever business we can provide that would align us with facility management, that’s really what we’re all about. We’ll grow our business on what our strengths are and those are facility management.