Custodial Services has been going through a shortage of workers, similar to what other departments at the university have seen.
Of the 66 available full-time employee positions, 17 are vacant.
“Our average vacancies used to be about five at any given time,” Custodial Services Manager Tressa Jones said. “After the pandemic, we’ve had a lot more vacancies. I think it’s kind of a combination of the labor shortage and people [being skeptical] of potential exposure.”
The biggest problem custodial has found is that simply not enough people are applying for work. They saw their employment numbers slip again after some workers left at the end of summer. Part of that could be because of single parent workers that aren’t able to work nights or other shifts required, according to Jones.
The nature of the job means that workers can be more at risk for exposure to COVID-19, with staff taking care of event cleanup, touch point disinfection, bathroom cleaning and vacuuming.
“Now [exposure] is at the forefront of everyone’s minds,” Jones said.
The department has had trouble maintaining the same pace of cleaning given the lack of staff, which means they’ve had to start prioritizing. Disinfecting is number one, while something like vacuuming might fall further on the list.
While the department has had trouble finding full-time employees, their student worker numbers are normal, around 30 total employed.
When campus first shut down in March 2020, custodial services didn’t need to change much from their normal routine. The cleaning standards set by the Cleaning Industry Management Standard were recently updated, with more of a focus on disinfection. Thus, CMU’s custodial teams simply upped the amount of rounds they were focused on touch points.
Many don’t know that full-time positions in custodial services are a part of a tuition waiver program, which means classes at CMU are free for those positions.
“They take one or two classes per semester, so they’re kind of chipping away at a degree, but they’re getting on their feet financially, and it’s a good way to do that if you don’t have other resources,” Jones said.
For those that are interested in working as a full-time employee for CMU’s custodial services, go to the employment tab on CMU’s web page.
