These fundamental leadership habits create stronger teams.
With skilled labor shortages growing and competition for talent intensifying, facilities organizations must do more than fill roles. Employees that feel valued and part of a team perform at a higher level, benefitting their team, their customers, and their own careers.
In order to create this win-win environment, UG2 Vice President of Culture and Community Lauren Lanzillo covered the key components of the strongest facilities management teams in the Fall 2025 Facilities Manager magazine published by APPA.
These are five must-dos for building top-tier facilities management teams for any industry.
1. Foster Mutual Respect
Teams are more diverse than ever. A key component of leading these teams is showing the same level of urgency and respect that you’d show administrative staff, students, and visitors.
It’s the little things—a thank you, an explanation for a task, a “good job”—that are easy to forget in the busyness of the day. But these basics are crucial. Respect leads to better performance.
2. Model Empathy
Giving everyone the benefit of the doubt seems like a no-brainer. But in the moment, it can be hard to remember. We never know what’s going on in a colleague’s life, or the lives of the faculty, students, and guests on campus.
Managers need to continually remind teams that we need to give everyone else the same grace we’d want them to give us. It’s not a one-and-done reminder, either. Modeling this behavior and actively shutting down gossip is a day over day task that should stay at the top of managers’ to-do lists.
3. Instill an “All-Hands” Nature
Cross-training employees and leading by example are key to erasing the toxic “it’s-not-my-job” attitude. Nothing should be beneath anyone, including managers.
While employees may not have all the technical skills needed to perform certain tasks, we all have the ability to step in and offer support, even if it is simply picking up a piece of trash or mopping up a spill instead of waiting for the custodial staff. And when everyone does this, it creates deeper cohesion, as everyone feels like they’re on a team working toward the same goal.
4. Focus on Training and Retention
Turnover places a high cost on everyone, from the existing team members who are left to fill the void to the customer who may see a decline in performance while positions remain open.
Valuing team members and investing in their training and their personal goals not only helps retention, it builds the strongest teams.
One of the ways we do this at UG2 is with our industry-leading Training and Innovation Lab. The virtual lab ensures that our employees can access top-tier training no matter where they are located. Team members learn technical training, as well as customer service and safety skills.
By investing in our team from the start, we have a pipeline of talent that is well-positioned to follow structured growth paths with clear opportunities for advancement. This helps us maintain continuity with customers, providing an experience where it’s hard to tell where our team ends and the customer’s team begins.
5. Empower Employees
Micromanaging is the downfall of many great teams. Empowering employees is easy when you trust in their training and have strong mentors integrated into the team.
It’s also crucial to ensure each employee has a current job description that specifies their role and responsibilities, as well as the expected results. Clearly communicating expectations allows employees to understand what they need to do, as well as ask questions or get the help they need in order to achieve those expectations.
By focusing on the humans behind the work, facilities leaders can build the highest-performing teams that benefit everyone involved.
Read the full article in the Facilities Manager magazine.