ABM CEO Henrik Slipsager Cleans Toilets on Undercover Boss

ABM CEO Henrik Slipsager Cleans Toilets on Undercover Boss

Getting the Janitor Some Respect

BNET: Why did you decide to go on the show?

Slipsager: I feel the respect for a janitor is not where it should be. And I still have the great belief that all these employees of ours are out there doing a hard job and a sincere job every day. So for me, it was one, to confirm that we had those hard-working people, and they actually were very happy doing a job in spite of the fact that it's janitorial. And secondly, I'm just trying to be successful in where I'm going. If I can change the perception just a tiny bit by seeing how proud these people are of the job they're performing, I've accomplished something.

BNET: How did you disguise yourself to go undercover?

Slipsager: I probably didn't need to, but I did. They colored my hair black. Well, they tried to make it black, they didn't succeed completely. I'm pretty blonde. Nobody recognized me but I don't know if they would have recognized me anyway.

ABM CEO Henrik Slipsager Cleans Toilets on Undercover Boss

Cursing on the Job

BNET: On the show you were an airport bus driver, and I understand that you were taken off that job for driving too fast and cursing.

Slipsager: It is true that the words did come out of my mouth when I couldn't find the microphone at one time. And I didn't think I was driving too fast. Maybe I was driving too fast. I think at one point [Kenny, the shuttle driver] did say to me, "you did everything wrong here," and that's not very encouraging. Airport driving is harder than it looks because you have very impatient passengers that probably parked their car too late, like I probably do, at the parking lot and you can't speed.

BNET: The next job was cleaning windows of an office building on a scaffold.

Slipsager: I don't like heights, and I made it very clear when we started on the roof, getting the scaffold ready. I was able to help with that job without looking down. I was so impressed with the guy that was the supervisor. From a safety point of view he did everything superb. And then we went down, and I said, "Okay, I'll try one or two floors to see how it feels." And everything went well until I looked down.

BNET: How high up were you?

Slipsager: I don't remember the exact floor, but high enough to make most people scared.

ABM CEO Henrik Slipsager Cleans Toilets on Undercover Boss

Every Employee's Dream

BNET: The next job was at 7 World Trade Center in Manhattan and this was the janitorial job. I think it's every employee's dream to see the CEO cleaning a toilet. How did that go?

Slipsager: [Maria] wasn't that happy with the way I cleaned toilets, but I think she said I was a good vacuum cleaner. So, obviously toilets are not in my future but floors are.

BNET: The theme that seems to be developing here is you are the boss of a company where you yourself would not make a good employee.

Slipsager: I wouldn't say that. There are certain jobs that are made for certain people such as shuttle bus driving, but I think I did the cleaning jobs really well.

ABM CEO Henrik Slipsager Cleans Toilets on Undercover Boss

Who Wears the Pants?

BNET: One issue that came up is that for the female janitors, their uniform is skirts, not pants.

Slipsager: That was one thing I have never heard before, and [Maria] had a very good point. She'd be embarrassed wearing a skirt if she has to bend down and get stuff. And that's something that we're in the process of changing and have changed in a number of places. It will change on the long-term basis, and they'll have both available. Some ladies prefer the skirt; others prefer the pants. So, I'm not going to say you have to wear pants, you have to wear a skirt; you can pick.

BNET: Why were the uniforms different in the first place for men and women?

Slipsager: I really don't know. I've been in the business for 25 years, and I've never gotten the question, and I never thought about it. But obviously I should have.

ABM CEO Henrik Slipsager Cleans Toilets on Undercover Boss

From Theoretical to Practical

BNET: Did you learn any management lessons? Are there any things you're going to take away from this experience that will change the way you lead?

Slipsager: From a safety point of view, there are certain things I picked up. Let's take the window cleaning. Safety's a key thing when you talk about cleaning windows, as you can imagine. It's your life up there.

And I went back to our Safety Group, and we had absolutely no supervisors or workers actually being part of our Safety Group. We created a Safety Committee where we included actual operators, because they are the ones on the jobs on a day-by-day basis.

The Safety Group at corporate makes sure we know all the new regulations that are out there, and makes sure we have the safety procedures in place. But a lot of these safety procedures, as you can imagine, are very theoretical because they're not from people on the job. So, now we have people on the job that have input into the safety regulations.