Pressure to complete commercial cleaning tasks with fewer staff is table stakes in the industrial and institution cleaning market. 

The US hotel industry, for example, has been mired in staffing shortages for years. While hotels have largely recovered from the pandemic, hotel employment is still nearly 10% below pre-pandemic staffing levels, according to data shared by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). In a survey conducted by AHLA and Hireology, nearly 65% of hotels continue to report shortages in staff with housekeeping reported by 38% of respondents, outpacing other areas like front desk and culinary. 

There were new headwinds in 2025: on-again/off-again tariffs, heightened concerns about I9 audits, higher energy costs and more. 

Developing strategies for these issues is why building service contractors, owners of professional cleaning businesses and facilities managers come to ISSA North America year after year. Last month, thousands arrived in Las Vegas hoping to find solutions that they could pour into their bottles and buckets as well as into their business model. 

From The Ground Up

Divisional managers at Spartan Chemical, Dee Womack and Steven Comfort, provided just that. The duo talked about Spartan cleaning products and fielded questions from audience members about on-the-ground-realties during “Maximizing Your Floorcare Budget with Sustainable Chemistry,” a session organized by the ISSA trade association.

Flooring sets the tone. It is the first thing visitors encounter when they enter any place of business.

“Preventative maintenance is very important,” said Comfort, who is divisional manager, Midwest, for Spartan.

Dust mopping as a daily task helps eliminate dirt and debris, he said, which keeps floors looking better longer. Skipping this task can have implications down the road. Lingering dust and dirt can impact the floor surface during more rigorous cleaning tasks.

Womack and Comfort addressed other issues their customers must navigate, like staffing shortages and product safety.

As ISSA got underway, Spartan Chemical met a new benchmark: its FloorFront floor finish became one of the first Green Seal-certified floor care products formulated without any intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).  

Earlier this year, Green Seal enacted an across-the-board prohibition on PFAS in floor care products. (PFAS can be used for properties such as gloss, leveling, stain resistance and wettability). All previously certified floor care products must comply with the updated PFAS criteria by March 2027.

Maxim Zinc-Free High Traffic floor finish from Midlab was also announced as meeting the Green Seal standard for PFAs.

NPD in I&I

Jelmar has long been bullish on safer chemistries in cleaning products, both for consumers and commercial customers.

“For some it is about checking a box; it is not checking a box for us,” Jeff Pozen, COO and president, Jelmar LLC, told Happi during the show.

Jelmar’s newest I&I products include CLR Pro Max Industrial Degreaser, an industrial cleaner that’s engineered to penetrate and dissolve heavy grease, oil and grime found on parts, machinery, heavy equipment, appliances and surfaces. 

According to Dan Bucci, director of B2B sales, it fits a need for a high-performance concentrated degreaser that is competitively priced and safer for end users. The non-flammable, water-based formula contains no abrasives, acids, petroleum solvents or VOCs. It is also NSF registered and approved for use in food processing, food storage and food service facilities.

Across the show floor, leading companies showcased their latest products, including SC Johnson Professional and Reckitt. Both are leveraging heritage brands—Fantastik and Lysol, respectively—in the commercial cleaning space.

SC Johnson Professional was touting the availability of Fantastik No Rinse Disinfectant & Food Surface Sanitizer, a fragrance-free, ready-to-use solution that cleans and disinfects without the need to rinse. The formula will kill 99.9% of foodservice bacteria like E. coli, salmonella and listeria, as well SARS-CoV-2 and norovirus. It offers a four minute broad pathogen kill and 60-second sanitization on hard, non-porous surfaces, and can be used on all washable food contact surfaces like appliances, bar tops, bathroom fixtures and more. The formula is made without fragrance, bleach, phosphate and alcohol.

Lysol used ISSA to show the benefits of Lysol Air Sanitizer, its EPA-approved spray that kills 99.9% of airborne viruses and bacteria while eliminating odors in the air. The formula, available in three scents, contains active molecules that are hygroscopic in nature, which allows the molecules to attach to microorganisms suspended in the air. Once attached, the molecules break down the structural membrane of the microorganism, leading to its destruction. 

Force of Nature unveiled its new Force of Nature Pro OnDemand, a larger unit that, like its other appliances, converts salt, water and vinegar into an all-in-one cleaner, deodorizer and EPA-registered disinfectant. The new unit resembles a water dispenser and addresses the need for commercial customers who want a larger supply source. It dispenses up to 20 gallons into spray bottles and mop buckets. 

Germs at Your Fingertips

Concerns about smartphone addiction continue to rise. At ISSA, CloroxPro was showing another reason to put these devices down, or at least give them a wipe (daily).

According to CloroxPro, 65% of adults admit that they take their phone to the bathroom, but may not clean or sanitize their phones afterwards, making germ transfer to other areas more possible. Further, laptops and tablets used by adults are consistently shown to be contaminated with illness-causing bacteria. 

In one study conducted by CloroxPro with 29 employees from a large multi-building office setting, tech devices were found to be contaminated with more than 2,000 colony forming units (CFUs) on average. Laptops, on average, were contaminated with 2,223 CFUs, about 10X more contaminated than a public toilet seat.  

CloroxPro also found that 20% of laptops, 15% of cell phones and 10% of tablets tested positive for staph and 5% of tablets tested positive for E. coli.

In that study, 52% of those surveyed reported that they had not sanitized their devices within the last month, and 7% reported that they had never sanitized their devices.

Similar scenarios are simmering in education settings. There are roughly 48 million student laptops in use across K–12 schools in the United States. 

In a study designed to measure levels of bacterial contamination on school laptops and tablets, CloroxPro tested 24 kindergarten student tablets and 24 first grade student laptops. All were positive for bacteria. Laptops had on average 1,453 CFUs and tablets had 972 CFUs on average—about 5X as contaminated as public toilet seats. Approximately 33% of laptops and 37.5% of tablets tested positive for staphylococcus. 

These are high-touch surfaces like a desk and door handle, but do not appear to get equal attention when it comes to cleaning. 

A likely culprit could be the fact that traditional disinfectant sprays and wipes aren’t suited for smartphones or sensitive electronics, and cleaning wipes designed for electronics may remove smudges, but do not address illness-causing germs. 

Enter CloroxPro’s new solution, Clorox Screen+ Sanitizing Wipes, which clean and sanitize sensitive electronic equipment in one step and are EPA-registered to kill 99.9% of bacteria in 10 seconds while removing dust, fingerprints and smudges without damaging delicate screens. Officials say the wipe is 35% less wet than the leading professional cleaning wipe, low-linting and non-abrasive, which makes it suited for the task in a way that other wipes are not.  

These wipes should find a market. Consumers are interacting with touchscreen kiosks everywhere these days, from airports to urgent care centers. While there has been some push back about self-checkout in places like supermarkets, consumers appear to like this DIY approach when it comes food service. According to the 2025 Phygital Index Report from Tillster, a provider of commerce solutions for restaurants, 61% of kiosk users say they want to see more kiosks in restaurants, which is up from 57% in 2024 and just 36% in 2023.

ISSA North America 2026 will be held November 17–19, 2026 in Las Vegas.