Login
Get started
Shannon Kenny is Lessen’s SVP of Soft Services, which means she oversees vendors that deliver essential exterior services that make commercial properties safe and beautiful.
Tell us about your job.
Soft services represent landscaping, snow removal and any ground care, such as pressure washing, debris removal, janitorial services, window cleaning – I supply these and more to our customer base. These kinds of services tend to be overlooked, but they are essential. Think about it: During Covid, property owners still had to cut the grass, keep up the landscaping, and remove the snow, because they still had roadside pickup. Exterior services are necessities because without them, owners risk fines, face liability issues, and even threaten the growth of their business.
How did you get into the facilities management industry?
I was hired as an affiliate advocate but in less than six months I started working with an important account that needed exterior services for locations across the US. I did well with that because, having grown up in a family of construction contractors, I understand things from a contractor’s point of view. My father, who was in construction management, taught us the value of being fair and empathetic to a customer’s needs. He is the least handyperson I ever met in my life, but he knows more about construction and people than anyone I know. He also instilled a strong worth ethic in everything I do.
What does your day-to-day look like?
I work closely with Lessen’s operations team to make sure we are executing all our services. Our four main groups – floor care, exterior operations, customer services and support services – hit their stride last year, which makes my job much easier and allows me to spend more of my time on customer reengagement. I love working with our current customer base because their needs are so varied, and I hear so many stories about how Lessen solved their challenges.
How has climate change affected exterior services?
When weather was more predictable, we had winters where the snow was much more consistent: Two to three inches every snowfall from November through February. Now we get wild swings every year where it won’t snow for months and then we’ll get a monstrous storm of 12 to 24 inches. It’s a lot harder to manage than it was in previous years.
Going into this season we already know we won’t have a mild winter. Outside that, drought conditions in the south and southwest are going to be tough. Many retailers haven’t updated their landscaping over the last decade, so we work with them to make their landscaping more sustainable. We use drought resistant plant material that don’t need as much water to ensure they’re not as reliant on as much water as they may have been in the past.
What are the risks for customers who aren’t prepared for winter?
Working with Lessen now allows you to keep their properties open and safe during the season. Snow is a high risk ,high reward service. If you know how to do it well it’ll get you a lot more business. If you’re not prepared, it’s a lot more work.
We had customer return to use who said, “I’ve never worked so hard in my entire life.” Handling snow and ice yourself will create chaos if you’re doing it internally, because you need a giant team to do it well. There are so many components: Making sure you have the proper insurance, making sure you have the right contracted rates, making sure you have vendors lined up, etc. Leaving it to your internal ream is very risky especially with slip and fall issues. Plus, if your primary vendor doesn’t show up, what are you going to do? We can respond immediately, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for someone who hasn’t done this before.
What makes Lessen unique?
Even though we have grown, we haven’t lost that startup mentality. Our competitors are too big. They’re also too siloed, so it takes them a long time to get something done. What I love about Lessen is that we haven’t lost that spirit of getting things done, no matter what. Also, our technology is better than any of our competitors because over the last 13 years of doing this, we’ve taken the best ideas, from vendors to customers, and improved what we do every year. Snow may be an extremely hard service to manage, but our technology makes us do it much better.
What do you like about your job?
It’s different every day. I also have a very tenured team, some of whom I’ve worked with for over a decade. That is nothing to sneeze at. I care about that. I grew up doing sports and I like winning. I want us to be the best at what we do.
What do you do outside the office?
I played volleyball all four years of high school and in club leagues in college. I don’t play as much now, but because of my competitive spirit, I always need to be working on something. With that in mind, I’m about to run my fourth Chicago Marathon. Outside training, I like to golf, spend time with family and friends, and I have a dog I am obsessed with!