Offices can quickly become dirty and cluttered. Being organised and working together with your cleaning supplier is key to ensure you keep a cleaner and tidier office.
A daily clean to your office keeps it feeling fresh, disinfected, welcoming and looking professional. But more is needed to ensure cleaning standards don’t drop.
Let us remind you of the importance of ensuring communal areas are spotless. If you have visitors regularly, looking after areas such as reception, lobby and toilets will help your business make a great first impression.
1- Essential daily cleaning
All workspaces, washrooms, break rooms and kitchen areas should be cleaned and maintained to a high standard. This will keep your office look clean and tidy, and keep staff and visitors safe.
Daily cleaning tasks include:
- Clean & sanitise phones and workstations including computers
- Clean surfaces, handles and doorknobs
- Wipe light switches and door frames
- Vacuum and/or sweep/mop floors
- Empty waste and recycling bins, cleaning and disinfecting them regularly
- Spot clean windows, glass and any painted surfaces
- Remove cobwebs and dust light features
2- Periodic cleaning schedule
All offices have different needs and periodic jobs and their frequency will vary in order to keep a cleaner and tidier office. For example, regular carpet cleaning (and what LBS Cleaning recommends) should be done twice a year; although there are offices where frequency may need to be higher or sometimes lower.
The best to approach this is to consult your cleaning supplier and make an informed decision on frequency, method and when exactly to carry out specific periodic cleanings. Here are the most common periodic cleaning jobs, and the frequency we recommend for each of them:
- Carpet cleaning: twice a year
- Window/ glass partitions: twice a year
- Toilets: 4 times a year
- Chair cleaning: twice a year
- Office deep cleaning (computers, desks, dusting, kitchen, fridges, phones)
3- Designated storage areas helps keep a cleaner and tidier office
One of the reasons why offices start to clutter is because staff don’t have storage areas. Having designated cupboards/areas or individual lockers for staff can help massively, as it will not only keep their desks tidy, it will also contribute to the look and feel of the whole office.
4- Regular communication with office staff
A task that is mainly performed by office managers or those in similar roles, but one that is imperative in your efforts to keep a cleaner and tidier office. Setting rules, communicating them clearly and regularly with staff, and pointing out when office rules are being broken will have a positive effect and will help you to keep your office looking immaculate.
Rules include:
- Keeping the top cupboards empty
- Asking staff to take used cups, plates and cutlery to their nearest kitchen
- Not allowing the storing boxes or personal items under desks
- Set clear fridge rules such as throwing away food items each Friday
5- Appoint cleaning marshals in your office
Cleaning marshal may not always be the most popular with everyone in the office, but cleaning marshals that embrace their role contribute greatly to keeping a cleaner and tidier office.
They are not afraid to point out when a colleague has broken the rules. Cleaning marshals are also at hand to conduct regular checks to ensure cleaning and tidiness standards are being maintained.
6- Remove individual bins
Many offices have taken this approach. From our experience, all our clients that have removed individual bins and have placed bigger ones on strategic parts of their offices are ripping the rewards.
Not only does it mean that it is less likely that employees will make a mess on their workstations, but this also frees up time for cleaning operatives to focus on other aspects of their work. LBS Cleaning certainly believes this is the way forward and something that we hope all offices adopt in the near future.
7- Remove dedicated desks (Hot Desks)
A step further from removing individual bins, and again one that is becoming more and more popular in offices, is ‘Hot Desking’.
What this means, in the nutshell, is that office staff will no longer have workstations that are solely theirs. Desks are filled up on a first come, first serve basis, every day. As a result, office staff will not be able to leave anything on desks overnight as there is no guarantee that they will occupy the same desk the following day.
And there you have it, 7 proven tips to keep a cleaner and tidier office. Not every measure will work for every office, but even adopting a couple of them can make a huge difference.
Be sure to choose the right cleaning company
With so many cleaning companies to choose from, our experience is what counts. LBS’ clients can rely on receiving a rapid response to their queries. We will go above and beyond to ensure you are satisfied with the final outcome. We take the time to understand your needs, requirements and budgets which enables us to give you a service that ticks all the boxes.
Related article: https://www.lbscleaning.com/our-guide-to-office-cleaning-during-and-post-coronavirus-covid-19/