The Importance of Office Cleaning

Not only does a freshly cleaned office create a healthy working environment for your staff, it tells your visitors a lot about your organisation. Providing and maintaining a clean and tidy office environment serves as a constant reminder of the standards your organisation expects from its staff.

Additionally, employers have a legal duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 to ensure that the workplace is kept sufficiently clean and tidy.

A recent study of UK office workers by SMC Premier showed that a quarter of office workers think that their office is not cleaned satisfactorily and that this was affecting their productivity. The same study showed that only 61% of people wash their hands after using the toilet, so it is easy to see how germs and bacteria can spread around the office.

The thorough cleaning of offices has also been brought into sharper focus since the Coronavirus pandemic hit the UK back in February 2020.

Deep cleaning and regular contract cleans

At the start of any cleaning contract, a deep clean should be undertaken. This provides a solid foundation for your ongoing daily or weekly contract cleans. A deep clean should include dusting, cleaning, and disinfecting the areas you cannot see, as well as those you can. Carpets or carpet tiles should be shampooed, not just hoovered, and windows and doors should be cleaned inside and out.

Your regular daily or weekly contract cleans will include cleaning desks and chairs, sanitising phones and IT equipment, emptying bins, cleaning windows internally, vacuuming carpets, mopping and polishing floors and sanitising kitchens and toilets.

The impact of COVID-19 on office cleaning

Additional specialist cleaning methods are now employed with the purpose of killing Coronavirus in addition to other viruses and bacteria, on a multitude of surfaces around the office. These cleaning services include Fogging and Touch Point Cleaning.

In the Fogging process, a machine generates very small airborne droplets of a non-toxic chemical, which the operator sprays over all hard and soft surfaces. The chemical kills viruses and bacteria after one application, and the effectiveness is proven to be sustained for a minimum of 30 days. Your office is safe to occupy just one hour after the Fogging process has been completed.

Touch Point Cleaning ensures that those parts of your workplace which most often come into contact with people are thoroughly and individually cleaned and disinfected. These frequently touched surfaces include handrails on stairs, door handles and plates, light switches, telephones, and in the toilet areas, toilet flushers and taps.

What cleaning systems and procedures should you have in place?

It is important that clear systems are put in place in a professional office cleaning regime. These include risk assessments and checklists detailing what needs to be cleaned and how often.

You should consider what cleaning equipment and cleaning materials are required and have a process in place for reordering.

There should also be a process in place which allows your office staff to report issues with the cleaning regime to the cleaning team, and the cleaning company should undertake regular quality audits.

How to select a suitable professional cleaning company?

The first step should be to assess their reputation, by reading online testimonials, but take care that the reviews are from verified customers.

Your prospective cleaning contractor should visit to survey your offices. During the visit, check that they undertake a thorough walkaround, including all welfare facilities, outlining what should be cleaned, how it should be cleaned, and how often.

Do not forget to ask the cleaning company for details of their industry approvals such as SafeContractor, and of course what level of public liability insurance they carry.

Keeping your office clean is now more important than ever, and employing the right professional commercial cleaning contractor to undertake the work is critical. Cleaning the office should not be viewed as just another cost, but as an essential service that benefits your organisation.

Straight talking advice on Office Cleaning from Yorkshire Powerhouse

Have you any questions?

Here at Yorkshire Powerhouse, we’re happy to help as much as possible – is there anything else we can do to help you, do you have any further questions or can we help introduce you to an expert – please let us know: