All people appreciate a tidy workplace. It’s a way to greatly enhance productivity, the client’s experience, and your mental wellbeing. And those advantages extend to your employees too (if you’re a business owner)! For the majority of employees, a clean office clears the mind!
With that, cleaning your workplace has a disadvantage. You need time to clean everything up. For any office worker, performing routine cleaning (in addition to their regular obligations) might cause unneeded stress.
However, this problem can be solved through some proactive habits. By applying them, you and your staff will have effective cleaning practices for a constantly clean commercial environment. And this’ll set up your business for long-term success!
So what are those tips? For a beautiful-looking workplace, use the 9 easy cleaning measures below!
But first…
Here’s How We Structured This Guide
This article divides the 9 tips into three parts (based on how often you should apply them). They are:
- Part 1 – Daily Cleaning Tips
- Part 2 – Weekly (or Monthly) Cleaning Tips
- Part 3 – Setting Up Your Office for Maximum Cleanliness
This’ll help you turn the tips below into habits that you can schedule simply and effectively!
(Part 1): Daily Cleaning Tips
(1) Your Desk: Clean it Daily
It’s a measure you should follow once a day (and before leaving the office). Only a few minutes are required, but the habit does a lot for the next day’s productivity.
Take some time to reorganize your desk. Reorganize items including papers, pens and other materials. If you fear being forgetful, prepare an alarm to alert you when each work day ends. Set it to a few minutes before you need to leave. This ensures you have enough time to tidy up everything.
This habit not only keeps your workstation tidy and organized, but it also offers you a sense of completion when each work day ends. It’ll let you start work again the next day with a sense of freshness!
(2) Clean Publicly Viewed Spots
This measure is less about your productivity, and more about your public image.
Clients get their initial impression of a business based on how an office, store, or space looks. Thus, make sure you periodically clean spaces that customers access, such as your building’s lobby. Public areas should be swept and vacuumed once every week at minimum.
Additionally, pay close attention to the office bathrooms. Toilets, which are a breeding grounds for germs and filth, may define how customers see a business. Mop bathroom floors daily, clean toilets, and pay extra attention to surface disinfection. Your staff members will greatly value the effort too!
(3) Disinfect Highly Used Surfaces
This is a critical part of cleaning any office. And its importance has been emphasized with the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the past few years.
High touch surfaces need to be disinfected daily, especially if a specific surface is used by multiple people. You can use disinfectant wipes and prioritize desks, printers, telephones, keyboards, and daily used equipment. Doing so encourages a work environment that’s healthier and highly productive.
Disinfectants should focus on germ removal and prevention. Thus, we don’t recommend using then for common spills. Instead, we recommend utilizing straightforward all-purpose detergents for those scenarios.
(Part 2): Weekly Cleaning Tips
(4) For Paperwork: File and Store
A clever and simple technique to prevent clutter is to create storage compartments for documents and office tools.
This’ll sync well with your end-of-day cleaning routine mentioned in the first point. You can use filing dividers and cabinets for important paperwork. Additionally, you may utilize storage racks to keep large objects such boxes of office supplies and papers.
Creating the initial filing system does take time. But, this measure saves you even more effort and time looking for “missing” documents while at work. It makes you more efficient. Plus, it’ll let you clean the entire office space without worrying about accidentally mishandling important paperwork!
(5) Clean and Reorganize Cables, Cords and Electronics
This is not something you have to do daily. You can clean cables, cords, and electronics in your office once a week. However, it can take some time to dust off a set of wires while untangling them. This is because electronics and cords tend to gather a lot of dust over time.
Something you can do is setup your cords so they don’t tangle. This’ll make them easy to clean later on, thus saving you the effort needed to reorganize and detangle them.
Keep electronics and cords away from floors when possible. This makes it easier to clean your office floor in general, especially when vacuuming. Also, position cords and cables so that you can move around them easily. For example, you can pin them to your office desks or bind multiple cords together.
A good habit to adopt is to get rid of cables whenever you don’t need them. If you can, adopt wireless equipment, such as keyboards, monitors, and a mouse. This makes desk cleaning easier, and it helps you minimize dust traps too.
Other types of electronics you need to clean include break room appliances, such as coffee pots, microwaves, and refrigerators. Those may represent the most unclean areas of your workplace. You may find food and drink leftovers that create bad odors, encourage mold growth (or worse) collect pests.
Break rooms should be cleaned thoroughly once a week. Pay extra attention to your fridges, and wipe them once per week or month. That’ll depend entirely on how often it’s used. Heavy detergents aren’t required to clean break rooms through. You can simply rely on vinegar and dish liquids to disinfect hard to clean areas (and ones where you find spills).
(6) Don’t Forget High and Low Reach Areas
You’ll find a lot of dust in difficult-to-reach areas, such as ceiling vents and bookcase tops. We recommend cleaning top-down. Start with higher shelves, and clean corners close to ceiling walls. Dust all surfaces towards the floor.
Pay close attention to spaces under desks. You’ll also find dust trapped around and under devices like keyboards and monitors. Also, if your office has any plants make sure to dust them, ensuring that the air is fresh in your work environment!
(Part 3: Setting Up Your Office for Maximum Cleanliness)
(7) Add Some Mats to Office Floors
Floor mats aren’t just for décor. They help collect and trap dust, especially if a mat is placed at a public entrance. A mat may capture water too from spills, making clean ups much easier.
Mats are also a convenience in cold environments where rain is common. Also, long mats protect employees in your workplace, ensuring less accidents from snow, ice, and water slips. Plus, with a mat, it’s much easier to locate and clean up dirt at the end of the day!
We recommend picking mats with highly absorbent qualities. Also, pick a mat that won’t show dirt or discoloration from excessive use, especially if your workplace has lots of employees!
(8) Ensure Waste Baskets Are Accessible
Try to add as many trash cans and recycle baskets as possible.
Waste baskets are needed to dispose unwanted items from an office, especially old and useless documents. Not having enough trash cans around encourages employees to clutter their desks, making major cleanups a hassle later on.
Bins and baskets should be placed in “high traffic” spots of your building. The more a place is accessed, the larger the waste basket you need. Ideally, every workstation should have a small paper basket for less mess and greater productivity.
In areas where food and drinks are often thrown away (break rooms) be sure to get a large trash can with a lid. Lids are necessary to reduce odors as much as possible.
(9) Dedicate Storage for Cleaning Supplies
Your office will need a store of supplies for daily and weekly cleanups. You should have a closet with enough space to keep both the supplies and equipment.
We recommend storing everything in a single location. This lets you track supplies, allowing you to replace what will run out soon. Keep a list of supplies required, and buy what’s enough for use each week. This’ll save you having to shop for supplies daily.
Lacking cleaning supplies when they’re needed can make small cleaning jobs much harder, forcing you to wait before supplies are replenished.
Also, you should keep your tools stored with the supplies. Those will include wipes, dusters, and cleaners for fast cleaning tasks.
Special Tip for Commercial Cleaning
Just hire a professional commercial cleaner!
If you’re a business owner, you don’t have to do the job yourself. Nor do you need to forcefully train your employees into strict cleaning habits.
Let someone with experience clean the office for you. They’ll give you a schedule that matches your office’s sanitary needs. And with professional cleaning, you get a service that’s flexible and available any day of the week!
Professional cleaners hire technicians that use high-grade products with the effective cleaning. You’ll guarantee a perfect cleaning experience, 100% satisfaction, and an organized work environment!
Contact City Wide Jani today for a Free Estimate!