Keep Your Office Clean by Anticipating Changes

Keep your office clean by anticipating changes. How so? We’ll start by focusing on a proactive versus a reactive mentality. For example, If you have guests over for a BBQ, you don’t wait until the guests arrive and then check if you have enough snacks and drinks. Rather, you take a proactive approach and prepare a platter to feed the masses. Yes, it take a bit of planning! You don’t want wait until your party has started and the realise you need to pop down to Four Square for some chips and dip.

Looking after your work space is the same mentality, avoiding a reactive state is vital. Many factors will affect the cleanliness of an office. A little bit of planning can go a long way to maintaining a clean office. Here are a few ideas that can help you stay on top of these things.

Change 1: Weather & foot traffic

Many businesses see an increase in foot traffic at predictable times of the year. For example, the warm spring season brings people out to enjoy the warmer weather. This often leads to outside debris bring tracked indoors. In addition, the change in weather often energizes employees for more outdoor breaks and lunch activities. This means more outdoor-to-indoor foot traffic. Here are a few ways that can help:

• Increase winter time floor cleaning activities with your cleaning provider.
• Schedule professional carpet cleanings well in advance.
• Increase your cleaning schedule. For example, add extra floor cleaning or vacuuming days during the spring & autumn season.

Change 2: Construction project & office upgrades

Office building construction projects can greatly complicate office cleaning success. If your facility is having remodeling or repairs done, you can expect all types of debris! GIB dust, wood shavings, paint splatter, and all manner of dirt. 

Be sure and notify your cleaning company of the upcoming construction. Work with them to ensure a solid plan for the up and coming challenges you may experience. Even the smallest amount of construction can have an impact on the cleaning services.

Also, any reputable cleaning company that has experience handling post-construction cleaning as a specialized service could be necessary. Such a cleaning company will know details that a less experienced company might not, such as:

• Post-construction cleaning requires several cleaning phases of the same area.
• Dust will continue to settle on surfaces many days after construction is complete.
• Special attention must be given to high reach areas, HVAC systems, computer rooms and more.

Clean Rite can help you with the planning and response to construction activities in your facility.

Change 3: Cold & Flu Season

We've all been experiencing the challenges with Covid and every year thousands of people catch colds and the dreaded flu. Many of these people will enter office spaces, bringing these contagious germs with them. What can an office do to prepare for this? The same thing we do for covid. 

Having the proper cleaning supplies and cleaning rotation is paramount. There are many types of cleaning agents, but not all are designed to deal with cold and flu germs. Make sure you have proper disinfecting and sanitizing cleaning agents. Also, make sure they are used correctly. Areas like lobby’s, bathroom touchpoints, lunchroom touchpoints, doorknobs and the like need to be consistently sanitized.

In addition, having good office environment hygiene is a major factor in keeping the spread of germs down. Thus, consider training staff to the following:

• Washing hands regularly and thoroughly.
• Sanitizing shared office supplies and equipment.
• Keep disinfectant wipes around the office and in bathrooms.
• Encourage sick employees to stay home and not share germs!