How Often Should Your Workplace Be Cleaned? [Frequency + Guidelines]

When you’re in the process of selecting a new commercial cleaning company, questions start running through your mind regarding how often you would like them to clean your site. 

How do I decide? 

What does it depend on?

Is there a right or wrong answer?

You may be unsure whether your current cleaning service is offering more or less days than appropriate for your workplace.

Each year, customers come to us at In-Tec and ask, “How many times should my site be cleaned a week?” This is a great question, and we understand it can be confusing trying to figure it out.

To help guide you, we’ve assembled the 3 most important factors that determine commercial cleaning frequency:

• What type of site needs to be cleaned?
• How much cleaning do you want your employees to do?
• How consistently clean do you want your workspace to be?

Keep reading to find out how frequently you’ll need to have a crew clean your office or workspace so you can be confident that your site is kept pristine. 

What type of site needs to be cleaned?

What is the site used for?

Consider what your business is. What we mean by this is, what does your business do? Maybe you manufacture goods, or maybe you work in healthcare, or in an office in the city? In this section, we will explore 2 scenarios: a manufacturing company and a traditional office.

If you work at a manufacturing site, the key factor you need to consider when deciding cleaning frequency is the amount of dirt that is being produced.

For example, if you’re an engineering company that manufactures metal, your site will inevitably be dirty. A site that is manufacturing any type of material would require cleaning daily. This is purely due to the intensity that the cleaner would have to produce to keep the dirt at bay. If you were to clean it only 2 times a week, it would be difficult to keep the dirt out.

Now if we consider an office setting such as an accounting or architectural firm, it’s not so much to do with what your site is used for, but more to do with employee numbers and foot traffic. Consider the following regarding your staff numbers:

• Less than 20 employees = requires cleaning 2-3 times per week
• 20-40 employees = requires cleaning 3 times or more per week
• 40+ employees = requires cleaning every day

All the above is calculated on the amount of waste produced and the usage of the workplace. This could include the number of times the toilet is used, whether bathroom supplies such as soap have run out, if the bins are overflowing, how often the kitchen microwave is turned on, and the list could go on.

When it comes to bathroom cleanliness, people go to the toilet on average 4 times a day. If you’ve got 50 staff members, that is 200 times a toilet is used per day. If you’ve only got your cleaners coming in twice a week, that is approximately 600 times that the toilet isn’t being cleaned.

This all links to the issue of general hygiene. If your cleaning service doesn’t have the time to restock supplies, and clean common areas like toilets and kitchens, it can pose a serious risk to you, your employees, and your clients.

What you also need to consider is whether you have customers constantly visiting your office. If so, you do have to account for this foot traffic when deciding how often your workplace should be cleaned. 

Deciding how frequently your site should be cleaned all comes down to what your site is used for and the sort of dirt and mess you create.

How complex is your workspace?

Complexity also influences how often your workplace should be cleaned. For instance, if you have a building that has many types of flooring such as carpet, polished concrete, timber, and tiling, it can take time to clean these surfaces. Whereas if you were to have carpet and tiling only, the number of tasks taken to complete the clean would be less.

Complexity also includes whether you have glass doors, walls, or desks. Unlike your typical white plaster walls, glass is a magnet. People like to touch glass walls and doors. If you have glass boardroom tables, they need to be cleaned entirely to remove fingerprints and dirt marks which takes time.

When deciding how often your workplace should be cleaned, the complexity of your site is an important aspect to keep in the back of your mind.

How much cleaning do you want your employees to do?

The one thing that companies are constantly trying to do is increase employee productivity. The more productive your team members are, the better quality of work they will produce. By increasing your cleaning frequency, your staff members won’t have to waste time on cleaning and tidying up their desks or common areas.

One of the best ways of improving employee productivity is by maintaining a clean work environment. This is where commercial cleaning services come into the picture. Hiring a cleaning service eliminates the hassle of your staff members having to take time out of their work schedule to clean up the office. 

For instance, here at In-Tec one of our clients has requested that their cleaner stacks and unstacks the dishwasher and clears away cups and plates from work desks. What our client noticed was that staff members were happier — and therefore more productive — coming into work every day as everything was clean. They also noticed that having a full-time cleaner or daily cleaner ensured that kitchen and bathroom supplies were constantly stocked.

By having your cleaners come into your site frequently, your staff will begin to care for and maintain a clean workspace before the cleaner even turns up to the site. Users of the premises will take care of its appearance and show more appreciation to their work and also the cleaners.

Another client has 4 kitchens within their building. No one knows how, but for some reason, teaspoons would always end up being in 1 kitchen. The cleaner at the site was proactive and now redistributes the teaspoons equally back to the respective kitchens. Now if your cleaner didn’t do this simple but effective task, your employees would have had to complete this task and take time out of their day. Instead, it’s the little things that cleaners do that can improve workplace productivity.

Increasing cleaning frequency can also reduce the amount of employee sick leave. The average staff member takes 4.4 days off work each year due to illness. This reduces the number of days the individual works and can also put further pressure on other staff members who must pick up their work. 

Commercial cleaning services are professionals who understand what to clean and when to clean it. They can ensure hygiene within the workplace is maintained to reduce the risk of employees getting sick.

Let’s say you are wanting your cleaners to come in once a week on Friday afternoons. If it’s important for your staff to come into a nice fresh office on a Monday morning, then why isn’t it important for the rest of the week?

The important point to take from this is that by having your cleaners do more, you and your employees can do what is important to them.

How consistently clean do you want your workspace to be? 

Cleaning frequency affects how productive your cleaners are at your site.

If your cleaner shows up to a site that’s requested to be cleaned once a week, they will have time to do all the basics such as emptying the bins, vacuuming, mopping, and cleaning the toilets and lunchrooms. However, they won’t have the time to do all the little things such as cleaning windowsills as these tasks just take time.

By having an appropriate cleaning schedule, your cleaners will go above and beyond as they will feel respected, appreciated, and cared for. Also, by giving them the appropriate amount of time to clean, they can complete all the scopes of work at a high standard.

It also comes down to productivity for the cleaners. If the cleaners are working on a site every day, they develop a routine that allows them to become more productive. This allows the cleaner to do more things on the client’s site such as making sure marks on walls are done, vents in toilets are vacuumed, and the back of chairs are wiped – it’s all the little things. Having a site cleaned at the right frequency helps both the cleaner’s productivity and the client’s productivity.

The more consistent the cleaning - higher frequency - the more time the cleaners have to be productive thus the more things they can get done in the allocated time slots.

Think about it. Would you clean your site once a week?

How often will you have your workspace cleaned?

The bottom line is that determining how often your site should be cleaned all depends on where your needs sit within the 3 factors.

• How many employees do you have?
• What is your space used for?
• Will the frequency impact your employee’s productivity?
• Do you care how productive your cleaners are at your site?

On average, most companies with more than 25 employees should have their workspace cleaned at least three times a week. Without consistent cleaning at that frequency, you’ll notice that surfaces are staying sticky. Your team will start complaining about how the toilets and kitchen are dirty. You’ll become stressed and your employees will start losing interest in their work. 

We don’t want this to happen to you — and it doesn’t have to. Finding a trustworthy cleaner is important as they will give you an accurate estimate of how often your site should be cleaned weekly.

Here at In-Tec, we believe it’s important to provide information honestly and transparently. Get in touch with our team to schedule a call or contact us if you have any questions. We’re here to help.