Useful Office Cleaning Tips
Maintaining a clean work environment is beneficial for many reasons. Office cleaning can keep employees healthy and germ-free. Neat and organized desks also improve efficiency and help a company run smoothly. Sometimes a janitor may be responsible for the cleaning, but in other instances, the employees are in charge of their own workspaces.
No matter what type of business is conducted,
organization is an extremely important factor for any office to run efficiently. Keeping the office space clean maximizes organization and helps employees stay healthy. There are many different systems for achieving cleanliness, and the system that is used typically depends on the company budget and the size of the office. Larger businesses generally employ a custodial staff or single janitor to handle the bulk of the cleaning duties. In smaller offices where a full time janitor is not in the budget, each employee is in charge of keeping his or her own workspace nice and neat.
Keeping computers and other electronic equipment, such as copiers and printers, free of dust is important to ensure they do not break. Dust particles can accumulate in the small crevices of such equipment and cause functional problems. Damaged electronic devices require maintenance or replacement, and this can be very costly for the business.
When the responsibility falls on the individual to keep a clean workspace, some community areas like lunch or break rooms and restrooms can become neglected. No single person wants to take on those additional responsibilities every day. People don’t generally enjoy cleaning up after other adults who are capable of doing so for themselves. Those community areas are actually the places where cleanliness is most important. Lunch and break rooms are breeding grounds for bacteria, and food crumbs or wrappers that aren’t thrown away can also attract insects or rodents. Restrooms must be maintained for the health of the individuals who use them. Large amounts of bacteria can accumulate there as well.
When there are unhealthy conditions in the work environment, they can lead to sickness among employees. Most people occasionally catch a cold, but working in an unclean office can lead to more occurrences of illness than normal. The result is employees either staying home from work or not functioning at their full potential. When a person does come in for work while feeling sick, he or she should take extra measures to disinfect all areas visited and items used.
One effective method for maintaining cleanliness is by assigning the cleaning of each common area to specific employees. Then, each week the task can be assigned to a different person and everyone must contribute evenly. Sometimes, the employees can work this out amongst themselves, but this is not always the case. Managers may have to delegate the tasks to the employees on a schedule week by week.
If the business already has a designated custodial staff, the common areas are no longer a problem. However, even when there is a janitor, he or she may be restricted by company policy from cleaning desks or cubicles very thoroughly. The custodial staff can clean the windows and vacuum floors, but there are often rules in place that prohibit them from moving any items on a person’s desk. If so, the employee who uses the desk should still take the initiative to dust under keyboards and wipe down phones. Ultimately, office cleaning is, to some degree, the responsibility of all the people working in it.
