Scheduling Office Cleaning: Finding the Right Frequency for Your Business

Posted on March 18, 2024

All business activity ebbs and flows throughout the year according to fluctuating consumer demands.

Therefore, you might struggle to create the perfect office cleaning schedule for your facility. Tidying, sanitizing, and disinfecting needs depend on various factors, like your industry’s standards and the level of foot traffic.

JAN-PRO Cleaning & Disinfecting in Tampa Bay, Florida, is exploring the factors that influence business cleaning schedules. Use this in-depth guide to craft a plan with your certified franchisee for a healthier, tidier workspace that caters to your staff and customers all year long.

Understanding Your Business’s Needs

Every business has diverging needs based on industry standards, busy seasons, and weekly influxes. Consider how people might use your facility and what you might need to keep your building clean and healthy. The following examples will help you craft an adequate cleaning schedule with your service provider.

Office Spaces

Large and small offices often feature ample furniture to support their employees’ work needs. Desks, chairs, break rooms, and restrooms need regular cleaning to ensure a sanitary, germ-free workspace. Depending on your office size and employee number, you might need:

  • Daily restroom cleaning: Everyone uses the restroom throughout the day. That means numerous hands touch the same fixtures over and over. The humid environment can also contribute to germ growth and spread.
  • Weekly office tidying: Most people work at their desks and tidy up before they leave, limiting germ transfer and disorganization. Scheduling an independent contractor to attend to your empty office each weekend may help ensure the area remains organized, tidy, and professional.
  • Monthly or bi-weekly disinfecting: Even if your employees mostly stay in the same space, they can still spread germs. Occasional disinfecting throughout the office area and break room will eliminate microbe transfer. Consider increasing these services during winter or when “something is going around the office.”

Food Service Buildings

Cafeterias, restaurants, and other food service businesses need a cleaning plan that addresses dropped or spilled foods. These buildings face challenges like:

  • Food and drink spills on floors and tabletops
  • Crumbs becoming wedged into corners and booth seats
  • Meeting health and safety mandates to stay in business

Therefore, restaurateurs and cafeteria managers may need daily cleaning services during closing hours. 

Medical Facilities

Labs, hospitals, and similar buildings must remain sanitized and disinfected to prevent contamination. The cleaning solutions used must go beyond tidying surfaces. Plus, the certified unit franchisees need experience and licensing related to this particular type of cleaning.

Shared Work Spaces

A large and small office is a productivity powerhouse. The staff members collaborate and coordinate daily, using teamwork to accomplish what their employers require. While the environment doesn’t adhere to the strict standards mandated in medical or food facilities, they do facilitate germ spread.

Restrooms may need daily tidying and disinfecting to keep toiletries restocked and surfaces safe for next-day use. The shared spaces, like break rooms, offices, and lobbies, need weekly services to eliminate excess clutter and dust surfaces while making the area look as professional as possible.

Retailers

Like schools, stores get heavy foot traffic daily. Customers may spill drinks and touch surfaces throughout business hours. An independent cleaning contractor can tackle stains, messes, and potentially germy areas, making your store healthy, safe, and appealing for shoppers and staff.

Childcare Facilities

Schools, daycares, and similar buildings have constant daily foot traffic and hundreds of little hands touching the surfaces. Scheduling daily janitorial services ensures each fixture and surface gets sanitized, preventing the spread of germs to the children and their communities. Bi-weekly or monthly deep cleaning ensures hallways, classrooms, and lobbies look tidy and remain in good condition.

Industrial Facilities

Factories and similar buildings only need occasional deep cleaning to maintain each space. Restrooms, break rooms, and locker rooms might need more frequent services to keep germ spreading at a minimum. A cleaning consultant can recommend a personalized plan for your manufacturing building.

Assessing Your Resources

An elemental part of determining how often and when you need office cleaning services rests on factors like:

  • The type of office setting and activities that occur daily within the building
  • The budget you allocate toward outsourced services
  • Your annual business schedule

These factors come into play in surprising ways. Learn more about how they can influence a cleaning quote you can afford.

Business Size

The size of your business involves more than the building size. A certified franchise might also consider:

  • The types of surfaces or furniture populating the space
  • The volume of people entering and exiting the building
  • The layout of each office or room

Numerous variables go into your recommended service frequency and depth.

For example, you might have a small office space. However, you also have a growing team or clientele touching doorknobs, using restrooms, and visiting different desks. This ceaseless activity requires more intensive cleaning protocols than a small office with two or three people sharing the space.

Budget

Despite budgetary constraints, you could still profit from a custom cleaning quote. Weekly or monthly deep cleaning services will mitigate the challenges of tidying a busy area. Your independent contractor could handle tasks like comprehensive floor cleaning and restroom sanitization.

Meanwhile, you might delegate the following tasks to your staff members:

  • Tidying their personal workspaces
  • Emptying and consolidating trash cans
  • Wiping down the surfaces of desks, file cabinets, and electronics daily or weekly

Downtimes

Finally, many offices experience periods of high demand followed by slow seasons. Your building likely needs fewer or less frequent cleaning services during slow seasons. Deep cleans when business dwindles or just before it picks back up can help your office look pristine to new staff members or customers.

How To Schedule Your Office Cleaning Services

Once you have reviewed your business’s needs and set a budget, work with your cleaning consultant to:

  • Determine the best cleaning practices for your specific commercial space
  • Balance busy and slow seasonal needs
  • Identify what your business will need throughout each service

They’ll recommend an ideal cleaning schedule using these and the following elements.

Foot Traffic

Different areas have varying levels of foot traffic throughout a work day. For example, break rooms, restrooms, and other common areas accommodate more people with less attention. These spaces might need daily or weekly cleaning, depending on whether the occupants make messes frequently.

Type Of Space

One space might need more attention than another. For example, a restroom likely needs more service than a break room because of the nature of its use. Since your staff uses the break room to prepare or eat meals, they might clean the surfaces more frequently during lunch breaks. On the other hand, few people maintain restrooms throughout their shifts.

Equipment And Furniture

Different surfaces and materials have diverging needs. Some examples of these variations include:

  • Carpet cleaning: A service provider might vacuum the carpet daily and shampoo it monthly. Carpets have entirely different maintenance needs from their solid flooring counterparts.
  • Solid floor cleaning: A hardwood, linoleum, or epoxy floor needs sweeping and mopping to stay tidy. While carpet requires upholstery shampoos for deep cleaning, solid materials need sweeping, mopping, and occasional polishing.
  • Window cleaning: Window maintenance frequency depends on your building’s purpose. For example, children in a primary school or pediatric office will likely touch the glass and leave fingerprints. Windows in these settings may warrant daily cleaning.
  • Office furniture upkeep: You can’t clean wooden desks and upholstered office chairs with any old multi-purpose formula without damaging the material. A service provider will clean these items with products formulated to protect and cleanse furniture, ensuring it lasts longer.

A Checklist for Creating a Customized Schedule for Janitorial Services

You might feel overwhelmed by the details that influence the perfect cleaning schedule to suit your commercial space. The checklist below will help you pinpoint those details when working with your certified business owner:

  • Industry standards and business type: The type of business you run will have the most significant influence on cleaning service frequency. Some buildings can handle a minimal approach, while others require daily attention.
  • Seasonal downtimes: Some restaurants, movie theaters, and retailers have seasonal upswings. Medical or industrial facilities retain steady business and activity year-round.
  • Surface and materials: Office equipment like chairs and electronics may only require weekly touch-ups. Laboratory equipment or school furniture needs daily cleansing.
  • Foot traffic: How many people enter and exit your business daily? More people typically means higher service frequency.
  • Types of spaces: Servicing frequently used restrooms or kitchen areas keeps the surfaces sanitary, protects your staff and customers, and prevents spreading germs.

Call JAN-PRO Cleaning & Disinfecting in Tampa Bay, Florida, About Office Cleaning Services That Suit Your Needs

When you outsource your cleaning services to experienced service providers, you save internal resources, regardless of your overall approach. JAN-PRO Cleaning & Disinfecting in Tampa Bay, Florida, can connect you with a certified unit franchise near you to help lighten your load. Fill out our online form to request an estimate for professional office cleaning services tailored to your business’s needs.