The Ultimate Office Cleaning Checklist For Businesses

As a business owner, one of your many duties is to ensure that your offices are kept clean. Not only is it a legal requirement to ensure your employees have somewhere safe and sanitary to work in, but it’s also been proven that tidy workplaces encourage productivity. 

To ensure that you’re able to keep your office clean in the long run, you need to take a strategic approach. To help you to develop your own, we compiled this detailed checklist to help you keep your premises as clean as possible.

Personal areas

First, let’s go over personal working areas, such as cubicles and offices.

Every day

These tasks are best done daily, often by employees themselves. 

• Bins: Even if they only have an apple core or coffee cup in them, you need to make sure that all bins are emptied on a daily basis. Even small pieces of food can start to rot after a day or two, attracting flies and a nasty smell. Most office bins are only small, meaning that they can start to overflow surprisingly quickly, which is absolutely not what you want.
  
  

• Clearing desks: In general, it’s good to enforce a policy that employees need to clear their desks at the end of each day. Even if it’s just a coffee cup and a few pieces of paper that are left out overnight, this kind of attitude towards cleanliness can quickly snowball, making it harder to control. It’s best to have employees do this themselves rather than professional cleaners, so that you can be sure nothing that’s important or sensitive is accidentally thrown away.
  
  

• Quick wipe down: At the end of the day, it’s good to check for any spilt drinks or bits of chocolate lying around. If left for longer than necessary, they could stain the desk or seep into cabinets, potentially damaging something. It only takes a second to see if there’s anything that needs wiping up, and then another second to take care of it.  
  
  

Every week

These tasks are best done weekly, either by employees or by professional cleaners. 

• Dusting: Dust is one of those things that can sneak up on you – to avoid this, it’s best to ask employees to dust their office or cubicle at least once a week. Before dusting, they’ll need to clear away everything else, such as laptops and phones. It’s also important to make sure that they dust under phones and around keyboards, so that no areas are left behind.
  
  

• Windows: If the office has a window, then it’s important that it’s cleaned at least once a week on the inside. This is important to ensure that there’s enough natural light getting in, and just to make sure the space stays looking nice and professional. Unless the office is on the ground floor, then you’ll likely need to get professional window cleaners involved to clean the outside. This may be a bit of a hassle, and it might not be something that you’re able to do every single week.
  
  

• Properly clean bins: While the bins need to be emptied daily, at the end of every week it’s a good idea to give the bins a bit of a clean. If any food or drink manages to leak inside the bin, it can start to build up and smell; it just takes a quick wipe and a spray with an antibacterial product to get it as good as new again.
  
  

Connecting areas

Connecting areas such as entrances and corridors get a lot of use, and need to be kept clean.

Every day

These tasks are best completed daily, generally by professional cleaners.

• Disinfecting: One of the most beneficial things you can do for overall office hygiene is to disinfect door handles and other commonly touched areas. Depending on how big the office is and how much traffic it gets, you may even want to do this multiple times a day, such as after everyone arrives in the morning, after lunch, and after everyone leaves at the end of the day.
  
  

• Vacuuming: Connective areas tend to see a lot of usage and as a result, a lot of dirt can be brought through. To keep the office looking great, you’ll want to sweep or vacuum at least daily, to ensure that there aren’t any unnecessary build-ups over time.
  
  

• Light Switches: Light switches are often forgotten about, but they’re touched literally every day and can be a prime spot for spreading germs. Make sure that they’re given a quick wipe-down every day, to ensure that the office remains safe and sanitary and to avoid any build-ups of grime. 
  
  

Every week

These tasks are best done weekly, by professional cleaners. 

• Mopping: For offices with hard floors, in which sweeping and vacuuming should be done every day, you’ll want to mop at least once a week. If you have carpeted floors, then you’ll need to get specialised carpet cleaning professionals to do a deep clean every now and then. Similarly, if you have wooden floors, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using the right products to care for the wood in the long run.
  
  

• Glass: A lot of offices nowadays are full of glass. Whether it’s partitions or doorways, whereas clean glass looks amazing and modern, when it’s dirty, it can quickly look terrible. To keep the office looking great, you’ll want to give it a good clean at least once a week. Using the right products and tools is important – without them, it can be a next-to-impossible task. 
  
  

• Dusting: While we normally associate dust build-ups with more sedentary spaces, it can absolutely build up in corridors and entrance spaces as well. Make sure that you’re vigilant with your dusting in these areas; not only does dust look unprofessional, but it can also trigger allergic reactions in a lot of people. 
  
  

Communal areas

Communal spaces including waiting areas and meeting spaces must be kept absolutely spotless. 

Every day

These tasks need to be done every day, generally by a cleaner.

• Vacuum and sweep: Spaces such as waiting areas and meeting rooms need to be kept spotless, as they’re the spaces that many of your partners and customers will see. Make sure that you sweep and vacuum at least once a day, potentially mopping hard floors as well depending on how dirty they get.
  
  

• Clean the seating areas: Meeting and waiting areas will typically have seating areas as well, and it’s possible that they’ll be left dirty by the prior occupants. Make sure that you clean any chairs and tables reasonably regularly to ensure that any visitors aren’t met by dirty coffee cups or stained seats.
  
  

• Empty bins: These kinds of communal areas will typically be scattered with a few waste bins, for people to dispose of refreshments and snacks. Make sure that these are emptied regularly; at least once a day, possibly after every meeting as well if there were a lot of people present in the space. 
  
  

Every week

These tasks should be carried out weekly. 

• Polish glass surfaces: A lot of meeting rooms nowadays have glass tables and walls – you need to make sure that they’re kept looking absolutely amazing. Even if there isn’t enough dirt on them to merit daily polishing once you’ve dusted them off, you’ll want to make sure that they’re thoroughly cleaned at least once a week.
  
  

• Dust: While it might take longer for dust to build up in waiting areas and meeting rooms, it will still build up eventually. You need to take a proactive approach to avoid this from happening, by dusting these spaces thoroughly at least once every week.
  
  

Kitchen + eating areas

The kitchen needs to be kept sanitary, for obvious reasons.

Each day

These tasks should be completed daily.

• Clean the bins: If you have a policy of only preparing and eating food in the kitchen and eating areas, then the bins in those spaces will need emptying at least once a day. If there’s a lot of food being disposed of in those bins, then it’s likely also necessary to spray them with a disinfectant and properly clean the bin in addition to merely emptying it.
  
  

• Dishwasher and sink: A lot of people just throw their dirty cups and plates in the dishwasher or sink, especially if they’re in a rush. To avoid this becoming a problem over time, you need to make sure that both are emptied at the end of the day. If you have professional cleaners that come after everyone has gone home, then they can put the dishwasher on before they start with the rest of the office, and then dry and put away the clean items when they’re done with everything else.
  
  

• Disinfect throughout: It shouldn’t need to be said that kitchens need to be kept as sanitary as possible. Make sure that all surfaces are disinfected at the end of the day, to help ensure that no nasty germs are able to spread. 
  
  

Each week

These tasks should be carried out at the end of the week. 

• Cupboards: In communal kitchens, it’s easy for items of food to be left in cupboards for a long time, as people forget that it was theirs in the first place and don’t take responsibility for cleaning it out.
  
  As a result, to keep your office kitchen clean you’ll need to clear out the cupboards at least once a week. Warn your employees first, but take everything out, and deep clean the shelves and sides with a good cleaning spray. 
  
  

• Fridges: The same applies to fridges. A lot of people just assume that the produce inside will last forever, but it absolutely doesn’t. Take everything out at the end of the week, and give the inside a good scrub down.
  
  That way, nothing will sit in the fridge rotting over the weekend, ready to give someone a surprise on Monday morning. 
  
  

• Appliances: To keep the appliances clean, such as toasters and microwaves, you’re going to make sure that they’re thoroughly cleaned every week.
  
  With toasters, it can be a little bit trickier than with other appliances, but if you get a high-quality option with a removable tray, you should be able to empty it of any crumbs without too much of an issue.
  
  

Bathrooms

Finally, a significant amount of care needs to be taken to ensure that bathrooms remain spotless. 

Each day

It’s essential that these tasks are completed every day.

• Disinfect throughout: Every day, you need to make sure that every single surface in the bathroom is disinfected. This is pretty easy to do, as most bathrooms are designed with ease of cleaning in mind. Spray all of the surfaces with an appropriate cleaning spray, and then wipe them down. 
  
  

• Restock soap and paper: Toilets are only functional if they contain paper and soap. No matter how much use your toilets get, you need to make sure that you check the soap dispenser and toilet roll at least once a day. It might be the case that you don’t need to do anything, but if either paper or soap is getting low, you need to fill them up again. 
  
  

• Bins: Most toilets have bins, for paper and sanitary products. These bins need to be present in every cubicle, to avoid the clogging of toilets, and will need emptying at the end of every day. 
  
  

• Cleaning the toilet bowls: In many office environments, you’ll need to clean the toilet bowls multiple times each day. It’s not nice having to use a dirty toilet, so make sure that you use appropriately strong chemicals, providing cleaners with appropriate PPE as well.
  
  

• Mop: Finally, you’ll want to make sure that you’re mopping the toilet floor at least once a day. Lots of things can spill on toilet floors, and it’s important that they’re cleaned up at the end of every single day.
  
  

Obviously, some offices will have spaces that aren’t contained in this generic list. Make sure that you adapt your approach to fit your specific environment, to ensure that your business premises are kept as clean as possible going forward.

If you’d like to discuss how we can adapt our bespoke office cleaning services to fit your requirements, then reach out to our team directly on 0161 282 6444.