Lots of office cleaning service providers make the same kind of promise — to clean everything in your office from top to bottom. There’s nothing wrong with that, but while it sounds good on paper, you might rapidly determine that ‘top to bottom’ also means ‘more expensive than you really want it to be.’ A couple of our Santa Monica clients have asked us what the ‘core’ list of office cleaning needs are, and here’s what we came up with:
Restrooms and Kitchens
If there’s any space in the building where moisture, potential bio-hazards, and humans all mix, it needs to be deep cleaned weekly, and preferably touched-up daily. This is absolutely the most common vector for disease transmission, and also one of the easiest ways to gross out a customer, so if you can clean nothing else, clean these places first and best.
Carpets/Flooring
The number two concern for almost any office is that hard floors show dirt and dust bunnies almost instantly, and carpets may hide dirt for a little bit, but that just means that by the time they become noticeable, they’re entirely unacceptable and will turn off any customer who sees them. Especially in any environment where children will regularly be present (which always means sitting or lying on the floor), a minimum of quarterly deep-cleaning should be absolutely mandatory.
Windows
Windows are crucial to morale, comfort, and health — because sunlight is crucial to morale, comfort, and health. (Seeing living, green things and Santa Monica’s bright blue sky helps, too.) That means that your windows should be cleaned at least twice a month — or once a season if you’re several or more stories above street level. That’s on the outside, by the way — they should be cleaned on the inside once a week, regardless of other factors, for health reasons.
Workstations
Finally, the workstations — in particular, the ‘touchpoints,’ including keyboards, mice, desk surfaces, drawer handles, and control panels on the office equipment — need to be cleaned weekly. During the cold and flu season, cleaning them daily is wiser.
If you’re not sure what your Santa Monica office’s cleaning budget can afford you, start at the top of this list and work your way down — the other details will need attention at some point, but these are the genuine minimums you should aim for.
