Anglesey Commercial Cleaning

How long should it take to clean an office? This article looks at how long you should expect for general office cleaning and medical facility cleaning.

How Long Should it Take to Clean My Commercial Building?

When hiring a commercial cleaner, it can be challenging to assess how long the job can take for your establishment. Each building that commercial cleaning services tackle can be of different scales and sizes, with various rooms.

Every professional cleaning company has their formula and method of calculating the duration of a clean and how many people it would take. Whether it be a brief clean or something more in-depth, they do so for each sector, including household cleaning, office, industrial, schools and educational premises and many more.

How Often Do I Need A Commercial Cleaner?

General Office Cleaning

The industry standard for a general office cleaning service is approximately 3-5 days a week, and cleaners are expected to undertake jobs including mopping, vacuuming, wiping down, dusting, polishing and disinfecting each of the rooms and touchpoints. For spaces around 3000-4000 square feet, it will usually take one person about an hour. Suppose your commercial office is approximately 6500 square feet.

In that case, this will usually take around 2 hours and 15 minutes each night, potentially longer on one of the nights to include general low and high dusting.  It is incredibly impressive to be able to bottom entire rooms thoroughly and successfully. However, you should be particularly suspicious of cleaners who say during interviews that they can clean 5000+ square feet every hour; they are likely cutting corners and missing items and can cause upsetting your clients and staff.

You can effectively clean smaller offices of approximately 1500 square feet per hour; these won't take more than 30 minutes, up to 1.5 hours, yet this can vary depending on the tasks that need to be completed. For example, taking a day to finish deep cleaning corner-to-corner may take a tad longer for the sake of precision.

An establishment that gets routinely cleaned five nights of the week at approximately 6500 square feet will typically require a single person to cover the area, taking around 3 hours and 15 minutes.  Employers should add additional time at least once a week for cleaners to complete the more straightforward cleaning tasks such as general high and low dusting.

If any commercial cleaners need to be monitored or assessed, those completing daily cleaning in your medical facilities, such as hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices, as your clients and patients won't be pleased to see cleaners cutting corners or neglecting areas. 

What is to be Carried Out as Part of Your Regular Office Cleaning?

To figure out what to include in a regular office clean, you must consider what needs to be cleaned on a regular basis and what you need to complete daily, as these are two separate things. Every so often, fridges must be deep cleaned of waste products and freshen up the inside and outside of the appliance. However, it is not an appliance that needs to be cleaned daily, as this would create excessive work for yourself or the cleaners.

Daily, germ control needs to be considered for the health and safety of your business employees, customers and potential visitors. So, we encourage you to wipe down any door handles; door handles, window sills and handles, countertops, desks, break room tables and any other significant touch points.

Professional commercial cleaners tend to utilise a simple math calculation to decipher how quickly they can fully deep clean each room of your office. It's never guaranteed; however, a general estimate will allow you to provide a rough idea of a time that suits your work schedule. Many commercial cleaning companies have specific calculation formulas to work out the square feet per hour they can thoroughly tackle.

Typically, some of the most significant rooms include the kitchen, break rooms, bathrooms, central meeting or board rooms, offices with main desks and offices of specific importance, receptions and waiting rooms.

Steps to Clean a Company Office

You must take many steps to achieve a clean environment, such as a company office and ensure all areas are cleaned weekly. These steps include the following:    

You can keep any due bills to be paid, required customer files or documents related to your current dispute, project or service. Assess your documents and their immediate value in your current work; if you've been holding onto them for an extended period without calling back, consider scanning them and archiving them electronically on your system.

Disinfect the restrooms

To ensure the safety of your customers and employees, disinfecting your office's rooms is paramount. However, we urge you to pay close attention to the restrooms of your property building, as they are such high-traffic areas used for human waste.

Use a high-quality disinfectant cleaner and a clean toilet brush, and take time scrubbing the inside of the toilet bowls and wiping the lid, the seat, the tank, the base and the outside circumference of the bowl. You can also utilise deodorising cakes or line the loo's with bleach and sprays in between each clean to maintain freshness.

Wipe your counters and sinks with a quality disinfecting cleaner and a damp cloth. During frequent visits, it's best to ensure you mop and sweep the floors to remove debris from shoes or other litter that could pepper the ground. Lastly, it would help if you aimed to refill your paper towel holders, toilet rolls and soap dispensers to guarantee your staff keep their hands and surroundings clean and sanitised.

Keep electronics clean and dust-free

You can utilise plenty of products to ensure your electronics are dust-free and clean. However, we recommend always having a microfibre cloth and duster on hand to swipe away dust and cobwebs away from vents, fans, keyboard keys and corners of walls. Moisten the microfibre rag with a strong disinfectant and wipe along with your electronics, making sure to get into the nooks and crannies.

Electronics seem to get dusty quicker than other furniture pieces due to the magnetic pull from positive dust particles to devices with a generally negative charge. We highly recommend keeping screen wipes on each desk if possible.

Clean the break room

Never forget to clean the break room; this is one of the areas that your staff will frequently utilise to rest momentarily or to eat their lunch. The break for some companies, like the kitchen, can also be where your staff prepare and store their food, so keeping this area clean is an essential health and safety rule.

A clean break room is also a great way to have solid employee morale; you won't have upset staff or employers, and it will also make the process of making food and washing plates, bowls and utensils much faster. Throw out any old food that could be lingering in your fridge and wipe its interior thoroughly with a disinfectant product and rag.

Use a different rag or cloth to spray and wipe down your hard surfaces, including countertops, chairs, desks and shelves, using a wet rag and disinfectant. When cleaning your kitchen, it's essential to use the microwave with a high-quality disinfecting rag on the daily if possible. Microwave messes or foods with strong odours, as lovely as they could be, are deeply unpleasant to live with day-to-day, and any stains become harder to clean away if they are neglected over extended periods.

Investing in a dish drainer is essential. Make sure to clean it thoroughly every day alongside all the pots and dishes you have accumulated, as this will help prevent any mildew. We encourage staff members or employers to take home the dish towels and hand-washing towels to wash them frequently, replacing any dish sponges when they become too dirty or torn.

Empty bins every day

You must remember to empty the bins throughout your office property, including the restrooms, conference rooms, break rooms, office spaces and any public areas like the reception and the waiting rooms.

Ensure the public area is presentable

Ensure all areas used by the public are cleaned thoroughly. Since the rise of COVID-19, it is paramount that all furnishings or products that your customers and clients use are clean and sanitised. However, whilst hygiene should be your first thought, we encourage you to consider the first impression you'll make on your new and current clients with a clean and neat reception. You must put great attention and care into presenting a beautiful, clean space that will allow your target audience to feel at ease. Seating should be free from stains, crumbs and any dust that could be harmful.

Pay attention to the aesthetics of your front desk or public seating area; ensure you place pamphlets, magazines, brochures or books ready for customers to flick through whilst waiting for appointments or services. Ensure all issues of magazines you display are updated and keep note of their condition; if some are dirty with coffee spills or have torn edges, throw them out and replace them.

Be sure to dust and polish any furniture, mirrors, wall-hangings, blinds, shelves or window cleaning treatments and wipe the walls if they have marks or fingerprints.  Finally, we'd encourage you to vacuum any carpets and mop the hard floors when necessary.

Clear off desk spaces to keep clutter

We highly recommend using cabinets and organisational units to create efficient solutions for storing and disguising clutter, including paper trays, bookshelves, pencil holders, drawer dividers, standing file holders and baskets. Be sure to wipe away any smudges, dust or food crumbs from desktops and tidy the area thoroughly to increase the staff's productivity levels.

Regular cleaning will reduce the time required

Professional cleaning companies across the UK often acknowledge it as an industry standard to give your office buildings and floors a general clean every 3-5 days of the week, so please bear this in mind when selecting your professional. If they clean your offices more frequently, it will ultimately reduce the time they take on the cleaning job.

You want to let your cleaners or team know how many employees you have working in your office daily, as this will assure them of how many desks they will have to tackle and the amount of foot traffic there is each day. For example, if you have a relatively small office but quite a substantial amount of staff, there will likely be far more foot traffic at the entrance, up the stairs, in your break rooms and kitchen and up the aisles of desks.

The days when most staff are in the building together may be worth noting, as these are great days for your cleaners to give your property a thorough clean. 

Will a professional commercial cleaner take less time?

You may search for a professional cleaning contractor for those diligently cleaning your commercial establishment premises, especially if cleaning is becoming too much to take on with your regular job. During this search for a new hire, you may be wondering whether a professional cleaner or a team of them would take the same amount of time as it would take you.

Generally, the duration of their cleaning time will depend on what is involved in the cleaning contract; be sure to ask them about all the requirements you desire. For example, if you need more in-depth or high-quality cleaning, you'll need to ask if they can complete it and ask for an estimation of their hours.

The best way to ensure a fundamental idea is by discussing it with your local cleaning companies and choosing the one that best suits your working environment schedule. Remember that if your cleaners or cleaning team cleans far quicker than yourself, it may be worth assessing their cleaning ability as they may be neglecting areas that need a deep clean.

Are you looking for office cleaning services in Caernarfon, Anglesey and Gwynedd? For more information on how to keep your office spaces cleaned or to hire a professional service, be sure to contact our team.