Office cleaning checklist – don’t forget the windows

Do you have someone come in to clean your office? Or, have you assigned that duty to one or more members of your office staff, in addition to their other duties? Maybe you do the office cleaning yourself.

When your office is cleaned, is it done right? How do you know if the office is cleaned properly? This is not as much of a subjective question – depending on your personal definition of ‘clean’ – as you might think. There are two primary factors to consider when you determine if your office is cleaned properly: thoroughness and effectiveness.

Thoroughness refers to whether the office was cleaned in its entirety. Effectiveness refers to whether the office is truly clean. The latter refers to how clean and includes whether your office is adequately sterilized. This is an important question when you look at your office as a potential incubator where germs, and other nasties, can grow, thrive and infect you and your workers resulting in sick days that cut into productivity.

Sterilization is achieved through the proper application of effective cleaning products (be wary of those that might leave foul chemicals in their wake – there are effective cleaning materials that are based on natural products that don’t leave chemical landmines on the surfaces, and in the air, of your office.

In terms of what you should clean, and this depends on whether you’re doing a deep cleaning or a maintenance cleaning, you should …

• Remove waste, dump wastebaskets and clear clutter
• Wipe surfaces with proper cleaning products (test in an obscure area first to make sure the cleaning solvent won’t damage the surface where you’re using it)
• Sweep and mop the floor
• Wipe around doorways and handrails and other areas where people frequently place their hands
• Wipe and sanitize keyboards, computer mouses, printer keypads and other equipment that is used in the office
• Do extra sanitary cleaning in bathrooms and eating areas
• Clean vents, often found in the ceiling, as well as light fixtures
• Clean the windows and other glass surfaces

This latter step, is an area where it often takes a trained expert to do a good job. Frequently, when someone is less familiar with proper cleaning methods, it is very difficult to do a good job of cleaning the windows. It may look good at first but, as the window dries completely, spots and streaks will appear. And, to make matters worse, for the amateur, cleaning windows poorly takes much more time than it takes a professional to clean the windows properly.

A clean office will give your employees a better feeling about their environment, even if it is subconscious. Clean windows to look through are a big part of this. And, if you have customers coming to your office, clean windows will give them a better impression of your business, too.

Windows contribute to workplace productivity, but keep ‘em clean

Put an employee at a desk in a cubicle without any sunlight and, over time, you can almost watch them shrivel and wilt from the seclusion. To some degree, their motivation with atrophy. Like flowers, they need a sufficient quantity of the nourishing rays of sunlight. And, for sunlight, you need windows – clean windows that enhance productivity.

Once you let the sunlight in, keep in mind that it will shine on your employees, as well as their surroundings. Cluttered and dirty, their surroundings may do better in the dark. But, relatively neat, organized and with just the right sense of comfort (comfort that makes them feel at ease without putting them to sleep) the sunlight coming through the windows can produce an environment that is conducive to greater productivity. It can even help increase employee retention.

If the workplace is somewhere people enjoy coming to work, they’re more likely to want to keep coming. And, they’re also more likely to be productive.

This is not an abstract idea. A study in Psychology Today “links light exposure in the workplace to improved sleep and vitality.” The article also refers to a Northwestern University study that reported on “the detrimental impact of working in a windowless environment.”

Once you’ve accepted the idea that sunlight can improve the demeanor and productivity of your employees and, therefore, have also accepted the value of windows to let the sun shine in, it’s not much of a stretch to equally recognize the value of keeping those windows clean.

Dirt on the windows is not an appropriate filter for sunlight. The positive effects of windows on productivity are not enhanced when employees glance though dirty windows.