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At Greenaway we aren’t just passionate about shredding and recycling paper. Our holistic approach to business includes help with tidying, archiving and cleaning the offices we shred for. Most of these offices have an ‘in house cleaning service’ provided by their building, but most of the time this just means someone comes around with a hoover after everyone has gone home. That’s why you won’t see hoovering on this list (though if you don’t have an office cleaner, make sure you work it in). We wanted to share a few tips for keeping your offices clean on an ongoing basis, so that the yearly spring clean takes hours instead of days.

 

 

Set Aside Time

 

Many office spaces end up dirty and messy because the people in them are more interested in working. That makes sense, after all that’s what they are paid to do, but this might become a problem when you realise no one’s cleaned that split ink pack away in a month and now it’s stained. To keep your office clean and encourage your employees to take pride in their workstations, set aside 10 minutes at the beginning or end of every week for everyone to grab a cloth and clean their desks. If they aren’t sure what needs doing, write up a list for the weekly station clean – monitors cleaned, keyboards hoovered, desks polished, rubbish taken out of drawers and thrown away. If you have a communal area within the office, such as a meeting room, make a rota so that everyone has a turn at cleaning it at the end of the week. By setting aside the most non-productive time of the week to do this task, you are more likely to see employees engaging and your office gleaming.

 

File Or Destroy As You Go

Paperwork has a tendency to pile up and create a mess, even if you work I a ‘paperless’ office. Rather than letting everything build up, implement a policy to file or destroy as you go. Ask your shredding company for a shredding console to store confidential documents awaiting destruction, and ensure any physical paperwork that does need to be kept has been scanned into the system first. By dealing with clutter as it is creating you are saving yourself a long chore at the end of the week and keeping your office tidy.

 

Don’t Eat At Desks

While taking your lunch break at your desk might be efficient in some circumstances, it can be incredibly messy and looks very unprofessional if you have clients visiting. Crumb have a habit of turning up everywhere, and it can actually damage equipment like keyboards if they get in. Don’t think it’s a problem? Take a post-it note and run the sticky aside through the gaps between the keys. Or turn the keyboard upside down and shake it. If you want to keep the desks and your general office environment clean, banning eating at the desks is a good start. Just make sure there is a suitable area where staff can go to eat, instead of making them stand in a corner with their lunch!

 

Take Care Of Communal Areas And Items

Every office has communal areas, and these are often the ones that get dirty fast and stay that way. If all employees – management included- are involved and responsible for the cleaning the communal areas, even if a rota has to be implemented, the area is likely to stay cleaner. Additions like plants can really liven up an office, but when they start shedding leaves this can look messy, not to mention being trodden into carpets by passers-by, so ensure watering and cleaning up after them is included in the rota.

 

Provide Cleaning Materials 

Another reason many people won’t clean their desks or communal areas is because equipment and tools aren’t supplied to do so. If you have made a mess on your desk, the best you may be able to do is scrape it off with the side of your hand or run to the kitchen for a damp bit of kitchen roll. Invest in a basic cleaning kit for each workspace – or share 1 between adjoining spaces, that includes screen cleaners, cloths, polish and anything else you think your employees may need to keep their workspace clean.

 

It sounds like a cliché, but if you keep your office clean by doing little and often, it really is easy. So instead of leaving it until the annual ‘spring clean’, investing a little time into enforcing clean policies can make a real difference to productivity and atmosphere. For more office cleaning tips get in touch with one of our regional offices today.