May 17, 2023
Maintaining the cleanliness and hygiene of your commercial building is vital in every way to enhance the appeal of your business. Not only that, but it also contributes to the increase in productivity and client satisfaction.
However, cleaning a commercial building isn’t a plain sailing job! It is more comprehensive than the cleaning of a residential place and also needs deeper cleaning because of high-traffic/heavy uses. For this reason, it is essential to maintain a proper cleaning schedule so that all of the diverse areas are thoroughly tidied up.
Whether you own an office, retail store, supermarket facility, or restaurant, this blog post will serve as your go-to guide for creating your cleaning schedule that matches the cleaning requirements of your commercial building or space.
Our experts will mention the essential equipment and cleaning supplies required for cleaning along with practical cleaning tips. Overall, we will help you create a clean, safer, and healthy commercial space that is inviting and creates positive expression for visitors and employees. Read it till the end to know to make a cleaning schedule for your commercial facility.
Cleaning your commercial building and keeping everything pristine clean is no doubt overwhelming. It seems to be a never-ending process unless you have a proper plan. Having a cleaning schedule before starting the cleaning of your business is necessary because of the following reasons.
Most of offices or commercial spaces cover vast areas and hence, include a range of cleaning tasks necessary for maintaining safety and cleanliness. However, it is easy to lose track of the tasks while cleaning and miss out on one or two tasks. The parts or sections of the facility that gets neglected and left untidy may result in bigger problems, maybe an accident on a liquid spill or a health issue due to unhygienic conditions.
When you realize that later, you have to clean those places, resulting in loss of some crucial business hours. A cleaning schedule helps you avoid such issues and minimize your downtime and associated costs. So, having a detailed cleaning strategy in place is necessary to save your time and costs.
Having a cleaning schedule has other perks too! One of them is maintaining consistency in your cleaning regime that ensures every aspect of your commercial place is cleaned every time. It ensures that none of the surfaces, rooms, furniture and fittings, business equipment, and areas is left untidy.
A cleaning schedule lets you emphasize on cleaning the high-traffic areas by putting them first on your cleaning list.
Your cleaning schedule results in the consistency of your cleaning tasks by providing a definite and measurable way to meet all your cleaning requirements with your cleaning team. In other words, it works as a plan that details how to make a cleaning checklist for commercial establishments and execute each step of the checklist ensuring the floors and surfaces are clean, germ-free, and odor free.
A schedule breaks the total process of cleaning into multiple tasks and makes it simpler for the cleaning crew. The cleaning routine helps you keep track of the tasks that are done and that are left! So, you don’t have to keep wondering what to clean next because there is a tool that helps you stay updated on your cleaning procedure.
Also, in the cleaning schedule, the tasks are assigned to the respective members of the cleaning crew which saves you from a lot of frustration. Everyone knows their respective responsibilities and there are fewer chances of them to skip cleaning any area or part of your facility.
When you have created a cleaning routine specific to your facility, it gives you a definite cleaning structure i.e., rules and protocols that ensure safe cleaning practices. It also clarifies what to use and what not to for the tasks. For instance, deep-cleaning floors or hardwood surfaces need some particular cleaning solutions that should not be used in cleaning other areas, furniture, or surfaces. You don’t want to clean a delicate surface like a television screen with the abrasive cleaning solution that you use for hardwood surfaces.
So, if you are still in doubtful whether you need a cleaning schedule, the answer is a sure yes.
A schedule does not add hassle to your cleaning process but takes it away! Also, you and your cleaning crew would not be in the state of not knowing what to do and wasting their time.
To clean your commercial space safely, thoroughly, and effortlessly without getting stressed, all you need is a comprehensive cleaning schedule and a team of cleaning experts. The professionals will make sure clean your premises by going with the schedule.
Preparing a proper schedule is a pre-requisite for cleaning your commercial place but for that, you need to know what your cleaning requirements are. Assessing your needs before cleaning is important because every facility is unique and has different traffic, usages, furniture, and area of focus. When you recognize well your cleaning needs, it becomes easier to prepare a commercial cleaning checklist that will address all of them.
If you want to know how to prepare a cleaning schedule for your office, first evaluate your cleaning needs through these aspects.
These are the areas that get the most footfalls throughout the day and need deep cleaning regularly or weekly and also special cleaning solutions. For instance, the entrances, hallways, reception areas, restrooms, and cafeteria. These get a constant flow of people and hence, dirt from their shoes. So, these areas need to be cleaned thoroughly. Also, special attention should be provided to touch points in these areas, which include doorknobs, handrails, escalator railings, elevator buttons, and so on, which need to be cleaned frequently with disinfectant.
Check-out our comprehensive guide on making high traffic carpet look new.
Next, the nature of your commercial establishment determines your cleaning needs. A hotel or resort has more and different cleaning needs than a hotel and restaurant. Likewise, a retail store’s cleaning checklist differ starkly from that of the medical clinic. So, depending on the type of your commercial facility, you got to determine your unique cleaning requirements.
The size of your commercial establishment determines the total area to be cleaned and the scope of your cleaning needs. For instance, if it is vast, more areas to be cleaned, which requires more staff to clean every nook and corner of the area efficiently. Also, you may need to segment the area into a few sections to ensure inclusive cleaning of your place.
What are the tools, equipment, and cleaning solutions you need for your establishment? Unless you have these things with you, there’s no way you can get your space cleaned thoroughly. Thereby, getting ready with all the cleaning supplies is one of the crucial cleaning needs that you must not miss out on!
Lastly, you are required to know the key regulatory requirements set by your specific industry or the region where your commercial establishment is located. Thus, you need to identify the set of legal regulations that your business space is required to follow. Determining these needs is necessary to ensure that your cleaning schedule aligns with the mandatory cleaning regulations.
Before you learn here how to make a cleaning schedule, you should straightway set your cleaning priorities! The priorities should be realistic and must be in line with your cleaning goals and expectations.
Setting priorities is also the key to making your commercial place spotless. When the priorities are set, you don’t miss out on any area or corner. Therefore, it makes your commercial place unblemished and shiny.
Also, prioritizing your cleaning tasks saves your time by eliminating the tasks that need to be done less frequently, for say, weekly or monthly. This also reduces the workload of your cleaning staff and helps them focus more on the essential daily cleaning tasks!
If you aren’t sure how to set your cleaning priorities, here our experts mentioned the common tasks that must be included in the list of priorities.
Everything can wait but not dusting off the floors especially when it is a commercial place. They experience heavy traffic constantly and get dirt and grime from external sources which include shoes, wheels of strollers (if it is a shop), open doors, and windows. Dirt constantly accumulates on the surface of the floors which become the breeding grounds for microbes and bacteria. That’s why you should make sure to dust the floors every day.
Mopping your floors is also a priority task since it helps to remove stubborn dirt, sticky substances, or liquid spills! All of these can cause severe accidents if ignored and left as it is. Accidental spills of coffee, tea, etc., and dropping off of food particles are hard to avoid in workplaces with so many employees. So, you must mop the floors once a day to make sure the floors are safe and don’t let anyone fall or slip.
It’s necessary to create a work ambiance where employees are at comfort and don’t have to face any inconvenience while working! Untidy and cluttered desks will bother the employees, discourage them to work, and as a result, will affect their performance. Thus, make sure to keep your desks completely organized and clean to prevent inconvenience for your employees.
Who skips cleaning the toilets in their daily cleaning schedule? No one! Leaving the toilets unclean can cause infections to spread, will give out bad odors, and make them unfit for use. So, no matter how tight your business schedule gets, never skip cleaning the toilets or restrooms.
Carpets and rugs in commercial places get the maximum of dirt, mud, and whatnot every time the visitors or employees walk through. The dirt gets stuck on the coarse fabrics of the carpets which do not get off easily after general dusting. So, you need to vacuum them! If is not possible daily, vacuum them at least twice or thrice a week. The more dirt they get, the more the chance for bacteria, germs, insects, etc. to breed in between the gaps of the fabrics. Also, when too much dirt gathers in the carpets, it can cause a foul smell and make the entire atmosphere of the office smelly.
Last but not least, do not forget to empty all the trash bins or cans kept at different places in your business space! They get full of different types of waste by the end of the day. If you do not empty the bins and put in new trash liners, they can overflow with waste, spread bad odors, and attract insects or pests.
As we talk about all the cleaning tasks including the priority ones, you might be wondering how to get a grip on all of them and get every task done smoothly. So, the next inevitable question is how to make a cleaning schedule for commercial office space that covers everything once and for all.
Creating an appropriate cleaning schedule for your commercial building means that you have the liberty to line up the tasks in a way that works best for your business. Also, your cleaning team doesn’t have to waste time thinking about what to do next because it is mentioned on the schedule. They will know what task to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Once a task is done, they can tick it off and move to the next one.
Now that we hope you have understood the importance of a cleaning schedule for a commercial facility, get it created on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis following the given steps.
This simply means you need to make a list and decide what needs to be done i.e. what must be cleaned in the first place. Most of the time, we don’t think that creating the list is essential but just straightway jump into the cleaning procedure. But, the real struggle starts when you forget or miss out on any tasks, get stressed about them, and make your commercial place cleaned inappropriately.
Thus, the first step is to take a walk around your commercial setting, notice every place and spot that needs cleaning, and jot them down on the list. Also, mention with each task how often you need to clean them.
Here’s a fine example:
Since you have mentioned the frequency of cleaning each aspect of your commercial space, this step is essential! Group the tasks according to their frequency and you will able to allocate time to each task accordingly. Determine the frequency based on the facility type, traffic, or use of the area. This also gives you a better idea of what to do each day, week, and month!
Here is an example of cleaning tasks grouped by how often you need to clean them.
Resources not only mean the cleaning essentials that you need for the cleaning tasks but also the time needed. But, first, you need to determine what specific cleaning supplies or products you need for each of the tasks. Some of the common products required are:
When you have properly jotted down the list of cleaning tasks, you can allocate the cleaning requirements accordingly. Depending on the type of the area, you can decide what’s needed.
Here are instances of the resources required for cleaning particular spots or areas of your commercial building.
This is perhaps the most crucial part of creating your commercial cleaning schedule! This step is about scheduling each of the tasks based on their priority and frequency. We often overestimate or underestimate the time we need for specific cleaning activities. Scheduling helps to prevent running out of time or wasting too much in your overall cleaning routine.
That’s why you should develop a detailed schedule that mentions tasks for each day along with the time and expected duration. Creating such a schedule is the key to organizing loads of cleaning duties and keeping a note of the required time and resources in one place. So, you are not only aware of the tasks of the day but also for the next days too! This helps your cleaning professionals to plan their day ahead and complete every task on time.
If you are still not clear on how to create a cleaning schedule for the office building, this one is a simple and relevant example for you.
This is just the example of the daily schedule where we have put the timings for the tasks in the early hours of the day, assuming that it is convenient time for you to clean your commercial building. However, you can do the tasks at any time of the day, depending on your business hours, the nature of your business activity, traffic flow, and urgency.
Getting a team of cleaning professionals and delegating your cleaning responsibilities to them is also a part of your cleaning schedule. But, who will be your cleaning professionals? Well, hire a renowned and trusted cleaning agency in your locality that will provide you with trained personnel who will dedicatedly execute all your cleaning tasks and complete them effortlessly in time.
Finding a perfect cleaning service provider in NYC is easy if you know what to look for! Hiring a local cleaning agency is always preferred over daily janitors because it saves your time and frees you from any kind of stress! Besides, they are trained in a wide range of cleaning tasks and hence, will work with absolute proficiency ensuring your commercial build looks tip-top clean and hygienic.
To get the most out of your cleaning schedule, it is crucial to set clear expectations for each of the tasks. It ensures that your assigned cleaners understand their responsibilities and do whatever is necessary to accomplish them in time.
When you create the cleaning schedule and assign responsibilities, the cleaning professionals know about their tasks and how to accomplish them. The schedule also mentions the specific instructions, proper methods, cleaning supplies and equipment, and also the time duration needed for executing particular tasks. Thus, you expect to avoid any disorder and inconsistencies in your cleaning procedure and ensure everything is pristine and perfect in the end.
By expectations, it also means setting up the quality standard for every cleaning task, which means the level of cleanliness you expect for each area or spot of your commercial place. For instance, you don’t expect any speck of dust visible on the surfaces, there shouldn’t be any liquid spill and litter anywhere, or no debris in the common areas. The restrooms should be disinfected and smell fresh for a long time after the cleaning is complete.
Also, get positive reviews and feedback from the visitors and occupants of your commercial building after the cleaning routine is completed. That helps you know about the real results of your cleaning efforts after following the schedule. So, if there are complaints or issues, you can make modifications to your cleaning schedule and ensure everyone’s expectations are met in the next schedule.
Knowing how to make a cleaning schedule for your commercial building and following it thoroughly isn’t enough! You need to consistently monitor and assess all your cleaning tasks while they are done to ensure the following.
Proper monitoring and assessment of your cleaning tasks ensure that they meet the expected cleanliness level. You can quickly identify the areas, things, or spots that still look dirty or blemished and notify the cleaning professionals while they are still at your premises. Thus, you can get those places cleaned again to make your office building look entirely spotless and hygienic.
Monitoring and evaluation of your cleaning procedures help ensure that all the cleaning tasks meet the cleaning standards of your respective industry or business sector. This reason specifically applies to healthcare facilities (e.g., hospitals, dental offices) and hotels/resorts. Healthcare and hospitality industries have strict cleaning protocols and standards that every facility has to maintain.
Further reading: If you're struggling to create a cleaning schedule for your healthcare facility, you can explore our in-depth guide on hospital cleaning or a complete checklist for cleaning dental offices.
Every commercial facility is occupied by a huge number of employees. So, the responsibility of the health and well-being lies with the employer. When you monitor regularly the areas or spots of your commercial building, you can identify potential health hazards like slippery floors, greasy substances in the kitchen countertops, and smelly carpets. You can promptly address these issues and make your commercial hygienic and clean in every way!
By properly monitoring and assessing your cleaning tasks, you can consistently improve the cleanliness of your commercial building. You can identify which methods work effectively or which cleaning solution is appropriate for a spot or place. Also, you can identify which method is wrong or ineffective for deep cleaning a place and whether new tools and cleaning equipment is required.
To put it simply, you need to monitor and evaluate all your daily cleaning tasks to ensure maintaining high standards of cleanliness, ensuring compliance safety, achieving higher satisfaction of the visitors, and providing comfort to the employees.
While we have guided you well on how to make a cleaning schedule for the corporate office, you should not forget to adapt it to the changing cleaning needs with time. Here are the reasons!
No commercial buildings have had the same interior settings for years. Either due to the increase in workforce size or renovation purchases, the building owners keep on changing interior structures. As a result, you have to adjust your cleaning schedule to address such new challenges.
Cleaning requirements and standards of the industry keep on changing or evolving. The biggest change observed is the introduction of COVID cleaning regulations following the pandemic outbreak in 2020. Before that, only hospitals and healthcare facilities were needed to disinfect surfaces and sanitize areas. But, in recent times, every commercial facility needs to follow the COVID cleaning practices.
The expectations of the employees and other occupants of the building change with time! Some of the employees might need the common areas like the lobby, walking areas, or parking zones to be clean where they can assemble and spend their break time. Many employees, especially women want the restrooms to be super-clean for hygiene and safety issues. Also, visitors or clients expect a tidy and warm reception area which makes them feel inviting! Thus, your cleaning team needs to understand the expectations of the occupants and visitors and consistently make changes in their cleaning schedule to meet their expectations.
Adapting your schedule to changes in your cleaning requirements also enables you to save costs! For instance, when you identify that certain areas like the conference rooms or assembly point needs less frequent cleaning, you can optimize the use of cleaning resources and save costs as well as time.
As experts, we guided you on how to make a cleaning schedule that ensures the absolute cleanliness of your commercial building. However, mistakes are inevitable, especially when you are creating something that has to cover a lot of aspects. To help you learn how to create the cleaning checklist for commercial office building in one go, here we have pointed out the mistakes to avoid.
Do not put too many tasks in your cleaning schedule specially when it is a day’s schedule as it can either lead to incomplete tasks or rush during cleaning. This will result in inappropriate cleaning and leave many untidy places and surfaces. Thus, ensure to keep your schedule precise and doable so that it does not overwhelm the cleaning staff.
A rigid or non-adjustable cleaning schedule will not let you effectively deal with unforeseen changes or evolving needs of the commercial place regarding cleanliness. It is hence mandatory to leave scope for making adjustments in the cleaning schedule to tackle unexpected situations. A key way to ensure flexibility in your schedule is to include buffer time between the tasks and keep the days on the weekend for catch-up cleaning if required.
While your cleaning schedule must have all the tasks mentioned, it is not useful unless you clearly define the responsibilities that the cleaning staff needs to fulfill to complete the tasks. This can lead to confusion while doing any tasks and a lack of preparation i.e. cleaning essentials, which will cause delays in the cleaning tasks.
Don’t forget to get your cleaning schedule reviewed by the management of your office and also, collect feedback from the hired cleaning team. It ensures that none of the tasks are missed out from your cleaning schedule. Besides, you can incorporate inputs from the feedback of the professional cleaners which will foster a sense of accountability in them and ensure that the schedule aligns with their capabilities.
Creating a purposeful cleaning schedule is a requisite if you need your commercial building to be cleaned thoroughly, ensuring the hygiene and safety of the employees. We have outlined here the key steps to follow for creating an effective and structured schedule that will meet all your commercial cleaning needs.
There are a whole lot of things to consider when you are creating your cleaning list, which includes the scope of the tasks, responsibilities, time and duration, and cleaning essentials. Besides that, you need to regularly monitor and review your schedule to assure quality cleaning, compliance with cleaning regulations, and satisfaction of the occupants.
So, take your time and comprehend this guide on how to make a cleaning schedule and customize yours according to your building structure and cleaning requirements. And when it’s time to get a team of professional cleaners, reach out to Sterling Cleaning Services! We are a leading cleaning service provider in NYC and have a team of experienced cleaners who will act upon your cleaning schedule and help maintain a super-tidy, hygienic, and inviting commercial place.
A daily cleaning schedule is a must-have for your commercial building that gets heavy traffic 5 days a week. A schedule helps you to stay aware of the day-to-day cleaning tasks that are essential to maintain a hygienic, safe, and clean environment for the employees, visitors, or clients. Besides, it ensures that you communicate well about your cleaning requirements to the cleaning professionals. They will allocate time and resources to the tasks accordingly to make sure that nothing is missed out and they do not run out of time.
Apart from the daily cleaning schedule, you need to maintain a weekly schedule to focus on the tedious or time-consuming tasks that need to be done once or twice a week. For instance, vacuuming the carpets and rugs, cleaning up the kitchen counter tops, and dusting chairs or seating arrangements in the common areas, are some of the tasks which do not require daily focus.
For any commercial building, there are a lot of areas that get a good amount of traffic every day but it is impossible to clean them frequently, such as the walkways and pavements surrounding your building. You need to pressure wash or trim off the twigs and unwanted plants in these places to ensure that those areas too are neat and organized for walking around.
Other examples of monthly tasks include cleaning the kitchen appliances including the aqua guard, microwave, and coffee machine to maintain them and enhance their longevity. For detailed information, You can discover the comprehensive commercial kitchen maintenance checklist created by our experts.
If you want to know how to make a daily cleaning schedule for office building, here are the basic steps for you.
1. Prepare a master cleaning list that includes your specific cleaning needs.
2. Group all your cleaning tasks on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
3. Allocate the resources and cleaning equipment to each of the tasks.
4. Schedule all the cleaning tasks mentioning the day, time, and duration.
5. Assign tasks to a professional cleaning team and communicate everything about your cleaning schedule.
A weekly cleaning of a commercial place following a comprehensive schedule will approximately take five to six hours. Typically, weekly tasks include cleaning the counter tops, vacuuming, wiping the glass doors and windows, decluttering the desks and reception areas, and mopping the common areas.
It’s simple! Just review and evaluate your cleaning tasks at frequent intervals, and add/omit tasks according to changes in your cleaning schedule. Also, you need to get feedback from the cleaning team about your schedule and put their valuable input into it to ensure that your commercial building is pristine and inviting in every way.
To set your cleaning schedule, it is necessary to outline all your cleaning needs, determine the tasks, allocate time and resources, and assign responsibilities to a professional team.
Also Read: How To Make A Cleaning Schedule For The Commercial Building.
Please reach us at any time to set up an appointment to review your commercial cleaning requirements. Sterling will provide an on-site review of your janitorial needs, then create a custom proposal that fits both your specifications and budget
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