There’s something about the arrival of spring after a long winter that fills you with energy and motivation. This makes spring a great time to get things done – and that includes the workplace deep clean. Office spring cleaning not only spruces up the appearance of the work environment but also makes the office a safer and more hygienic space to work in.
Teamwork and organisation are key when you’re getting ready to tackle this task. Our office spring cleaning checklist will help you work through all the important cleaning jobs methodically and use the right cleaning products. So, if you’re ready to breathe new life into the office and inspire your employees to join you in some spring cleaning, read on to learn how.
What is a Spring Clean?
There’s good evidence to suggest that mess in the workplace reduces productivity, but the spring clean goes beyond surface tidying. We’ve been conducting spring cleans in our home for centuries, carrying out those deep cleaning tasks that we don’t include as part of our regular cleaning routine.
The daily office cleaning jobs generally involve hoovering floors, emptying bins, and wiping down communal areas. Office spring cleaning addresses tasks that take longer, such as cleaning out desks, emptying and wiping down shelving, and cleaning out the refrigerator in the break room. These tasks deal with the type of mess and disorganisation that slowly accumulate over time.
How will Spring Cleaning Benefit the Office?
The spring clean really can transform an office. Although we can become somewhat blind to the general mess and dirt that develops around us over the months, we certainly notice the change after a good deep clean of an area.
Deep cleaning of an office makes the environment healthier. We couldn’t help but become more aware of the manner of germ transmission in the workplace, having recently lived through a global pandemic. Because numerous people share space in an office, it is easy to transfer germs from one surface to another by coughing or sneezing droplets into the air. Spring cleaning can allow us to focus on all those high-traffic touch areas, such as door handles, light switches, phones, and printer and copier buttons, so spend some time with a virucidal and antibacterial spray, busting germs on these surfaces.
Conducting thorough vacuuming and cleaning of the carpets and the upholstery on office chairs can help improve office hygiene by removing common allergens such as dust mites, as well as removing germs from these surfaces.
Coupling the cleaning with organisational tasks will bring order to the office to improve efficiency and boost motivation. When it’s easy for us to find what we need as we go about our daily tasks, our stress levels fall, and we’re better able to be productive and creative.
How Employees Can Get Involved
Your office cleaners may like to perform deep cleaning tasks in the evening or on weekends to avoid disruption during the working day. Still, there are tasks that your employees can get involved in to contribute to this improved office environment.
Understandably, your employees might like to perform their own cubicle or desk spring clean to allow them autonomy over how their paperwork and personal items are handled and reorganised. You could have a relaxed but productive office spring cleaning session one afternoon, with music, snacks, and a sense of camaraderie as everyone undertakes the same task.
In addition to physical cleaning jobs, employees can use this opportunity to perform some digital spring cleaning too. On their desktop, they can run company-approved cleaner programmes and remove any files and apps they no longer need. Clearing space can work wonders on those work computers that have started to run frustratingly slow. Encourage employees to ‘tidy’ their email inbox and to back up any outstanding files onto the company cloud or an external drive. In addition, it’s a great time to improve security by updating their passwords.
2023 Office Spring Cleaning Checklist
If an office spring cleaning checklist is just what you need to make the prospect of cleaning the office less daunting, look no further.
Going zone by zone, we’ll highlight the key jobs you must do to get the area spotless and organised. You’ll see cleaning products mentioned along the way, so be sure to check out our office range, with natural options for workplaces working hard to reduce their impact on the environment.
Office Flooring
There’s a lot of footfall in an office, so to kick off the spring cleaning, why not do a deep clean of the flooring?
- Vacuum the carpets and use the hose to suck dust off the skirting boards.
- Use a damp cloth or antimicrobial cleaning wipes to clean down skirting boards, and this would also be an excellent point to spot clean any marks on the walls with a cloth soaked in soapy water.
- Clean your carpets using the company carpet cleaner or hire a professional company. Having beautifully fresh and clean carpets will serve as an inspiration to start on all the other jobs. Doing the carpets first means you won’t disrupt newly organised desks and shelving.
Cubicles and Desk
It’s where an employee spends most of their working day, and giving it a good office spring cleaning can work wonders for focus and improved well-being at work. The thought of deep cleaning your workstation can be a little overwhelming, but the following steps can help you work through it in manageable stages:
Clear the surfaces of the desk
- Start by throwing away any rubbish and taking the likes of coffee cups and water bottles through to the kitchen for a wash.
- Organise paperwork from the desk, throw away any wastepaper to the recycling and file outstanding pieces or place them in your in-tray.
- As you clear off items, note which stationery you’re running low on and collect these from the stationery stock.
Clean partition screens or windows
- Wipe down your glass dividers or windows with glass cleaner and a microfibre cloth for a smudge-free finish.
- Damp dust windowsills or ledges and water any plants you have sitting here.
Clean your desk
- Desks and the items on them can harbour germs, so use antimicrobial wipes to clean your desk and stationery, such as your stapler and ruler.
- Wipe down your phone, including all the buttons and cords.
- Gently shake your keyboard to remove debris, then use a thoroughly wrung-out antimicrobial wipe to clean all the keys.
- Using a microfibre cloth, use a specialist monitor cleaner to clean your computer screen.
- Hoover out your drawers, and wipe down all the desk surfaces using wipes or furniture polish if you have a wooden desk.
Reorganise your desk
- As you replace items, think about work efficiency. Keep only the most used items on the desk’s surface to give you more room and a clearer space to help you feel calm and focussed.
- Use a label maker to refresh any labelling you use on your file systems, desk and cubicle shelves, or stationery items.
Breakroom and Kitchen
The breakroom should be somewhere staff can unwind and feel a real differentiation between work and rest. A spring clean of this area and the kitchen facilities will keep this area pleasant for all to use and help maintain the kitchen equipment.
Tidy and clean the seating area
- Vacuum the seating in the breakroom to remove crumbs.
- Attempt to remove any stains on the upholstery by applying suitable stain remover to a damp cloth and blotting these onto the material.
- Wipe down the table surfaces with an antimicrobial spray and cloth, then clean the legs of the tables and chairs.
Clean the kitchen equipment
- Fill a bowl with water and warm it, uncovered, in the microwave on medium for a couple of minutes to help loosen any dried-on spillages in the machine.
- Use a cloth soaked in warm soapy water to wipe out the microwave, and give the plate a good scrub in a basin of hot soapy water.
- Clean the door, side, and microwave top with an antimicrobial wipe.
- Defrost the freezer department of the refrigerator.
- Clean the shelves of the refrigerator in warm soapy water.
- Wipe down the door, sides, and top of the refrigerator with antimicrobial wipes.
- Check the kettle for limescale and apply a treatment if needed and wipe down the kettle.
- Empty the crumb drawer of the toaster and wipe the sides and levers of the toaster.
- Run the cleaning programme on the coffee machine and empty any trays, then give the machine a wipe with hot soapy water.
- Use antimicrobial wipes to clean any canisters in the kitchen and then refill these with tea, coffee, sugar etc.
- Spray the countertops with antimicrobial spray.
Meeting Rooms
The meeting room should be a bright, fresh, professional space where you can share ideas, meet with clients and conduct interviews. Although numerous people may frequently use these rooms, they don’t always get the attention they deserve when it comes to cleaning.
- Remove all the cups and glasses and wash them in hot soapy water.
- Wipe down the tea and coffee tray and refresh any supplies.
- Wipe down all the tables and chairs with furniture, polish, or antimicrobial wipes.
- Give the whiteboard a thorough clean, making sure you remove all marks, then replace any markers that have run dry. Rinse and dry the whiteboard eraser.
- Replace any paper on your flipchart board.
- Refill any stationery holders and supply new notepads and memo cubes for note-taking.
- Clean the windows and any pictures on the wall with glass cleaner, damp dust windowsills, and water any plants in the meeting room.
Photocopier and Printer Stations
We visit the printer and copier dozens of times a day in the office, and while we’re busy and engaged in our work, we pay little attention to how tidy these stations are.
- Add any wastepaper at the stations to the recycling.
- Wring out an antimicrobial wipe and damp dust the photocopiers and printers, being careful to remove any ink spots.
- Refill any low ink and toner and deal with empty cartridges as per your company’s recycling procedure.
- Refill the machine’s paper trays, then bring new packs of paper to the storage shelves at the stations.
Shelving and Filing Cabinets
Nothing is worse than finding disorganised shelves and filing cabinets when you’re busy at work in the office. A spring clean of these areas is more than just dusting – it should also involve carefully reorganising files and stock.
- Remove all items from a shelf or cabinet and archive any items that can be stored.
- Damp dust the shelf or cabinet using a microfibre cloth. Use an antimicrobial spray to wipe the shelf edges and any cabinet handles.
- Create or refresh labels, opting for colour coding where appropriate.
- Replace files using the office system and look for any missing files on colleagues’ desks.
Should I Bring in Professional Cleaners?
You should bring in professional cleaners to perform your office spring cleaning checklist for several reasons. Your regular office cleaning team may be on contracted hours and need help to perform the additional work.
One of the key reasons why you may prefer to bring in a larger team is that they can complete the deep clean quickly, minimising disruption to the office. They’ll bring high-quality equipment and perform carpet, wall, and window cleaning in one sweep across the building. Once the office is sparkling after this seasonal clean, everyone will feel a sense of pride in their workplace, and you’ll find that employees tend to keep their desks and communal areas tidier following a deep clean.
While everyone is enjoying their organised space, why not draw up a rota to encourage everyone to pitch and keep on top of office cleanliness? Start on the right foot this spring, and keep the good work going year-round.
