Since modern workplaces demand that people sit in their offices for eight hours a day, it is not uncommon for employees to treat their workstations and offices as their second home. This means a desk cluttered with sticky notes, piles of documents, coffee mug stains, and a trash bin full of crumpled papers. While science suggests that a cluttered desk is a sign of genius, a cluttered work environment is dangerous. Regular office cleaning is crucial.
When you put people in a relatively small space together, things can get grimy fast. And while you can always ask your employees to clean up their workspace after work, you can’t expect them to clean the entire office. This is where the benefits of commercial cleaning services get into the picture – for a thorough and spotless office cleaning – not just for health and sanitary reasons but for your team’s creativity, morale, and productivity.
But how exactly can office cleaning boost productivity and motivate employees?
It makes a good impression
There is a reason why people love shopping at designer stores over department stores and why the food and vibe in 4 and 5-star restaurants are so much better – these places feel clean, comfortable, and luxurious. You can apply the same idea in your workplace – a sparkling clean and organised office is welcoming; it makes you feel at ease and happy. These are the emotions you want your employees, business partners, clients, customers, and even visitors to feel the second they step inside your business establishment or commercial office.
A cluttered and dirty office, on the other hand, will make people question your competence and professional expertise, as it subconsciously implies that you don’t care enough about the work environment.
While regular cleaning, mopping and vacuuming, and tidying up common areas can help, it is incomparable to the benefits of office cleaning. Commercial cleaning services provide deep cleaning that cleans everything you need to be cleaned in your workplace, from carpet cleaning, window cleaning, and deep cleaning of high-traffic and high-touch areas.
It reduces stress
Clutter affects people in more indirect ways. Research shows that your physical environment dramatically influences your emotions, cognition, behaviour, relationship with others, and decision-making.
Clutter affects the brain; a dirty and disorganised workplace can be stressful and raise anxiety levels. This often leads to indecision and emotional exhaustion. And combine that with the stress at work, from meeting deadlines, demanding bosses, and dealing with co-workers, customers, clients, etc., the office can easily become a source of severe stress for anyone.
Every little bad thing that happens in the workplace can be easily magnified when you are stressed. And since stress makes it difficult to concentrate, productivity can be compromised. So why not help your employees reduce stress by making the workplace beautiful and tidy?
Commercial cleaners don’t just perform deep cleaning. They are also well-trained to provide tailored cleaning service that includes organising your office to make it more conducive for work. If you can do this, you will have a happier and more focused team in your office, which will benefit the organisation as a whole.
It boosts morale and improves motivation
You don’t want to work in a dirty and messy place, right? So are your employees.
People constantly become unhappy and dissatisfied when exposed to a dirty and disorganised environment. Employers’ lack of effort and interest in making the office feel good and fun to spend time at can be problematic – their morale and motivation will go down. The last things you want in your office are people dissatisfied with their work and frustrated with their work conditions.
Professional office cleaning can easily solve this by providing a workplace that gives people a sense of pride in their work, the organisation they belong to, and their employer. Not to mention it shows that the company they work for truly cares about the welfare and well-being of their employees enough to provide a healthy and safe workspace.
It boosts creativity
You and your staff spend hours in the office daily working on different tasks, brainstorming, collaborating, and developing new ways to improve your products, services, marketing strategies, sales, etc. While every person’s level of creativity and skills of thinking outside the box is different, there is a good chance that creative juices flow better when there are fewer outside distractions like clutter and a disorganised office.
Creativity is vital in every industry. It allows you to develop better solutions to common problems, streamline your operations, and develop ingenious and innovative ways to improve your business.
Hiring the office cleaning services of commercial cleaners will allow you and your staff to focus on thinking outside the box. This is because providing a clean and organised work environment for your employees will let them wander their minds beyond the walls of your workplace and come up with new ideas and solutions.
It improves focus
You may think your employees are not bothered by the piles of documents on the floor and overstuffed filing cabinets. However, science says our brain prefers order and that constant visual reminder of disorder drains the brain and reduces its ability to focus.
When you think about it, anything outside what is considered clean and organised can easily distract your employees. This lack of sense of order in the workplace can cause a domino effect on their productivity.
Professional office cleaners are extensively trained to clean and tidy up workstations, individual offices, conference rooms, etc., to allow you and your employees to focus on more important things in the office.
It makes a healthier workplace
Everything can be a source of distraction, from the layer of dust on the filing cabinets and top of the fridge, cobwebs on the ceiling, stains on the carpet and furniture in the common areas, grime on the kitchen counter, mould on the restroom floor, etc. However, these are not merely distractions, these are health hazards.
Allergens, bacteria, and disease-causing germs thrive in a dirty environment. And infectious diseases can easily spread in an enclosed space like the office, where multiple people bump, talk, and work with each other. Combine that with people’s stigma and higher demand for disinfection and sterilisation post-COVID, and you have a high demand for a cleaner office from your employees.
Because sick employees mean absences, which means sick leaves, employee absences can bring your productivity down, especially if it happens regularly.
Office cleaning services usually use specialised equipment and industrial cleaning solutions to thoroughly and effectively clean, disinfect, and sanitise every corner of your office. Moreover, periodic office cleaning is vital to improve your office’s health and safety levels.
Also, more and more commercial office cleaning service providers offer green cleaning solutions, using 100% natural, environmentally-friendly, safe, and effective cleaning solutions. This means the cleaning techniques and solutions they use will not only thoroughly clean and disinfect the office but will also not cause any adverse side effects (allergies, respiratory problems like asthma attacks, skin irritations, etc.) to the people using your office.
It helps avoid office conflict
As said earlier, you can always ask people to clean up after themselves. However, you cannot expect everyone to have the same understanding of what “clean” actually means. This can lead to workplace conflict between employees, which can be extremely bad for the organisation.
Hiring the cleaning services of professional office cleaning providers ensures your office gets dedicated expert cleaners to ensure all cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitising requirements of everyone in the office are met, helping you avoid office conflict. Moreover, cleaner and organised workplaces encourage people to respect the workplace more and the people in them.
It reduces equipment failure
Dirt, dust, grime, and spillages can all work their way can infiltrate office appliances and equipment, from computers, copiers, servers, etc. The same goes for those appliances and equipment in your office kitchen, such as the microwave, refrigerators, oven toasters, coffee machine, water dispenser, etc. You cannot just wipe these appliances with a clean wet cloth, as water can damage them.
Most office cleaning services provide trained cleaners who can safely and effectively clean these highly delicate office appliances without damaging them. Moreover, commercial cleaning services that specialise in office cleaning use special cleaning tools to clean IT equipment without the risk of damaging them.
The Takeaway
Indeed, there are so many things you can say about the importance of office cleaning. If everything in the office is top-notch, it instantly puts a sense of pride in your employees. A clean and organised workplace makes everyone happy, enthusiastic, and proud to work at your office day in and day out, boosting productivity.
So invest in office cleaning and improving your office’s health, safety, creativity, morale, and happiness by hiring professional commercial cleaners and watching your productivity skyrocket like never before.
“The opinions expressed by BizWitty Contributors are their own, not those of BizCover and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Please read our full disclaimer."
