5 Ways to Keep Your Business Clean

Posted on 15 January 2017

When it comes to running a business, cleanliness is important. If you run an office, pub or restaurant cleanliness is crucial, wherever people are working, there will be mess. It’s a sad fact that people can’t really spend long in one place without making a terrible mess, especially if they’re working, or eating. Most people are the annoying combo of messy when productive, but unable to be productive in a messy environment, so you need a regular cleaning system for your office.

If your business is based in food and drink, cleanliness is a no-brainer. You will eventually face penalties and trouble if you don’t keep your business clean, so finding great strategies for doing that is essential.

Hiring a professional cleaning firm is the easiest, quickest and most straight-forward strategy, not to mention cheap! Here’s why.

Delegate Cleaning Roles to Existing Staff

Depending on the business, staff can sometimes handle cleaning roles. If you’re a pub that doesn’t serve food, and mainly sells pints, then all that you need could be a simple wipe down, and some vacuuming. This can be done by the staff, during or after shift.

Staff Clean During Shifts

There are two ways you can delegate your cleaning tasks to your staff, you can either have them do the cleaning jobs in quieter moments during their shift, or you can have them do the jobs after their shift. The issue here is that you need to hire enough people to man the bar, or work the floor, and get the cleaning done, simultaneously.

You can’t be keeping customers waiting, so you need more people on shift, meaning you have to spend more. As well as this, if you’re cleaning something, and you’re constantly being interrupted to serve people, you’re not going to be able to do as good a job as someone who’s properly focused on the task at hand.

Having Staff Clean Up After Shift

This is the commonest mode of operation for pubs, cafes and restaurants, and it isn’t good. Having your staff stay anywhere between half an hour, and an hour extra, frequently unpaid, is a good way to make sure you get a rushed, careless cleaning job. This could cause hygiene issues in the near future.

Another issue with this is that if you’re running a pub or bar, and closing after eleven at night, then adding an extra hour, plus travel time home, you’re not going to have staff that are happy to do morning shifts the next day. You’re going to have exhausted staff, who will eventually quit. Obviously, you could deal with this via a carefully created rota, but you’re really just causing problems for yourself.

Hiring In-House Cleaners

Another option is finding, hiring and providing cleaning materials for your own in-house cleaner. This can be a good option, if you don’t mind the stress of adding new members of staff to the rota, giving holidays and sick pay, and finding cover for any days when your cleaner is off.

Hiring in-house cleaners can add a lot of unnecessary strain and hassle on to your management, but can prove an effective solution when done right. It especially works for very large businesses such as offices and restaurant, cafe and pub chains and franchises. If you’re a smaller business, it’s worth avoiding.

Outsource Your Cleaning Needs

The final, best, option is outsourcing. Contacting a profession, reputable cleaning service, and drafting in a trained, reliable and trustworthy cleaner, who’s well equipped for the job, to get your cleaning done. You dodge a lot of the issues mentioned in the earlier options by doing this, and it can prove much easier, cheaper, and less stressful, while providing a better quality of cleaning.

However, you do need to make sure you find the right cleaning service for the job, making sure that the cleaners you hire are absolutely up to scratch, and can reliably and regularly sort the jobs at hand.