An office cleaning contract is three documents pretending to be one: the daily routine, the periodic schedule, and the list of things nobody is doing unless you ask. Most disputes about standards are really disputes about which list an item was on. Writing the three down before you go to market is the cheapest thing you will do all year, and it makes every quote you receive comparable.
What daily office cleaning normally means
Emptying and relining bins, cleaning and restocking washrooms, wiping desks and touch points, cleaning the kitchen or tea point including the sink and the fronts of appliances, vacuuming carpet and mopping hard floors in circulation areas, and a visual check of glass on doors. That is a routine an operative can complete in a fixed hour. Everything else is periodic, however often somebody says it should be done.
What is periodic, and how often
Carpet cleaning, hard floor machine work, internal glass and partitions, high level dusting above head height, upholstery, and cleaning inside the fridge and the microwave. Monthly, quarterly or twice yearly depending on use. Put each item in the contract with its frequency and its price, because a periodic item with no frequency is an item that will be argued about rather than delivered.
In contract office cleaning, the specification is what you are buying
Write it room by room rather than task by task, because that is how an operative works and how a supervisor audits. Name the areas, say what happens in each and how often, and state the time window. Then a contract office cleaning quote, a daily office cleaning quote and a three visits a week quote can be compared honestly, which is the only way to know whether the cheapest is cheap.
Access, keys and the out of hours question
Decide early whether the clean happens before the office opens, after it closes, or during the day. Daytime cleaning is cheaper, greener and easier to supervise, and it is visible to your staff and visitors, which some businesses want and others do not. Out of hours costs more and needs keyholding, alarm codes and a documented procedure for what happens when the alarm goes off at midnight.
Office cleaning Dagenham and the outer London industrial fringe
East London and the Essex border is mostly light industrial, trade counters and office space attached to a unit, and that changes the specification rather than the rate. Washrooms and welfare take more of the hours than a city office, the floors are hard rather than carpeted so periodic machine work matters more than vacuuming, and there is usually somewhere to park, which takes the travel cost out of the quote. Staff supply is easier than in central London and turnover is lower, so a local contractor with a supervisor nearby is usually the better value than a national with nobody within ten miles.
Questions people ask about commercial office cleaning services
How many hours does an office of twenty people need?
A single floor of around twenty desks with one washroom block is usually one to one and a half hours a day. The washroom and the kitchen, not the desks, drive the number.
Should desks be cleaned by the office cleaner?
Clear desk areas can be wiped. A cluttered desk cannot be, and asking for it guarantees a failed audit. Say in the specification that cleaning is limited to clear surfaces.
Is daytime office cleaning worth it?
Often yes. It removes out of hours premiums and keyholding, makes supervision easy and reduces energy use, at the cost of some visible activity during the working day.
What should an office cleaning audit look like?
A scored walk of named areas against the specification, signed and dated, at a stated frequency. If nobody can produce last month's, the audit is not happening.
Does office cleaning guildford cost more than elsewhere, and why?
Cleaning prices track local wage rates and the travel time a team puts in, so the South East generally sits above other regions for identical work. That is the whole of the regional effect, and it is smaller than the two things that actually decide the bill: the hours the specification asks for, and whether the clean happens during the day or out of hours. Two quotes for the same office can differ by half because one priced a daily routine and the other priced a routine plus a periodic schedule, and no postcode explains that.
What should a commercial cleaning chelmsford quote include?
The same three documents any office cleaning quote should separate: the daily routine, room by room and how often; the periodic schedule with its intervals, meaning carpets, hard floors, internal glass, high level dusting and inside the appliances; and the list of things excluded unless asked for. Then the practical terms: hours and whether they are in or out of the working day, who holds keys and alarm codes, cover for sickness and holidays, and how the clean is audited. A price with no specification behind it cannot be compared with anything.