One of the trickiest things about keeping commercial spaces clean is coming up with an ideal schedule that maximizes cleanliness while minimizing inefficiency and unnecessary duplication. There are a lot of things to consider when putting a schedule together. Among them are size and traffic patterns.
Size deals with the total square footage being cleaned. Traffic patterns are all about how people move in and around a designated space. Traffic volume is also part of the equation.
It has been our experience that size and traffic patterns influence scheduling in different ways. Neither one can be ignored, but neither one should take precedence over the other. You really need to find that sweet spot that balances the two considerations along with everything else you must think about.
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Bigger Spaces Need More Cleaning
A general rule in our industry is that bigger spaces need more cleaning. And when we say ‘more’, we are referring to both volume and frequency. The reason should be simple enough to understand – bigger spaces collect more dirt. Bigger spaces also accommodate more people, and more people contribute to making a space dirty.
It has also been our experience that bigger spaces need to be cleaned more frequently. Take a busy office with dozens of employees doing what they do five days per week. All those employees will generate more dirt and debris than a single person working alone in a small office.
In industrial and manufacturing environments, larger spaces tend to accommodate a lot more activity. There is more equipment being used, more machinery in play, and more opportunities to generate waste and dirt. Even large warehouses need to be cleaned more frequently than small storerooms. Explore why larger industrial spaces require more frequent cleaning compared to smaller storerooms by checking out sources like Globe Rage.
More Traffic Equals More Dirt
As far as traffic patterns go, we all have personal experience with this in our own homes. High-traffic areas tend to get the dirtiest in a typical home. They also tend to get dirty more quickly than low traffic areas. It is no different in a commercial or professional setting.
High volumes of traffic can do a number on floors, for example. That means more frequent carpet vacuuming and hard-surface floor cleaning. More frequent deep cleaning is necessary to keep carpets and laminate floors from being permanently stained.
Certain areas of the property are more sensitive to high traffic than others. Take the restrooms. Restroom cleaning is non-negotiable for the simple fact that clean restrooms are safer and less likely to encourage the spread of germs. But where there are more people, restroom cleaning needs to be more frequent.
Feedback Can Be Immensely Helpful
There is no formula for working size and traffic frequency in creating a cleaning schedule. Putting a schedule together for the first time often means using all the information you have and making a good guess. But don’t stop there.
Feedback can be immensely helpful in understanding whether your schedule is working. Ask employees what they think of the state of the property’s cleanliness. Ask them about specific spaces that tend to be high traffic. Employee perceptions speak a lot about how effective a cleaning schedule actually is.
Likewise, property inspections are particularly important. It is one thing to send in a cleaning crew and assume they will get the job done. It’s another thing to actually go check. Regular property inspections tend to support the feedback you get from employees.
Size and traffic contribute to how quickly a space gets dirty and how dirty it actually gets. Likewise, size and traffic contribute to establishing effective cleaning schedules that keep properties at their best. Do not ignore either factor.
