The important end of a commercial vacuum is the end the air comes out of.

Everyone buys on suction. Facilities managers ask how powerful it is, cleaners talk about pickup, the spec sheet leads with wattage in a big bold font. Meanwhile the thing that decides whether a machine improves an office or quietly fouls it happens at the exhaust, where the air the vacuum has just drawn in comes back out into the room – carrying, or not carrying, the fine dust it was meant to trap.

Get that end wrong and you’ve bought an expensive way to move dust off the carpet and into the air, where people breathe it.

What is a commercial vacuum actually for in a London office?

Picking up the visible stuff is the easy ninety per cent. Crumbs, grit, biro lids, the shredded corner of a Pret bag under a desk – any machine with a motor manages that much. The job that actually earns the money, and the one cheap machines quietly flunk, is the fine particulate. The trade calls it the fines: the sub-visible dust, the skin cells and fibre, the pollen, the traffic-borne PM2.5 that drifts in off the Euston Road and settles into every carpet tile in the building.

The fines are the fraction small enough to hang in the air when disturbed and small enough to travel deep into a lung. A vacuum with poor filtration takes those fines, stirs them up off the floor and puffs them back out the far end finer and more airborne than they were sitting still. So you’ve taken settled dust, harmless on the carpet, and turned it into respirable dust at head height in an open-plan office. In a sealed City tower where the windows are decorative and the air just recirculates, that dust has nowhere to go but round the floor plate all afternoon.

I once got called into a media agency off St John Street in Clerkenwell where half the floor was blaming the air-conditioning for their itchy eyes and endless sniffles. The air-con was fine. Their contractor was running a knackered upright with a torn bag every afternoon at three, refilling the room with everything it lifted. New machine, problem gone in a fortnight. Nobody ever did apologise to the air-con.

The dust you can’t see is the dust that matters

London hands a vacuum more of the fines than most cities do. There’s always a floor being stripped out somewhere nearby, and refits shed a fog of gypsum and brick dust that finds carpet three storeys down through the smallest gap in the risers. Add the diesel particulate the traffic has laid down over decades, still lurking in the fabric of every older building, and the fine-dust load in a Farringdon office runs higher than whatever the filter’s manufacturer assumed when they printed the claim on the box.

What does “HEPA” actually guarantee – and what does it not?

Here’s where the marketing turns slippery, because “HEPA” is four letters that a great many machines wear without ever earning them.

Real HEPA is a defined thing. Under the European standard EN 1822, a genuine HEPA filter carries a grade – H13 traps at least 99.95 per cent of particles at the hardest possible size to catch, H14 at least 99.995 per cent. That hardest size, around three-tenths of a micron, is the most penetrating particle size, and it’s a genuine quirk of physics: particles both larger and smaller than that are easier to capture, so a filter that holds the line right there holds it everywhere else too. That’s the number with meaning behind it. “EN 1822, grade H13, 99.95 per cent” is a claim you can hang a health argument on.

“HEPA-type.” “HEPA-like.” “HEPA-style filtration.” Not one of those is graded, tested, or promising you a single thing. They’re words chosen to stand next to the real one and borrow its coat, and they appear on a startling number of machines sold into London offices. A filter badged “HEPA-type” might catch a fair share of the fines, or it might catch very little – the phrase commits to nothing, which is exactly why it was reached for.

A HEPA element bolted to the back of the machine isn’t the end of it either. A properly built vacuum filters in stages: the bag or bin catches the bulk, a pre-motor filter takes the next tier down, the HEPA element mops up the finest fraction last. Skip the earlier stages and the HEPA filter chokes within a week, the suction collapses, and some poor soul pulls the filter out to “let it breathe” – which is the single most common way a HEPA vacuum stops being one.

Why a HEPA filter in a leaky machine is theatre

Now the part almost nobody checks, and the one I’ll cheerfully die on a hill about. A HEPA filter only does anything if all the air is forced through it.

That sounds too obvious to say, and it gets ignored daily. If the body of the machine isn’t sealed – a gap around the filter housing, a lid that no longer seats properly on a tired seal – then the air behaves like air and takes the easy road, which is around the filter rather than through it. You can fit the finest H14 element made in Germany, and if the machine leaks, the fines stream out through the seams unfiltered while that immaculate filter sits there looking like a clear conscience. This is the whole distance between “sealed HEPA system” and “fitted with a HEPA filter,” and it’s a distance most buyers never think to ask about. A machine waving a HEPA filter with no sealed body behind it is theatre. Costly theatre, in a nice livery.

Why does a vacuum’s noise level decide when you can use it?

For decades London offices were cleaned overnight, so the noise a vacuum made was nobody’s problem. That has changed, and quickly. Buildings would rather not light and heat a whole empty tower at eleven at night for a cleaning crew when energy costs what it now costs, insurers prefer fewer lone workers after dark, and daytime cleaning has become ordinary across the City and Canary Wharf. Which puts the vacuum in the room while people are trying to work.

An older commercial upright, or a domestic machine pressed into service, can push past eighty decibels. Loud enough that running it down an occupied Holborn office at two in the afternoon makes the cleaner a nuisance through no fault of their own – and loud enough, across a full shift, to start mattering for that cleaner’s own hearing. A well-engineered quiet machine sits around sixty. That twenty-decibel gap is the difference between a vacuum you can run past someone mid-call and one that clears the meeting room. The Quiet Mark, awarded by the Noise Abatement Society, exists to point at the machines that took the trouble.

The daytime cleaning problem

There are two people in this, and the client usually remembers only one. There’s the office worker wanting to hear themselves think. And there’s the operative behind the machine for hours, whose ears the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 are actually written to guard – the lower action value lands at eighty dB(A), which plenty of older vacuums sail straight past. Volume isn’t even the whole of it. A machine at sixty-two decibels with a low, smooth note is far easier to sit near than one at sixty-two with a thin electric whine, because what the ear objects to is the pitch as much as the level. The better manufacturers tune the note the machine makes. The number on the meter is only half of what you’re paying for.

Is a more powerful motor actually a better vacuum?

No. And the belief that it is has shifted an enormous number of bad machines.

Wattage measures what the motor swallows, not what the machine cleans. A 1,400-watt vacuum draws more electricity than a 900-watt one; whether it actually moves more air through the nozzle depends on the airflow and the shape of the cleaning head far more than on the motor’s appetite. When the EU capped corded vacuum motors at 900 watts in 2017, a good part of the industry forecast feeble machines, and the serious manufacturers simply engineered the same cleaning out of less power – they’d never been leaning on raw wattage to begin with.

A vacuum that roars is usually leaking air somewhere past its motor and turning the waste into noise; the roar is wasted air, the sound of suction going missing. The buyer who stands in the demo, hears the thing howl and murmurs “now that sounds powerful” has been trained by forty years of bad design to read a fault as a virtue.

What airflow and water lift actually tell you

Want to compare two machines honestly? Ignore the watts and ask for two numbers. Airflow, in litres per second, is how much air the machine actually moves – that’s what lifts the fines up out of the pile and carries them to the bag. Water lift, sometimes called sealed suction, is how hard it can pull – that’s what hauls grit out of the depth of a heavy contract carpet. A machine strong on both while sipping its 900 watts will quietly beat the two-kilowatt monster your predecessor signed off, and beat it without emptying the room.

So which machine belongs in which building?

Depends on the floor, and anyone who gives you one answer for every site is selling something. Detailed work around a dense desk layout in a Soho creative office wants a cylinder or tub machine you can steer into corners. A big open Canary Wharf floor plate wants a cordless backpack, for the speed and, just as much, for losing the trailing cable that turns into a trip claim the moment someone’s carrying coffee. Long corridor runs are upright territory. Whatever the format, the filtration and the sealing standard have to hold the same across all of it – the shape of the machine is only ever about what suits the room.

The Henry question

Somebody always asks about Henry. And I’ve nothing against the little red tub – Numatic build them properly down in Chard, in Somerset, and with the right HepaFlo bags and the commercial spec they filter well and run for years. The mistake is assuming the smiley face means the machine is sorted for the job. A Henry off the shelf on a domestic filter, run eight hours a day across a City floor, is doing work it was never specified for, and pushing a fair share of the fines back out as it goes. Buy the machine for the building. Not for the face.

Six months into a contract, a facilities manager rings me. Not a client of mine – a friend in the trade, asking me to cast an eye over it – because the cleaners she’d inherited “weren’t doing the kitchen properly.” So I ask to see the contract. Two pages. The relevant clause reads, in full: “The Contractor shall keep the premises in a clean and tidy condition.”

That’s the whole scope. That’s everything.

There was no argument for her to win, because there was nothing on paper to argue about.

What actually goes wrong when the scope is vague?

Nearly every cleaning dispute I’ve watched unfold in a London office traces back to the same root. The client thought they were buying one thing. The contractor thought they were selling another. Nobody wrote down which, so both were free to be quietly, reasonably, completely wrong about each other. The client pictures the fridge emptied and wiped out every Friday and the glass partitions kept clear of finger marks. The contractor priced a bin-empty, a vacuum and a wipe-down of the desks, five nights a week, and not a thing beyond it. Both parties are behaving in good faith. Both are heading for a fall.

Vagueness always resolves in somebody’s favour, and it is almost never the client’s. When “clean and tidy” is the whole of the standard, the contractor is the one who gets to decide what clean and tidy means, and they will decide it at precisely the level they costed. Push them on it and they’ll point at the clause, fairly enough, and explain that what you’re describing is a variation they’d be glad to quote for. So now you pay twice. Once for the vague version you signed, and again for the version you had in your head all along.

That’s the row. Six months in, every single time.

The “as required” trap

The two most expensive words in a cleaning spec are “as required.”

They sound like coverage. They are the opposite of it. “High-level dusting as required” means the tops of the partitions get done when the contractor judges it required, which turns out to be roughly never, because the person judging is the person who’d have to pay someone to climb the steps. “Carpets cleaned periodically,” with no period actually named, is a task that lives permanently in next month. If a frequency isn’t a number – weekly, monthly, twice a year – then it isn’t a commitment. It’s a word standing where a commitment should be, keeping the space warm.

What should a proper scope of works actually spell out?

A scope worth the paper it’s printed on does three things without flinching: it names every task, ties each task to a specific area, and pins each one to a stated frequency. Miss any of the three and the gap becomes the thing you argue about eighteen months later.

Start with the frequency split, because it’s the backbone. Daily tasks are the ones people picture: bins out, desks wiped, kitchen worktops cleared and cleaned, hard floors mopped and carpets vacuumed, washrooms scrubbed and restocked, the glass entrance doors spot-cleaned of the day’s handprints. Weekly tasks are the ones that quietly slip: skirting boards, the full run of internal glass, telephone and desk sanitising, the fridge if you’re lucky enough to have it named. Then the periodic column, which is where the real money and the real trouble both live – high-level dusting, carpet extraction, internal window cleaning, hard-floor buffing, the deep kitchen clean.

Each task needs an area written against it. A proper spec carries a floor-by-floor, room-by-room breakdown: reception, the third-floor kitchenette, the two accessible WCs on each level, the client-facing meeting rooms that matter far more to the impression you make than the store cupboard nobody ever sees. “Clean the office” is not an instruction. “Vacuum and spot-clean the second-floor breakout area nightly, extract the carpet quarterly” is.

And each task needs a standard you can actually check it against. This is where a decent spec leans on something like the British Institute of Cleaning Science appearance standards rather than a pile of adjectives. “Sparkling” is not a measurement. “No visible debris, no streaking on glass, dispensers filled” is one. When the standard is checkable, the monthly walk-round takes twenty minutes and settles matters. When it’s a mood, the walk-round is just two people disagreeing about the word “clean” all over again.

The dull clauses matter as much as the glamorous ones, and they’re exactly the ones a thin contract skips. Access hours – is this a night clean wrapped up before the building opens, or the daytime presence that’s become normal since everyone drifted back to the office three days a week? Keys, alarm codes, the security escort for the comms room. Whether the two hours on site mean two cleaners for an hour or one cleaner stretched across a whole floor they can’t realistically cover. Put the hours in. Put the headcount in.

The periodic tasks are where the money hides

Everyone fixes on the nightly list, because that’s the visible part, the bit you can see wasn’t done. The disputes almost all live one column across.

Deep cleans, carpet extraction, high-level work, external glass – these are expensive and infrequent, and they’re the first things a keen quote goes silent about. A contractor bidding low knows exactly what they’ve left out. They’ve priced the nightly service to win the tender and left the periodic tasks either unmentioned or buried under “as required,” so that when the carpets in your Fitzrovia media office go grey and flat a year and a half in, the deep clean turns up as a fresh invoice rather than a thing you were sure you’d already bought. Name the intervals. Twice-yearly carpet extraction, quarterly high-level dusting, monthly hard-floor maintenance – whatever the site actually needs, but a number, on the page, agreed by both signatures.

So who’s buying the toilet roll?

Here’s the small clause that starts more rows than any other, pound for pound.

Consumables. The loo roll, the hand soap, the blue roll in the kitchen, the bin liners, the hand towels, the little plug-in air fresheners nobody will admit to caring about right up until they run out. Somebody supplies all of it and somebody pays for all of it, and in a vague contract that somebody stays gloriously undefined until the Monday morning the dispensers are empty and reception is fielding the complaints.

The bin-liner question

Decide it in writing. Either the contractor supplies and bills consumables at cost plus a margin, or the client buys their own stock and the cleaners simply fit and refill. Both work. What doesn’t work is discovering, three weeks into a contract in a busy Soho serviced office, that nobody ever agreed which, and the toilet roll has become a small diplomatic incident with an email chain of its own.

Why do the cheapest quotes come with the thinnest scopes?

Because the thinness is the strategy.

I’ll say it plainly, since somebody should: the lowest quote on a London cleaning tender is very often the one to bin first. Not always. But the gap between the cheap bid and the sensible one is rarely down to efficiency. The cheap bid buys its headline number by narrowing the scope – quietly, deliberately – so the money finds its way back later through variations and periodic “extras” a fuller spec would simply have folded into the monthly figure. On the contractor’s side, a vague scope is usually a choice. It’s a pricing tactic, and a fairly clever one, and you can’t really blame someone for playing a game the tender set up.

The managing agent’s copy-paste spec

The other reliable source of thin scopes is the managing agent running the building. A managed floor in the City or over at More London tends to arrive with a cleaning spec the agent has pasted straight from the last building, and the one before that, tailored to none of them. It’ll list tasks for a marble reception you haven’t got and say nothing at all about the two kitchens you have. Read it as though it were written for your floor specifically, because it wasn’t, and every gap in it is yours to inherit.

What happens when someone asks for something that isn’t in the contract?

Something always does. A leaving do in the boardroom that leaves forty prosecco glasses and a carpet full of trodden crisps. Builder’s dust settling over every surface for a fortnight after the refit on the floor above. A burst pipe up in the ceiling void that comes through on a Sunday and turns Monday into a salvage operation. None of it belongs in the nightly scope, and none of it should.

A contract worth signing says so, and says what happens next. It carries a variation mechanism – a clause setting out how out-of-scope work is requested and priced before anyone lifts a mop, ideally with an agreed hourly and day rate already sitting in the schedule so there’s no haggling in the middle of a crisis. Without one, every unplanned job becomes a fresh negotiation held at the worst possible moment, when the thing plainly needs doing and you’ve no room left to bargain.

Changing hands, and the TUPE surprise

Then one day the contract changes hands, and the scope starts mattering in a way people rarely see coming. When a cleaning contract in the UK moves from one provider to the next, TUPE usually applies – the existing cleaning staff transfer across to the incoming contractor on their existing terms and conditions. The new provider inherits the people, but they price and deliver against the scope. A fuzzy scope, then, doesn’t stop causing trouble when your current cleaners walk. It gets handed on, unresolved, to the next lot, who are left guessing at what “clean and tidy” was ever supposed to mean while absorbing a wage bill they didn’t set.

Which is roughly where my friend’s facilities manager found herself. Two pages, one useless sentence, and a kitchen nobody could prove was in or out.

If you aim to create a clean and healthy workspace in London, you’re in the right place! This guide will uncover the newest cleaning methods and technologies to transform your office environment. Whether it’s introducing specialised techniques that suit your office’s unique requirements or crafting a detailed cleaning strategy, this guide has you covered every step of the way.

Find out how to effectively train and educate your cleaning crew for top-notch performance, along with handy tips for continuous upkeep and enhancements in a workspace that boosts productivity and overall well-being.

Why it Matters for Your Workspace

Maintaining a clean workspace is crucial to boost productivity and keep your employees healthy. Office cleaning plays a key role in workplace cleanliness.

When you keep your office tidy, you’re setting the stage for focus and efficiency and creating a positive and inviting atmosphere for your employees. Research has proven that a clutter-free and organised workspace can ramp up motivation and dial down stress levels for your team, ultimately boosting their overall well-being.

By prioritising office cleanliness, you’re looking for your employees’ health and building a more productive and harmonious work environment. Investing in regular cleaning and keeping your workspace hygienic is fundamental to cultivating a vibrant workplace culture.

The Latest Cleaning Methods and Technologies

You’ve probably noticed that the world of office cleaning has come a long way with all the fantastic new techniques and technologies. Now, you can enjoy efficient cleaning methods that include cutting-edge disinfection techniques and fancy cleaning equipment to keep your work environment looking spick and span.

Overview of New Techniques

You’ve probably noticed how cleaning has changed lately. New techniques have shaken up how we keep things tidy, like using eco-friendly products and cutting-edge cleaning chemicals to make your office safer and greener.

These fresh methods don’t just give you a spotless workspace; they also help the environment. Using eco-friendly products like biodegradable cleaners and green disinfectants, offices can improve indoor air quality and reduce nasty chemical residues.

And get this—the latest cleaning chemicals are a game-changer. They fight germs and bacteria efficiently, creating a healthier work environment. When businesses adopt these practices, they’re looking out for their employees’ well-being and positively impacting the planet.

Benefits and Advancements

Thanks to cutting-edge cleaning tech, you benefit from advances in cleaning strategies, which offer top-notch cleaning solutions while following health and safety rules.

These modern cleaning methods give you a clean space and create a healthier and safer environment for everyone involved. Usiutilisinged cleaning techs like robotic cleaners and UV disinfection systems, cleaning tasks are now super efficient and effective. These tech innovations help thoroughly eliminate germs, bacteria, and viruses, reducing the risk of illnesses and keeping the space hygienic. These improved cleaning methods also save you money and time, making them the go-to choice for various industries and establishments.

Implementing Cleaning Techniques in Your London Workspace

If you implement the latest cleaning techniques in your London workspace, you can see a big difference in workplace cleanliness and hygiene. This will create a healthy environment for you and your employees and boost the overall appeal of your commercial space.

Adapting to Your Office’s Needs

Adapting your cleaning techniques to suit your unique environment is crucial for keeping your office neat. You’ll want to create flexible cleaning timetables that consider your office layout and ensure everything is organised. In an office environment, having adaptable cleaning timetables is a game-changer. You have varying levels of foot traffic, different working hours, and specific cleaning requirements to consider. By customising cleaning routines to align with how your office operates, you’ll reduce disruptions to your daily activities while maintaining cleanliness.

Do not underestimate the importance of your office layout when it comes to cleaning. The layout can dictate which cleaning methods are most efficient. For instance, open workspaces may require more frequent dusting and vacuuming to control airborne particles, whereas enclosed offices may need focused sanitation of high-touch surfaces to manage germs.

Let’s not overlook workspace organisation. A cluttered workspace can hinder cleaning and become a breeding ground for germs and pests. Establishing a system for storing documents, labelling supplies, and regularly decluttering can significantly impact maintaining a clean and germ-free workspace.

Creating a Cleaning Plan

You must create a thorough cleaning plan consistent with your office policies to maintain high cleanliness standards.

Step-by-Step Guide for Implementation

When implementing your cleaning plan, you must follow a step-by-step guide to ensure you’re hitting all the cleaning marks, using a cleanliness checklist, and adhering to established cleaning protocols.

1. First, create a detailed cleanliness checklist outlining all the areas in your space that need cleaning. This checklist should cover everything from surfaces to appliances and make sure your specific cleaning needs are customisable.
2. After that, set up a regular cleaning schedule to ensure tasks are consistently handled. Assign responsibilities to your team members or household members with clear instructions on what needs to be done. Ensure everyone diligently follows the cleaning protocols to keep your environment clean and hygienic.

Training and Education for Cleaning Staff

Ensuring that cleanliness procedures are carried out correctly is crucial for your cleaning staff. You can nurture a workplace culture that values hygiene and effective cleaning practices by offering training and education.

Ensuring Proper Execution of Techniques

To ensure you’re nailing those cleaning techniques, set clear cleanliness goals and stick to established cleaning standards. This will help boost efficiency in your workspace. Keep a close eye on your cleaning practices to consistently meet those standards. Regularly inspecting and getting feedback from your team will help you spot any areas that need a little TLC and fix them quickly. Don’t forget to give proper training on cleaning procedures and the correct use of cleaning products to keep things spick and span. And hey, don’t skip out on scheduling deep cleaning tasks, like sanitising touch surfaces. That’ll keep your work environment healthy and in shape.

Maintaining a Clean and Healthy Workspace

To keep your workspace in tip-top condition, you must ensure it’s clean and healthy. This enhances your employees’ well-being, improves air quality, and makes everyone happier. It’s all about staying on top of workspace maintenance and managing your office supplies like a pro.

Tips for Ongoing Maintenance and Improvement

To keep your workspace in top condition, you must stick to a regular maintenance routine, handle your cleaning budget wisely, and address any cleaning issues directly. These tips are crucial for maintaining a positive workplace atmosphere and improving your workspace.

When you’re consistent with your cleaning timetable, ensure no tasks slip through the net, keeping your work environment pleasant and hygienic.

While managing your cleaning budget, focus on high-traffic areas and invest in quality cleaning supplies for optimal results.

Being proactive and dealing with common cleaning challenges, such as stubborn stains or dust accumulation, can significantly impact the cleanliness of your office.

These efforts will boost your team’s morale and transform your workspace into a more welcoming and efficient environment.

More and more professions are related to working at a computer desk. You are in the office for 8 hours or more a day, so it is pretty normal to take the time to turn it into a cosy place that will charge you, inspire, motivate, and calm you. How to create a cosy office? 

Working in an open office leads to stress, lack of concentration and low productivity. But working in a cosy office space increases efficiency, quality of work, motivation, inspiration for work, self-esteem, and employees’ happiness. Therefore, pay special attention to your office. 

A sense of comfort 

Bet on upholstered furniture and round shapes that create a feeling of cosiness. Choose and follow a style in the furniture to achieve the desired harmonious environment in the office. Avoid ultra-modern furniture solutions, which usually have the opposite of the desired comfort effect. 

Choose warm colours (mahogany, chestnut, orange, burgundy) that have a calming effect on furniture and walls. Or choose something fresher to give you energy and inspiration when you work (white, lime, yellow, lavender). The colour should be consistent with the nature of your work, character, and temperament. But avoid colourful patterns and a mixture of many colours in the room, which will harass your mind. 

Creating a cosy office – why and how?

Excellent addition to your office is air curtains/blinds in tune with the overall interior so as not to block the light in the room. 

Regarding flooring, a parquet or thick carpet creates a tangible warmth and comfort. 

A shelf or a small section of books, the ones you like and use in your daily work, are the perfect touch to your cosy work environment. Everything you regularly use while working must be at your fingertips. 

A personal touch in the office 

A small flower on your desk and a larger plant around you in the office are a good solution to create a harmonious, creative, calm and cosy office environment. 

And, of course, a photo of a loved one or family. Personal handwriting in your office is one of the important things to achieve comfort. 

You can consider custom furniture and your taste if you have more money. To do this, take the time to browse interior design magazines, and you can also consult with a designer to give you advice or make a realistic design. 

Home Office Tips

If you work from home and are about to furnish an office corner, choose a sheltered corner of your home where you can have peace and privacy, even better if it is by a window. Regarding furniture for your office corner, it is essential to be as practical as possible in your choice, as you have limited space. Set on a small desk or table, with shelves on the walls, where you need things for your work, and a chandelier with a simple lantern, which falls low just above your workplace. One or two small landscape pictures or photographs on the wall next to you will create a feeling of space and inspire and soothe you. And to encourage concentration, productivity and work habits, you need to feel as comfortable as possible in your work area. For this purpose, pay special attention to the chair, which should be comfortable and easy on your muscles. 

Where to locate the home office? 

The location of the home office often makes it difficult for people. On the one hand, you need a work area. On the other hand, a place that is no less cosy and fits into the home’s overall atmosphere. The ideal option is to furnish a separate room, but not everyone can afford such a luxury, so you have to think practically and ideologically. 

You can set aside a work area in the corner of the living room or dining room, but in no case in the bedroom or children’s room. Some prefer to isolate themselves when working, so they “enclose” the home office with a screen. Others skilfully combine it with the atmosphere in the room. 

Another option for a home office layout is an unusable closet, built-in closet or niche in the wall. After light cosmetic repairs, including glueing coloured wallpaper and installing a small counter top instead of a desk and several shelves for organising things, the seemingly unnecessary space becomes a comfortable office corner. 

Home office furniture 

The choice of home office furniture depends on personal preferences for individual home styles. Traditionalists would choose a standard desk (preferably L-shaped to have more space to swirl), an office chair and a shelf for books and folders. 

If you want to break the situation: 

1. Risk more non-standard solutions. 
2. Use fabric furniture (shelf with pockets) to save space and look original. 
3. Replace the oversized desk with a dining table, under which there is a shelf to arrange your belongings. 

Use an old coffee table as a removable document cabinet. Pre-paint the shelves or cover them with coloured foil. Put folders, notebooks and other stationery on it. A forgotten chest of drawers can also be helpful. Combine the upper drawers into a joint compartment with a drop-down door that works as a counter top. That way, when you’re not working, the home office will remain hidden. 

If you are a fan of vintage looks, look in antique shops for an old desk. Next to it put a large white chair with a soft cushion of floral motifs. Keep only a suitable pencil case and a jug full of fresh flowers on the desk. 

Some decorators recommend that you furnish your home office with wheel furniture so you can easily reorganise the space to be as functional as possible. 

Colour mood 

Usually, office colours are reduced to black, grey, or white. But since this is a home office, no one is limiting you. Orange, yellow, blue, and green can bring the mood to the work area. 

Good organisation. Working from home doesn’t mean you have to be in trouble. Arrange paper clips, staples, and flash drives in jars or suitable boxes. Put letters and recent documents in baskets. Arrange coloured folders or panels on the shelves. 

Non-standard pencil cases. Instead of the usual pencil cases, use an old can, painted in a playful colour or wrapped in twine. Another option is to arrange three identical porcelain cups with exciting decorations. Define one for pencils and pens, the second for markers, and the third for side tools (lines, scissors, etc.). 

Reminder board. The tasks do not end – to avoid missing any, put them on a particular board. It is easiest to bet on the cork. Another more broken option is to stretch a rope on one wall or from one end of the bookshelf to the other, to which you can hang your notes with the help of clips. 

Do you want never to think about the office’s cleanliness again? Do you want to avoid wasting your employees’ time on inappropriate activities? Organising and getting quality professional office cleaning is not difficult at all. It’s just a few clicks for a monthly subscription. And the rest we will do – responsibly, qualitatively and professionally.
But to have an easy and correct relationship, we have developed several rules for professional office cleaning.

Why do we need to have rules for professional cleaning?

The rules for professional cleaning relate primarily to how we organise our work in your office. Specific requirements and clear commitments on our part – our experience shows that such cooperation is pleasant and functional for all. These rules allow us to organise the cleaning to avoid interfering with your work. We want to respond adequately and quickly to your needs, even when they change.

Rule 1: Clear services for professional office cleaning

Our first rule is related to the clear and specific list of commitments you want us to make: cleaning floors and various surfaces with a vacuum cleaner or detergents, dusting, cleaning furniture and windows, cleaning kitchens, standard and sanitary facilities, disinfection of consumables and facilities, garbage disposal, etc.

Rule 2: Specified time for professional cleaning of offices

It is good to specify the time at which to perform the cleaning. Choose specific hours for professional cleaning:

• in the morning until 9:00 AM (before your working hours)
• the evening after 6:00 PM (after your working hours)
• Saturday and Sunday (outside your working hours)

Also, choose specific days to visit the office – one or more days weekly or daily.

Rule 3: Flexibility

Of course, you can change your subscription packages and additional services for professional office cleaning if needed. You must state it in advance to react promptly and get the same quality professional office cleaning.

Rule 4: Perfect professional cleaning

Our last rule is: you always get a perfect professional cleaning from trained, experienced and responsible employees. No compromises, and at a great price.

Features of the procedures performed by good cleaning companies

When it comes to heavily soiled and particularly delicate surfaces, the use of professional cleaning companies is incomparable in terms of the quality of the result. We cannot achieve the same level of cleanliness with home remedies. Not at the same time and with equal attention to contaminated materials.

What’s different?

The difference in the results achieved by professional cleaning companies is mainly due to the specialised equipment used in performing the cleaning procedures. Whether a kitchen corner or living room sofa with textile upholstery, it matters how it is cleaned – by hand or with a professional washing extractor.
Experience combined with high competence also has an impact on the result. Which preparation is the most suitable in this case? At what depth is it permissible to work, etc.?

The difference in the activities of specialised cleaning companies is in the effort to avoid even minimal damage to the treated surfaces. Whether it is an expensive carpet, living room furniture, marble counter top and modern office equipment, the goal is to keep them perfectly clean, with absolutely no damage.
The main difference in the cleaning performed by a professional company is the financial value of the operation. Price is essential for lower and middle-income households, which is why most people still avoid using the specialised services of established companies.

Why is it worth investing in professional service?

If you have tried to clean your apartment or office after renovation, you probably know how difficult it is to dust the premises and the furniture in them. The cost of time and energy is enormous, and the effect of the operation is far from desirable.

Hiring the company to do it for you is the right decision because money is, first and foremost, a means by which we can afford to hire specialists instead of trying to achieve the cleanliness that a cleaning company would achieve. To point out, it is difficult and almost impossible with ordinary home remedies.
Professional service is undoubtedly the better option, even when it comes to basic spring cleaning, washing upholstered furniture, mattresses and cleaning floors.

People increasingly realise the convenience of hiring a professional company instead of wasting energy and long hours trying to achieve at least an average level of cleanliness in their homes and offices.

Why is it more profitable to pay for professional cleaning?

Quality home cleaning is challenging, and the situation becomes even more complicated when you have young children and pets. You should do basic cleaning more than twice a year, and of sufficient quality. Postponing it is unthinkable because it endangers the health of the inhabitants. If we do not have enough time, we can always order professional cleaning from a company.

It is not true that we are wasting money by paying for company service. The truth is that in this way, we save not only money but also valuable time and unnecessary effort. Do you find it amazing? No, this is a real opportunity you can take advantage of immediately.

To clean well, we need a vacuum cleaner, brushes, mops, microfibre towels, gloves, detergents, polishing conditioners, etc. Since we rarely buy them at once, we don’t think about how much of our budget goes for consumables. The cleaning companies use their equipment and hygiene products, which are highly modern and from a proven manufacturer. Of course, they include them in the price of the service, but it turns out to be a more cost-effective solution. Instead of repairing or buying a new vacuum cleaner because we have damaged our own, the flooring can be washed and dried with a multifunctional appliance.

The damage from inexperience

How many of us have left our favourite upholstered furniture in a helpless state in an attempt to clean it? Unaware of the requirements of different materials and chemicals to remove individual stains, we often use inappropriate detergents. They wear out, bleach and even tear the upholstery, while cleaning has taken a lot of effort. You will need additional upholstery tools that you would save by ordering professional cleaning.

The worst of the Covid pandemic might be behind us (the bad news for new case spikes across Europe notwithstanding), but London’s office and corporate world might be changed forever. And so, naturally, will all maintenance services related to it. So while some office cleaning contractors wistfully remember “the good old days”, I look toward the future and why our business might never be the same.

A Contracting Field

Fewer people are working in an office environment today than I could ever remember (fifteen years in the industry). I can see no logical reason why this trend would change. The pandemic showed managers and employees alike that working from home did not affect productivity as dramatically or negatively as previously thought. 

Yes, some industries insist on their workforce returning to the office. But a significant portion of the IT or marketing industry, for example, has become much more flexible as far as working time is concerned.

Bottomline – more people working from home means less office space taken, and therefore – decreasing demand for office cleaning. 

Entirely New Cleaning Challenges

I cannot remember a single office worker being concerned about the sanitizing and disinfection of their working place three years ago. Today, half of my customers demand a detailed breakdown of how we treat every single working station and how we ensure health safety. Covid changed the rules of the game – probably for the better. Cleaning contractors who simply went through the motions – dusting and polishing, vacuuming or mopping the floors, restocking the waste bins – are no longer competitive. 

In other words – the office cleaning field has become a struggle for the survival of the fittest.