We all know that office design has changed quite a bit in the past decade. The traditional format, one person, one office, or maybe even a few people one office, is gone. Now we have large open areas where many people work together. Referred to as “open workspaces,” the concept started in tech settings as well as in media and advertising offices, mainly to encourage collaborating and teamwork.

Now many locations from insurance companies to alternative offices, where many people having their own businesses rent work areas, have gotten on the open workspace bandwagon. Along with the change in how these offices look, another change has been the “punch clock.” With many locations, workers set their own schedules, so the traditional 9 to 5 is now out the window.

When asked, employers often report that they love the open workspace concept. They like to see their staff all working together. Many of the top people in companies have their own offices in the open workspace area as well.

But when the staff is asked their thoughts, many have mixed feelings about the concept, mainly because there is a lack of privacy and often a lot of noise throughout the day.

However, rarely is another group of people asked what they think of open workspaces, and that is the cleaning people who must clean them. Because the cleaning work in open workspaces invariably must be done while people are still using the office, some of the big concerns cleaning people have about open workspaces include the following:

• It slows them down when people are still in the office when they are cleaning
• Often they must stop working, such as vacuuming, because someone is on the phone; this is called the “wave off,’ a term used when office staffers wave off the cleaners to come by later for
• Safety becomes a bigger issue when more people are using the office
• Cleaning needs are amplified; because more people are using the same space, more areas must be detail cleaned and disinfected. Disease can spread much faster in an open office, and effective cleaning is one of the primary ways to prevent this.

Timing is Key

One way to tackle many of these problems is to adjust the time when an open space office is cleaned. In millions of office spaces around North America, facilities are traditionally cleaned in the evening, often starting around 5 pm. Depending on the location and the industry, an open workspace office may have a very high “density” around 5 pm. This means there are many people still at work and using the office at this time.

Because no two open office workspaces are necessarily the same, the building manager should determine the best time for the cleaning workers to come in. This is so important, it should be written into the scope of services and requests for proposals. In some cases, the contractor will have to pay workers more to come in at odd or unusual hours, and this added cost will need to be reflected in their bids.

While we did say no two locations are necessarily the same when it comes to how many people will be working in the facility at one time, very often having the bulk of the cleaning performed in the early morning hours works out best. There are often fewer people, and the facility can be freshly cleaned to help workers off to a clean and healthy start of their day.

Taking Charge with Structure

Let’s say that cleaning the space early in the morning is not an option and that managers prefer that the open space office is cleaned after 5 pm. The only way this will work and work effectively is for the cleaning staff to set a work schedule… and hold the office staff to it.

Such a work schedule might look like this:

• From 5 pm to 7 pm distinct sets of restrooms will be cleaned; this ensures restrooms are always available to building users, but also notifies them when specific restrooms will be closed for cleaning
• From 7 pm to 8 pm, trash will be collected
• From 8 pm to 9 pm, food service areas will be closed for cleaning
• Also from 8 pm to 10 pm, all desktops, counters, shared workstations, shared electronics will be cleaned and disinfected
• Vacuuming as well as hard surface floor cleaning begins at 10 pm
• The remaining time would be for special cleaning projects performed on a weekly or monthly basis (high and low cleaning; floor scrubbing, floor polishing, etc.)

During these set times, if cleaning workers are given a wave off, they should be instructed to tell office workers they will come back one more time, but if they cannot clean then, the area will not be cleaned that night.

There are three keys to the success of such a program.

First, everyone using the facility, cleaning crew and office workers, must be thoroughly aware of what areas are being cleaned and when. We need everyone on the same page.

Second, such a program requires a degree of flexibility. Too much flexibility and the cleaning program will lose all structure and essentially fall apart. However, there may be times when large groups of office workers are meeting at specific times and need certain areas available to them. In such cases, cleaning workers will need to be flexible, and adjust their schedules accordingly.

Third, and possibly foremost, the entire program needs a high degree of courtesy. Both office workers and cleaning workers must understand they both have a significant role to play. Kindness and courtesy among all the players ensures that cleaning is performed efficiently and with minimal disruption.

Ron Segura is president of Segura Associates. His company works with organizations to help them streamline their cleaning and building operations as well as promote sustainability and healthier cleaning strategies so that facilities function more effectively and efficiently and realize a cost savings. He can be reached through his company website at https://www.seguraassociates.com.