5 Tips For Keeping Your Office Tidy

by Startacus Admin

Whether you have a home office or a work office, it is crucial that you keep this area tidy.  Not only for ease of use but for impressionable reasons.  If you have customers that need to go in this area then if it looks a mess they may get a really bad view of your company.   It sounds really easy to try and achieve a tidy office but if you are extremely busy and working hard – it is something that could slip pretty quickly.  We have summed up a few ideas on how to try and keep this tidy.

Employ a Cleaner

If you really just cannot get this right, then why not consider employing someone externally to do this for you? There are many cleaners around in all areas who would complete a basic or deep clean on your request.  Cleaners are generally not expensive and you could normally employ a person or firm for around £12-£15 an hour and they will carry out most tasks.  If you are using a firm to do this then the bonus here is that they will normally have all the materials brought with them however if you employ just an individual then you may require to supply them with them.  Be sure to check out the history of the person or company you use to make sure they are credible and reliable.  You will be giving them access to your personal or work space and it is important that they understand the sensitivity of some of the information you have and what their exact scope is. 

Get Storage Space

One of the biggest frustrations from a lot of people in an office is the pure lack of storage facilities that are available.  It is important that suffice areas are designated for items.  This will then allow for items to be away from people eyes and make the office look a little better.  One of the dangers of this is that people will then start to store away office supplies in the areas and then allow it to grow into what could be described as “junk”.  Make sure that you do not put things away that cannot be seen then forget about it.  Storage solutions in an office could involve things like filing cabinets, maybe desk drawers or even plastic storage containers for all of your office supplies.

Tidying Schedule

You will find that even the largest and most profitable companies in the UK may have very little external cleaning and look at their own employees to contribute towards this.  This could then include some sort of agreed schedule where the employees will take turns around to do different duties.  It is crucial here to get the buy in and agreement of the employees as not everyone will buy into this sort of approach.  There should then be an agreed “acceptable standard” that everyone is aware of and how this is achieved - this could include pictures.  Many companies, therefore, agree on a clean desk policy where at the end of each evening, people are expected to have nothing on their desk (sometimes there are exceptions such as a personal family photograph).  There are many initiatives that help promote this that are well known in the industry such as the “5 S” one.

Cast the Shadow

If you are the manager in the office and your desk is not tidy, then you can expect others to follow your lead and not tidy their area.  The shadow that a manager casts to their employees is extremely powerful therefore it is important to be very aware of this and take the appropriate action to ensure that you are setting the correct example.  This could be as simple as ensuring that your desk is completely tidy at the end of the day or you could go one step further and actually involve yourself in the cleaning schedules and showing the office employees that you are part of the team and committed to supporting with the activity.

Disposal of Trash

It is really easy for trash to overflow and therefore cause a mess in the office.  This could include the main trash can in an office or even smaller ones that people may store underneath their desks.  If you allow people to have the smaller ones underneath their desks, then just be aware that if they were to place things such as orange peels or fruit in this then you may start to get an accumulation of fruit flies and it could escalate to be a HSE problem.  It is important that you have internal arrangements to empty trash cans on a regular basis to ensure there is enough space for people to dispose of items and so that it also then does not become a HSE issue.

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Published on: 29th November 2018