Clean restrooms in office buildings make a big impact on both visitors’ and employees’ impression of the facility’s management.

In fact, 71% say that a dirty restroom makes them believe that the management is uninterested in properly maintaining the building. As restrooms are among the top three complaints reported in large office buildings, creating a process that will ensure that your building’s restrooms are spotless will delight tenants and visitors alike.

Read on for tips and tricks that will help maintain clean restrooms in office buildings, regardless of the amount of foot traffic you see every day.

Determine a Metric For Clean Restrooms in Office Buildings

Not only does it improve your reputation as an effective manager to maintain clean restrooms, but it’s required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. This is a branch of the US Department of Labor, and they’ve got definite opinions about maintaining a clean and safe work environment for employees— including the restrooms. OSHA’s guidelines require a sanitary restroom, and failure to adhere to their standards can result in fines.

As the property manager or building owner, you regularly do visual inspections as you walk through the building. It’s also a good idea to revisit the different aspects of the restroom that need daily attention:

  • Cleanliness— Check every part of the restroom, including the toilets, urinals, sinks, floors, and mirrors, ensuring that they’re completely debris-free and sparkling clean.
  • Supplies— There are a lot of different supplies that a restroom must have to be considered well-stocked. Toilet paper is a must, as are hand towels and amply-filled soap dispensers.
  • Functionality— There’s nothing worse than a malfunction in the restroom. Be sure that the toilets, sinks, soap dispensers, door locks, and hand dryers are all working properly.
  • Dryness— Restrooms are prone to puddles, but these are not just unsightly, but also hazardous. Keep the sinks dry and the floors mopped.

Create Specifications Lists for Clean Bathrooms in Office Buildings

The most efficient way to keep clean bathrooms in office buildings is to break up the cleaning strategy into a few different components. Here are the ways to ensure that your restrooms are always in tip-top shape:

Routine Spot Cleaning

For larger buildings, day porters are often hired by the cleaning service for routine spot cleaning throughout the day. This is a quick sweep that’s conducted at different points throughout the day. Day porters keep an eye out for supplies getting low, wipe down the sinks, check the toilets and ensure that the soap dispensers are stocked.

Daily Restroom Cleaning

A daily cleaning is a more intensive cleaning and sanitization of the restroom that’s typically conducted at a time of day that doesn’t see a whole lot of traffic, as a proper cleaning will require that the restroom’s closed to the public. The cleaning should include:

  • Remove trash from all waste cans
  • Restock supplies, including hand towels, toilet paper, and soap
  • Ensure the functionality of the plumbing and fixtures
  • Sanitize the restroom’s hot spots— the spots that are prone to germs, bacteria, and viruses— like the restroom doors, toilets, faucet handles, urinals, changing stations, and light switches
  • Disinfect surfaces with spray disinfectant
  • Sweep or vacuum the floors to pick up extra debris
  • Mop the floors to remove puddles and to make it clean

Deep Restroom Cleaning

This cleaning is more thorough than the other cleanings, and it should be performed on a scheduled basis. Whether that’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly depends on the amount of traffic your restroom sees on a daily basis. Like daily cleaning, the deep cleaning should be done when there aren’t a lot of people around, as you’ll need to close the restroom to do the job right. Here are the tasks performed during a deep cleaning:

  • Dust the corners, ceilings, vents, fans, door frames, and baseboards
  • Wipe down partition walls to remove dust and soil
  • Remove soil from the grout, build-up around fixtures, walls and anywhere else you might see soil
  • Scrub floors with floor machine for deep cleaning. This will likely incur an additional charge and will be a part of the building’s overall floor maintenance program
  • Make any repairs that are necessary, to broken fixtures or any other repair that might need to be made.

Prioritizing Clean Restrooms in Office Buildings

Filthy restrooms are more than just gross; they’re a health hazard. The restroom is among the most frequently visited places in your building— most people visit it 3-4 times a day every work day— and when it’s poorly maintained, it can be a hotbed for potentially dangerous germs and viruses. With the average adult spending at least 53% of their waking hours at their jobs, they’re likely to fall victim to the sickness that’s lurking behind a dirty restroom.

How do you ensure that your building’s restrooms are as clean as they can be? One way is to hire a professional janitorial service. These trained professionals will use state-of-the-art techniques and materials to keep your restrooms clean and hygienic.

Ready to take your office cleaning to the next level? Contact us today!