This article is part of the school of coworking course through Archie. Make sure to check out the other articles to learn more about how to start a coworking space business.?
Maintaining cleanliness in your coworking space is essential in today’s climate. You want to be sure that your coworking space is known as a secure and safe environment for everyone who comes in. To do this, there are a few steps that you need to follow.
1. Set cleanliness protocols
The first thing you need to do to make sure that your space meets all the cleaning requirements is set some for yourself. You can’t expect your members to stay and have cleaning requirements for themselves if you don’t have any set in place for your space.
Some tips for creating protocols:
- Think about your space and how you want to approach cleanliness: Your space is unique and you should set time to think about what would be the best approach for you in terms of cleanliness.
- Consider a coworking management software: A coworking management software can help you organize the members in your space and allow you to track their needs and movements and what exactly needs to be cleaned and when. Make sure you keep track of check-ins and that you do a thorough run-through of all the spaces after they are used.
- Try requiring people to clean after themselves: You can set some rules to require your members to clean after they use the space. For example, you can post some rules in certain rooms to tell people to pick up their trash and put everything back in order.
- Promote hygiene to all your members in various ways: You could try promoting hygiene and cleanliness through little reminders throughout your space. For example, you could have a hand sanitizing station outside a conference room with a sign to sanitize your hands before entering the room. This will encourage members to stay as clean as possible.
- Provide cleaning products for your members to use: It’s important that your bathrooms are always stocked with soap and anything else that your members may need to be clean. Make sure you have hand sanitizer at various different spots throughout your space.
2. Clean every surface every day
This is often an afterthought, but surfaces need to be sanitized constantly. With so many people moving in and out of your space using rooms and desks between each other, it’s crucial that everything is consistently disinfected.
Before figuring out how often to disinfect think about your space and its traffic. If you have a big space with lots of members, then it might be a good idea to disinfect it. However, if your space is smaller and has fewer members, you want to time the cleaning to what you see fit. You want to ensure that you are not compromising the air quality with too many cleaning products at once.
A good idea is also to make sure that all desktop accessories and other small trinkets are taken care of as well when you are cleaning since they can often get overlooked and are the things that are touched most often.
3. Focus on air quality
A great way to bring more sanitation to your space is to give attention to the air quality. If the air quality is poor then germs and bacteria can also travel through it, as well as lots of dust and other allergens, making your members sick and possibly triggering their allergies. Improving the air quality can mean a lot of different things, and there are a few good ways to do it.
How to improve air quality:
- Invest in a good air filter or air purifier: Depending on how big your space is and how it’s structured, a good idea would be to invest in a very good air purifier.
- Check your air filtration system: A good idea is to check your air filtration system or AC system to make sure that everything is working properly. Do this regularly so that you can be sure that everything works as it’s supposed to.
- Buy some plants: A great way to make the air cleaner is to go the natural way and invest in a lot of plants that can help freshen up your space.
- Keep your space overall clean: The more regularly your space is, the better your air quality is going to be. If you vacuum and remove dust consistently, the air will be much cleaner, but be careful to not overdo it with chemicals and cleaning products as those can also be quite toxic and harmful for people to breathe in.
4. Strategically place waste bins
Placing waste bins like garbage cans and recycling bins throughout your coworking space is very important to keeping your space clean and reducing waste. A good idea may be to have a few garbage cans in specific and designated areas such as common areas. This is to reduce the number of bins you will have by not placing them in each office and keeping them in centralized locations.
By doing this, you may also reduce the waste that is made by your members, as they will think more carefully about the waste they produce if the bins are not conveniently close to them.
5. Hire professionals
A great idea is to hire professional cleaners to come and take care of your coworking space regularly. If your space is large, or if you simply have too much on your hands or don’t want to delegate the cleaning duties to one of your employees, a good idea might just be to leave it to the professionals.
Hiring a cleaning team can be very beneficial to you, as they will be more likely to know exactly what to clean and how and do a thorough job with it, and be more efficient with it. You can tell them the concerns you have for your space and set a regular time for them to come and clean your space. This will also take something off your plate, so if you can fit it in your budget, this might be a great option for you.
Conclusion
Cleanliness in your coworking space is a very big part of the overall experience of your members and users. You want to be sure to do everything you can to create a clean and safe environment that your members feel comfortable coming in. Whether it means hiring professionals or focusing on your air quality, there will always be something you can do to improve the cleanliness of your coworking space.
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