The ultimate office spring cleaning guide

A clean desk makes you feel more at ease. It gives you a better outlook and helps you work better as you’re able to stay more organised and easily find important information, notes and tools when you need them.  

Desk cleaning may look less important but it directly impacts your productivity. The tidier your workspace, the more productivity is guaranteed. 

Imagine your desk with papers and stationery you don't need, just lying around and collecting dust, doesn’t sound like a great place to work right? 

The best way to start cleaning your desktop is to remove all the unnecessary items that might accumulate over time such as: 

• Old stationary 
• Old documents 
• Old electric equipment (hard drives calculators etc) 

It’s also a good idea to utilise items such as desk organisers and seperators to keep items such as stationary and your reading glasses neatly organised and to hand when you need them.  

Once that is complete the next step is to give your desk a whip down with some disinfectant. If the COVID years have taught us anything is how easily germs can spread so it’s a good idea to make sure your desktop is properly sanitised, particularly during flu season.  

You now have cleared your desk so that you can focus on what really matters - your job. This way, you will be able to maintain a neat and tidy environment for yourself. 

Proper organization of your desk drawers is the first step in reducing clutter in your office. With this, you’re able to find important items easily. 

Discarding any unnecessary paper from your drawers means that you can keep your drawers clean and free up space. However, it is important to ensure any documents are stored and disposed of correctly to ensure you are still compliant with GDPR and other data laws.  

Professional services such as document shredding and storage can help ensure important paper work is managed properly in a legally compliant manner. 

The first step is to remove unwanted files from your work laptop. Cleaning your computer will free up space on your laptop and make it run faster. A virtual cleaner is a type of app that will help you clean up the clutter on your computer by getting rid of unnecessary files, temporary files, cache, and junk data so that it runs more smoothly. 

Another way to clean your laptop is with an anti-static spray and wipe it down with an anti-static cloth. It will remove all the germs that may cause infection later. 

It’s important to remember that any important business files on your laptop are stored correctly and backups are in place to ensure important and personal business information doesn’t leak. Offsite tape storage as well as digital backups in stored in the cloud is the best way to ensure this doesn’t happen.

This segment of our spring cleaning guide will go over conference rooms. Because so many people enter and exit frequently, these workplace locations tend to become disorganized over time. You can improve your workspace by getting rid of clutter and forgotten dust during spring cleaning. This guide can be a starting point for spring cleaning the conference room. 

Vacuuming and moderate carpet shampooing are sufficient for daily use. Still, you should engage in a more complete treatment at least once a year. Your office's traffic will determine how frequently you do this. Extensive cleaning can be necessary once every three months or every month if there is a lot of foot activity. If not, occasionally or twice a year might be OK. A time when your office is closed or barely operational is ideal for deep cleaning.  

The conference room is simple to clean and sterilize after usage by having a packet of disposable cleaning wipes available. Meeting organizers should clean the desk, phone, keyboard, computer mouse, and other high-touch areas to stop the transmission of germs across the office. 

Spring cleaning provides an opportunity to reorganize. The layout of your conference room will determine what you should arrange specifically. Give your staff a new workspace to think and produce by removing old files, donating books, and cleaning old offices. If you have a professional cleaning staff, they can perform many spring cleaning duties. Still, the workers might be most suited for this one.  

In the meeting room, is there a specific chair everyone knows to avoid? Perhaps a table in the conference room has a shaky leg, or a shelf in the closet is clinging on by a thread. Whatever the situation, it's time to make a permanent change. Suppose you need to purchase whole new furniture. In that case, the remainder of your spring cleaning activities will allow you to place it in a freshly cleaned setting. 

A reception area can draw customers and provide them with a good image of your company. Maintaining this area in a beautiful condition should be a top priority if you receive a lot of visitors and clients.  

Given that your customer or business partner will wait in the reception, you should create a welcoming environment. Include entertaining facilities like television, magazine, and some wholesome refreshments to assist them in passing the time while they are waiting. Keep water bottles, recently cut flowers, spotless couches, revitalizing air freshener, pristine carpets, and some free coffee around. They would benefit as well from a relaxing waiting time. 

One of the most important things you can do to make the reception area safe for your customer is regularly sanitising door handles and other equipment. Door handles are one of the most commonly touched surfaces in any building. They can quickly become contaminated with bacteria and viruses. Regularly cleaning and disinfecting door handles can help stop the spread of illness-causing germs. 

If the reception area has a bathroom, make sure that you clean and sanitize it regularly. If you have an unhygienic and filthy bathroom, you can lose your potential customers for your business.  

As your business's first point of contact, your reception area needs to make a good impression on visitors. This means keeping it clean and tidy, which includes taking care of any plants in the space. If you have neglected plants in your reception area, now is the time to give them some attention. 

First, assess the condition of the plants. Are they dead, dying, or just needing a little TLC? It may be time to invest in new plants if they are beyond saving. Once you have determined which plants can be protected, it's time to work. 

Start by giving the plants a good watering. You may also need to add some fresh potting mix if they are potted plants. Once they are hydrated, they will be better able to absorb nutrients from fertilizer. With some care and attention, you can get your neglected plants back to good health in no time. 

Office kitchens and break rooms are areas where company employees can unwind and relax during their lunch break. It offers a relaxing view and a place to sit and intends to provide a healthy mental vacation from work, inspiring people to be creative and generate new ideas. 

As one of the communal hot spots in your office, these areas can often get rather messy, cluttered and unorganised. Making sure you give these areas a good spring clean can help improve the well-being of your staff and colleagues and help increase productivity.   

Use a clean cloth to clean the kitchen tables, chairs, cabinets, and countertops. After that it’s best to start wiping the sinks and the shelves in your cupboards and fridge as this will assist in clearing up any leftover debris. 

Clean the kitchen's appliances, including the microwave and refrigerator. Ensure that you always clean the inside of your appliances as directed by the makers, using their cleaning suggestions. Utilize drying equipment like an air mover. This will help the floor dry quickly because the kitchen and break room area are the areas of the office that get used the most. 

It's unhealthy to leave trash anywhere besides the trash container. Garbage will not only produce germs but will also draw insects and rats. You clearly don't want to expose your staff and the office kitchens to these unpleasant smells that come from trash. 

In addition to posing a health risk, leaving waste in the kitchen could result in additional expenses for your management. You must hire an exterminator if, for instance, the rubbish attracts rodents if you want to prevent an infestation. 

To preserve their health, regularly take out the trash. There shouldn't be any trash accumulating in the kitchen. People will get sick if there are rodents and pathogens nearby. 

When it comes to spring cleaning your office, document shredding can be a vital tool. Over the course of the year, you have probably accumulated a large number of documents around the office.  

But what do you do with all these documents when you don’t need them anymore? Throwing them away is the first option that comes to mind. But if said documents contain sensitive customer and business information then the risk of confidential information being leaked is quite high. 

In these instances, professional document shredding is the best option to deal with any paperwork during your office spring clean by providing you and your business with a legally compliant solution to dispose of unwanted documents.  

The following are the reasons why document shredding is important for an office spring clean: 

Clears Space 

Who wants a ton of unorganized paperwork and old documents lying around in their office? It doesn't look pleasant and is not practical. In addition to giving you more space for anything you want, shredding your documents will also make the area look much better. 

A Legal Requirement 

Businesses are required by law to protect the identity and confidentiality of their employees and customers. Paper copies of private information will be more freely accessible than those saved in a password-protected database.  

As a result, these documents mustn't fall into the hands of the wrong people. You must hire a company to do commercial document shredding to protect your company from this threat. 

Moreover, the government has established penalties for those who violate its privacy laws, and these fines can amount to as much as 4% of their annual global turnover. 

Prevents Identity Fraud 

Anyone can steal someone's identity using any document that contains personal information. Identity thieves may use your personal information from documents you discard without shredding to apply for credit and debit cards or passports in your name. 

You may wonder how likely someone would search your trash cans for confidential records, but it does happen. 

Time-Saving  

You can save time and effort by using confidential document shredding services. You will save time and effort by allowing companies to shred your documents on your behalf. This gives workers more time to concentrate on important tasks and carry out their regular day-to-day work. 

Check out our confidential shredding services, designed to destroy sensitive documents safely to protect your business and customers. 

Similar to document shredding, when carrying out your office spring clean you might encounter old IT equipment such as hard drives, computers and laptops you no longer need. 

Disposing of these items isn’t as simple as throwing them in the bin. Sometimes they can contain sensitive business information and other times they can be recycled and reused by another person or organisation. With these instances in mind, IT asset disposal is the perfect solution as it securely disposes of old equipment to ensure data protection is adhered to. 

The benefits of IT disposal are given below: 

Green IT Disposal  

The environment is also at risk from outdated and deteriorating IT equipment. E-waste can contaminate land and groundwater if it is not correctly disposed of. According to United Nations Environment, improper recycling techniques might expose workers to chemicals like mercury and lead. According to UN News, 50 million tonnes of electronic garbage are thrown away annually, more than the combined weight of all commercial aircraft ever produced.  

The IT asset disposal companies can offer your company a comprehensive and sustainable IT disposal service to manage unwanted IT assets effectively and efficiently while conforming to the required compliance standards and audit requirements. 

Simplify A Difficult Task 

Regardless of the size of a firm, disposing of IT assets can feel overwhelming, given the volume that even tiny businesses and solo owners can produce. After all, it can take time to determine which IT assets are in use. Even if some companies monitor every keystroke their employees make, it may be clarified whether they keep their five-pound business computers at home. 

The wisest course of action is to leave IT asset disposition to experts. In fact, according to Recycling Today, the percentage of outsourced IT asset dispositions increased from 70% to 87% between 2015 and 2016. Partnering with an IT asset disposal company takes care of all the hard work for you whilst ensuring all the correct legal requirements are adhered to as well as providing you with a full audit trail for your records. 

Document storage can play an important role in an office spring clean. When clearing out our desk and other areas of the office, you might come across important paperwork that you don’t need right now, but may need in the future, or, under certain laws and regulations need to keep this to hand for auditing and other legal requirements. 

In these instances you have 2 options: 

• On-site document storage 
• Offsite document storage 

Storing your documents on site is the first course of action using filing cabinets and storage boxes. However, this can often lead your office space to become cluttered – not what you want after you’ve carried out your office spring cleaning task. 

Additionally, it can be irritating and time-consuming to quickly locate a crucial document, even if you’ve chosen to store said documents in a storage unit or container. This is where offsite document storage is your best friend.  

Document storage should be a priority for any office. This is because document storage provides an easy way to store records and saves time that would otherwise be wasted on physically finding and managing your documents. The following are the reasons for the importance of document storage: 

Strengthen Data Security 

Storing your documents offsite in a secure storage facility, designed to keep your documents safe. Document storage facilities have all the necessary security facilities in place to keep your documents protected and follow all the necessary rules and regulations to ensure your business stays legally compliant. 

Organize Your Workplace 

Document storage helps you spring clean and declutter your office by storing your documents offsite. As we move towards a consistently more paperless world, there are a lot of instances in business where hard copies of documents are still needed but not in the day-to-day running of your business. Storing said documents offsite ensures your workspace is kept clean and clutter-free whilst also giving you peace of mind they are still there when you need them.  

Vault Document Storage 

Vault storage or archive storage is the perfect spring cleaning solution when you need to store important and business-critical documents such as wills and deeds. 

Vulnerabilities to critical business documents often arise from improper maintenance or fire and temperature-related events. Vault storage provides you with an extra layer of protection against these hazards by providing fire prevention, temperature control, and unparalleled security with advanced locking mechanisms. 

Better Access 

Partnering with a document management company means that you have access to your documents whenever you need them once they are in storage. 

Storing your documents in a unit or container at a storage facility means you must take time out of your day to drive to the venue to collect your documents, not to mention the time it will take to find them as well.