Ask ten office managers how often their space gets cleaned and you'll get ten different answers. One has a cleaner in every night. Another has someone pop in on Fridays. A surprising number have no real schedule at all, just a quiet hope that somebody will notice when the kitchen gets out of hand.
What Actually Decides the Answer
Square metres matter less than you'd think. What matters more is how many people move through the space and what they touch while they're there.
- Headcount. Twenty people go through far more coffee cups, bin liners and bathroom visits than five.
- Visitors. If clients, candidates or patients walk through your front door, reception and meeting rooms need to be right every single day.
- Shared kitchens and bathrooms. These are the first places a missed clean shows up. Nobody complains about a dusty shelf, but everybody notices a bathroom that has been left for two days.
- Hot desking. When desks are shared, the same keyboard and mouse might belong to four different people in a week. Surfaces need wiping more often.
- Floors. Carpet hides dirt until it suddenly doesn't. Hard floors show every scuff and every muddy footprint from a wet Melbourne morning.
A Rough Guide by Office Type
Treat these as starting points, not rules.
| Type of office | Sensible starting point |
|---|---|
| Small office, under 10 people, few visitors | 2 to 3 times a week |
| Mid-sized office, 10 to 50 people | Every working day |
| Client-facing or reception-heavy | Every working day, with extra attention on entry and meeting rooms |
| Hot desking or shared workspace | Every working day, with a focus on shared surfaces |
| Large corporate floors | Every working day, plus scheduled deep cleans |
What Gets Done and When
Not everything needs doing daily. A good plan works in layers.
| How often | What it usually covers |
|---|---|
| Daily | Bins and recycling, bathrooms, kitchen benches and sinks, high-touch points, floors in busy areas, reception |
| Weekly | Full vacuum and mop, desk wipe downs, dusting of surfaces and ledges, glass and partitions, fridge clean-out |
| Monthly | Skirting boards, light fittings and vents, detailed kitchen clean, deeper bathroom scrub |
| Once or twice a year | Carpet cleaning, window cleaning, duct cleaning |
The Germ Factor, Especially in Winter
Anyone who has worked in a Melbourne office in July knows how fast a cough travels. Door handles, lift buttons, kettle handles, fridge doors and the shared printer are the things every hand lands on sooner or later.
Cleaning won't stop every bug doing the rounds. What it does is cut down the number of surfaces passing them along, and wiping down those high-touch points every day is one of the simplest ways to do that.
Signs Your Current Schedule Isn't Enough
You don't need a formal audit. Your office will tell you.
- Bins are overflowing by mid-afternoon
- Staff have started bringing in their own spray and cloths
- You can write your name in the dust on a monitor stand
- Nobody wants to open the fridge
- Carpet shows a clear path from the front door to the kitchen
- People quietly use the bathroom on another floor
If two or three of those sound familiar, it's time to add a visit or extend the scope.
And Signs You Might Be Overpaying
It works the other way too. If half your meeting rooms sit empty and the team works from home three days a week, a full clean every night may be more than you need. Cleaning a room nobody used is mostly just moving dust from one place to another.
A good cleaner will tell you this honestly, even if it means fewer visits. If yours never suggests a change, ask them.
Don't Forget the Jobs That Aren't on the Weekly List
A few jobs sit outside the regular routine but make a big difference to how the office feels.
- [Carpet cleaning](/commercial-carpet-cleaning/): Vacuuming lifts the surface dirt, but embedded grime needs a proper deep clean. Once or twice a year suits many offices, and high-traffic areas may need it more often.
- [Window cleaning](/window-cleaning-melbourne/): Clean glass makes a space feel brighter and looks better to visitors.
- [Duct cleaning](/duct-cleaning-in-melbourne/): If your office has ducted heating and cooling, the ducts collect dust over the years.
How to Set a Schedule Without Guesswork
- 1Walk through as if you were a visitor. Start at the front door. What do you notice first?
- 2Watch what gets used. Kitchens, bathrooms and reception take the most wear. Storerooms and spare offices usually don't.
- 3Start a little higher than you think you need. Run it for a month, then trim back once you can see how the space holds up.
- 4Ask your cleaner for feedback. They see the office when nobody else does.
- 5Review it every few months. Headcount, hours and office layout all change, and your cleaning plan should change with them.
Not Sure Where Your Office Sits?
We're happy to take a look. Our office and corporate cleaning plans are built around your space, your team and your budget, and we'll give you a straight recommendation on how often you actually need us. Get a quote or call 1300 60 7110.
