Does a Dirty Office Affect Productivity?

Most businesses pride themselves on their brand, doing everything they can to look and act in a presentable, professional manner, even down to the clothes that their employees are wearing.

However, for some, this effort often goes by the wayside in the office – especially if clients never visit the non-customer facing office side of a business. After all, why should additional efforts be made if your employees are the only ones who are going to experience it? However, there are actually great reasons for going the extra mile in this area.

Putting effort into maintaining a clean workplace – no matter what line of work you are in – is actually of the utmost importance; productivity, efficiency and staff happiness levels can all be directly affected by the cleanliness of the workplace, not to mention the reputation of the business can also be affected in the long run too.

So, how can implementing some cleaning rituals improve your office productivity?

Increasing Employee Focus

Clutter and mess can be extremely distracting for employees, and can often hinder productivity. Office workers can easily spend precious time looking for important documents and becoming distracted from their work as opposed to being productive, costing the company money due to the fact that work then takes longer to complete than usual. In fact, it has been estimated that time spent searching for documents can result in businesses losing the equivalent of nearly £2 million a year.

That’s not all either, as studies also suggest that an employee within an uncluttered environment will also be willing to persist with a tricky task for longer than someone who is working in a more cluttered space. Creating a clean, organised workspace can therefore increase your employee’s concentration levels, which can help keep them on track and ultimately get their work completed at a more productive pace. It also removes potential distractions during meetings. Less time wasted ultimately means a more streamlined office process!

Less Office Sickness

Failing to keep your office area clean and tidy increases the likelihood of bacteria building up, often leading to a higher chance of office sickness epidemics becoming a problem.

The nature of an office already makes it easy for illness to spread through your employees like wildfire. An average office keyboard can easily contain more than 7,000 kinds of bacteria at any one time, and what’s more a virus like influenza can remain upon an unclean surface for up to 24 hours. Failing to keep the office clean can therefore exacerbate the spread of illness and potentially make them worse.

In an ideal world, employees wouldn’t get sick and need to take time off, but sometimes it just cannot be avoided. Illness causes interruption to business operations, and as a manager you will want to reduce the chances of illnesses thriving in your office. The first port of call should be ensuring that your office is cleaned regularly to remove build up of bacteria and ensure that any unhygienic areas are paid close attention to. In terms of creating a cleaner office environment, the required steps are generally simple, with the most common practices being:

• Emptying bins regularly (and making sure it’s not the same employees doing it). 
• Regular cleaning of electronic equipment. Printers, photocopiers and computers can silently accumulate dust that not only houses germs, but also presents a fire hazard and affects performance. 
• Encouraging a clean desk policy, and allowing only current work items or essential equipment to remain on the desk surface. 
• Instating daily desk cleans of just 5 or 10 minutes to keep on top of clutter and uncleanliness. 
• Encouraging deep cleans of the office when the business can accomodate the time, such as during quieter periods or when employees are working ahead of schedule.

Creating a Positive Company Culture

As we mentioned above, how your company presents itself is extremely important. An office should be seen as an extension of your brand, even if your clients will never normally see that side of your business. Employees spend more time in work during their waking hours than at home (on average), so helping them to keep positive is a necessity.

By creating a clean, healthy atmosphere in the office, you’ll notice a drastic and positive change in how your employees view your brand, which then tends to filter down through to your clients – they’ll prefer to interact with someone who is happy and proud of their brand, making relationships with your business more positive in the long run! Aside from keeping a clean and tidy office, you can also improve company culture with your office design itself, taking into account further things like:

• Installing comfortable desks and chairs, and efficient monitors to alleviate discomfort. 
• Effective lighting or, if possible, natural lighting. 
• Break out spaces. Not only do these allow a space for refreshment, but they also encourage employees to eat away from their desks, which helps you to keep on top of cleanliness. 
• Room fresheners and efficient ventilation.  

Creating a Clean Positive Office

It’s important to get your employees involved in the process of creating a cleaner office to help increase their own productivity. Many people don’t understand the link between clutter and lack of concentration, and so lapses when getting things done are common. Making them aware of this issue can help get them motivated to do a better job, and maybe even enable them to enjoy their workdays more within a clean, fresh-feeling office. In fact, statistically more than half of employees experience greater levels of motivation if their workplace is equipped to make cleanliness as easy as possible.

So, far from being a practice that at best only benefits your employees, and at worst benefits no-one, promoting and maintaining a clean office actually has numerous benefits to your staff, your business efficiency and, ultimately, your customers too. At Taski, we’re dedicated to helping you keep your office and business environments both clean and productive, and as well as keeping you informed we also manufacture high efficiency vacuum cleaners that can assist you with this.

Making cleaning as easy as possible is a great way to maximise the chance that such an office culture will be embraced, so these solutions will be of great use to you. If you’d like to know more about how our products might help you improve cleaning standards in your own workplace or office, don’t hesitate to contact us today.