What’s the relationship between workplace cleanliness and organizational productivity? While common sense appears to offer up the obvious answer that more work gets done in cleaner environments, it’s never a bad idea to see what actual researchers have found.
In Facilities, an academic journal devoted to best practices in professional space management, three researchers detail their findings on the relationship between workplace cleanliness and organizational productivity. In other words, they asked just how important is it to have the office clean?
Horrevorts, Van Ophem, and Terpstra – the three researchers – found that having a clean workplace correlated with having a highly productive workforce. In simplest terms, more work gets done in cleaner environments. And that’s not all. There was also a strong positive relationship between employee satisfaction levels and workplace cleanliness. Employees in the cleaner environments reported feeling better about their work and performance. This in turn can reasonably be expected to strengthen employee retention rates.
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What’s really interesting in this study is that Horrevorts, Van Ophem, and Terpstra measured office cleanliness levels based on a combination of the employee’s perceptions of the space – a subjective measure – and the amount of particulate matter in the air – an objective measure. Particulate matter is greater in spaces where common professional office cleaning procedures – things like wiping down hard surfaces and thoroughly vacuuming the carpeting – aren’t performed as regularly. Surface cleaning in particular is called out as being critical to employee productivity. It turns out when employees see dirt and grime on desks, conference tables, countertops, and so on, it diminishes their professional enthusiasm and efficiency.
As an office cleaning service in Canton, we know that our role is to help employees do their best positive work. Cleanliness is key to productivity, as well as keeping workplaces healthy. Surface cleaning helps reduce the transmission of COVID and other deadly diseases.