Four Places in Your Office That Are Dirtier Than You Think

By Jared Sarbit

Aside from your home, you spend majority of your day at the office. It is your home away from home, which is perhaps the reason why you never stopped to think about how dirty it may be.
Germs linger all around your work space, leaving you at risk to potential infection and illnesses. After this article, we can guarantee you will be breaking out the hand wipes.

The Four Dirtiest Places

It doesn’t take a germaphobe to be grossed out by the amount of germs we’re exposed to daily in our offices. Some of the dirtiest places in your office may surprise you.

The Office Landline

Are you required to use a landline phone at work? Take a moment to consider how many people use that phone on a day-to-day basis. It’s no shock to us the amount of illness-inducing bacteria that can be found on the mouthpiece.
Do you have a co-worker that spits when they talk? Guess what is right in their line of fire.
To head off health hassles from bacteria and viruses, clean your phone daily with electronic-safe cleaners.
Don’t be fooled! Cell phones are a germ safe haven as well!

Your Keyboard & Desktop

How often do you eat at your desk? Did you know that eating at your desk can introduce numerous bacteria onto your keyboard and desktop through crumbs and food particles?
If that is not gross enough, consider the amount of times you have touched your nose, eyes, or mouth, then touched the keyboard. It’s no wonder that illnesses can spread through an office like wildfire!
When we are sick, we discard our toothbrushes, clean our bed sheets and disinfect everything in the house to prevent the spread of the illness. Thankfully, we don’t need to toss our peripherals- keeping your keyboard and desktop germ free is just as easy. Wipe down your keyboard and desktop with disinfectant daily.

Elevator Buttons

Is your office in a one floor building? If so, feel free to skip this one as you’re likely safe from this haven of germs.
Take a moment to consider the amount of people each day that press the elevator buttons. Where have all their hands been?
Perhaps they were polite enough to cover their mouths from a sneeze just moments before and are now sharing it with the rest of the office by using the same hand to press the elevator button.
You’d look quite bizarre disinfecting the elevator buttons every morning on your way up. That’s why we are suggesting you try to wash your hands immediately after reaching your floor. At the very least, avoid touching your face until you do so.

Office Washrooms

Perhaps the most obvious and filthiest place of them all, office washrooms are home to countless germs everywhere you touch.
Did you know that flushing a toilet creates and invisible spray of water and germs up to a metre in the air? Essentially, every time you flush an uncovered toilet, you are covering the nearby area in your “business”.
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No problem, washing your hands will remove all the germs, right? Sadly, no. Although you may thoroughly wash your hands, others may not. This means the remaining germs on their hands are being transferred via touch to the door handle, paper towel dispenser, and more.

Office Germ Control Techniques

Now that you’ve been informed about all the nasty germs in the office and where they live, we wouldn’t be surprised that you’d want to learn how to control them.

Electronic Safe Cleaners. Use electronic safe cleaners to wipe down any equipment in the office that could be home to germs. Equipment such as printers and phones that are used by multiple people should be wiped down at least one a day.

Disinfectant Wipes. In addition to electronic cleaners, use disinfectant wipes to ensure all surfaces have been thoroughly eliminated of bacteria, viruses, and other harmful germs waiting for you to touch them.

Practice Proper Hand Washing Techniques. Handwashing is one of the easiest and best ways to protect yourself and your family from getting sick. Wet your hands with clean water, then lather them with soap. Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds before rinsing (don’t forget to wash under your fingernails). Dry your hands with paper towel or an air dryer.

Hire a qualified cleaning company – Okay, we’re obviously biased here, but the truth is the truth! Regular cleaning reduces infection, keeps offices healthy, and keeps the environment productive.

Workplace Cleanliness… That’s Our Business!

Are you interested in learning more? Read our post on on how workplace cleanliness influences productivity– you might be surprised on what you learn!
Of course, it goes without saying that if you’re looking for a cleaning partner to take care of your commercial space, we’d love to hear from you!

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The Hidden Cost of In-House Cleaning

A wage comparison only tells part of the story. Here’s what usually gets left out:

Wages and Benefits

Payroll is usually the first number people look at when they think about cleaning costs, but it rarely tells the whole story. Supplies, equipment, manager oversight, scheduling headaches, and the inevitable sick days all add up over time. By the time you account for everything, the true cost of keeping cleaning in-house can look very different from what’s on the payroll report. That’s exactly what our cost comparison tool is designed to help you see, along with what outsourcing might save.

Supplies and Equipment

Cleaning products, paper goods, vacuums, floor machines, and the replacement parts that keep them running all add up over the course of a year. Businesses that clean in-house often buy retail-grade supplies at retail prices because they don’t have access to the commercial pricing that a cleaning company gets from its suppliers. Equipment also breaks down, and replacing a vacuum or floor buffer every few years is a cost that rarely gets planned for in advance.

Management Time

Somebody has to schedule shifts, check the quality of the work, order more supplies when they run low, and step in when something gets missed. That’s real time pulled from a manager’s actual job, and it rarely gets assigned a dollar value, even though it should. If a facilities manager or office lead spends even a few hours a week on cleaning oversight, that’s time not spent on the parts of their role that actually move the business forward.

Absenteeism and Coverage Gaps

Sick days and missed shifts are part of running any team. When they happen, the work still has to get done, which usually means paying someone else to cover the shift or accepting that some tasks will have to wait. Over the course of a year, those extra costs can become surprisingly significant. There’s another effect that’s harder to measure, too. When cleaning is inconsistent, people notice. Employees notice it, clients notice it, and visitors notice it, even if they couldn’t tell you exactly why the space feels different.

Cost Category	What It Covers
Wages & Benefits	Annual pay for in-house cleaning staff
Supplies & Equipment	Products, tools, and machine upkeep
Management Time	Hours spent scheduling and supervising
Absenteeism	Missed shifts and last-minute coverage

Why Outsourcing Often Comes Out Ahead

Once you’ve seen your own numbers, the reasons behind the gap start to make sense.

Predictable Pricing

A cleaning company quote covers labor, supplies, and equipment on a single line. You know what you’re paying before the work starts, and that number doesn’t shift because someone called in sick or a vacuum broke down. Budgeting gets easier when the cost of cleaning is a single line item rather than four separate ones scattered across payroll, supplies, and management time.

No Coverage Gaps

When a member of an in-house cleaning team calls in sick, someone on your staff has to figure out what happens next. With a professional cleaning service, that responsibility shifts to the provider. If a cleaner is unavailable, arranging a replacement is part of the service, so your team isn’t left scrambling to fill the gap.

Accountability Built In

Picture Perfect Cleaning holds COR certification and provides regular service reporting, so you can see what’s being done and when, without spending your own hours checking on it. That’s the management time most in-house teams never get back. Our team also uses EcoLogo- and Green Seal-certified products, so you’re not trading cost savings for a lower cleaning standard.

Get Your Custom Quote

Wages are only one line in what in-house cleaning actually costs. Once you add in supplies, the hours a manager spends overseeing the crew, and the gaps left by sick days, the real number is usually higher than what shows up on a payroll report and often higher than what a professional service would charge for the same work. That’s the gap the tool above is built to show you, along with what outsourcing could put back in your budget.

Our cost comparison tool gives you a reasonable estimate of what you could save by switching to a professional cleaning service, not a final number. Every building is different, and factors like your cleaning schedule, the size of your facility, and the services you need will affect the actual cost. If you’d like a more accurate quote based on your space, contact Picture Perfect Cleaning, and we’ll walk you through the options.