Here are two situations in which you might need to ask your office cleaning team to extend the number of hours that they spend cleaning your office premises.

You've set up a canteen on your premises

If your office staff previously visited local cafes or shops on their lunch breaks or ate their own packed lunches at their desks, but are now dining in the canteen you've set up on your premises, then you might need to increase your office cleaner's hours. Aside from the fact that this will be an additional new space that the cleaners will need to take time to clean, it is also an area that is likely to get a lot messier, and therefore require more time to tidy up and sanitise than other parts of the office.

For example, whilst employees who eat at their desks tend to clean up more carefully afterwards, due to them needing to use their desk space for work purposes after their lunch breaks, they may be inclined to make more of a mess and be less careful when cleaning up after themselves when they eat in the canteen that they can leave immediately after finishing their meals.

Additionally, the canteen will also give your staff the option of preparing some of their food in the workplace; this might involve heating their food in the microwave (which will mean this microwave's interior will need to be cleaned) and putting together sandwiches or salads on the countertop and then eating these items at the canteen tables (which will result in crumbs and other food debris getting on these surfaces). All of this will result in extra food mess that the cleaners will need to add to their list of responsibilities. As such, you may need to ask your office cleaners to, for example, add an extra hour to their usual daily shift, to ensure they have plenty of time to keep the canteen sanitised and safe for use.

Some of your staff who used to work remotely are now working in the office

If you had a number of staff members who used to work remotely, but who have now begun to work on your office premises, then you'll probably need to extend your office cleaner's work hours. The reason for this is that even the addition of just four or five people to your office team will result in the office getting unclean far faster than it did previously.

This is due to the extra foot traffic (that will make the floors get dirtier faster), the extra hands that leave smudges on the office's door handles and the extra people using the bathroom facilities, the office bins and canteen throughout the day. As such, your cleaners may need to spend extra time on sanitising the bathroom and the canteen, emptying the office's bins, polishing the door handles and hoovering or mopping the premises' floors.