Conference Rooms Need Routine Cleaning

Periodically I like to get back to the basics of cleaning since we all can benefit from reminders along the way for the steps necessary to clean a facility effectively and safely.

Conference Rooms are like cleaning any other area in a building but have some unique properties that should be taken into account. Using the Inspect/Do principle, conference rooms should be checked each cycle to determine if they have been used since the last cleaning. I can remember inspecting a key conference room in a facility and found the floor spotted/stained, the table soiled, chairs in poor condition and spider webs in the corners. When I confronted the BSC (Building Service Contractor) regarding the conditions, his response was that “the specs do not call for us to do those tasks.” Although he is technically correct in that the Performance Based specifications did not direct for these specific tasks to be performed, it did state that the conference room was to be “clean and presentable for high level meetings.” I could not really support the incumbent BSC in keeping this particular contract.

My worst experience with a conference/meeting room was a car dealership that had pizza or other messy foods and drinks two to three times per week. Of course, the carpet was a light beige that did not respond well to tomato sauce, coffee, soda and the occasional glass of wine. We bid the contract to reflect pulling trash and vacuuming. We actually ended up spending as much time on the conference room as we did on all the rest of the office space combined. The only thing that saved us was the customer pulled the carpet and installed a low maintenance quarry tile that could be swept and mopped.

We will look at a few other cleaning points in conference rooms in a future article. Your comments and questions are important. I hope to hear from you soon. Until then, keep it clean...

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678-314-2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net.