When I go to an office building for the first time, I can tell in the first thirty seconds whether their cleaning company is doing its job.
How is that enough time?
Well, when I arrive, I usually end up waiting in the lobby. You don’t go wandering a corporate building on your own, you wait for your contact to walk you through. So I sit there for a few minutes. And those few minutes tell me almost everything.
The lobby is the face of the building. It’s the one room they know clients and visitors will see, so it’s the room that should get the most attention. Or at least you’d think that, right?
But in a building with lots of different businesses on different floors, the lobby doesn’t always get the treatment it should. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen cobwebs in lobby corners or found dead bugs under the chair I’m waiting in. And that’s a giant red flag.
If the current cleaning company is letting it slide in the one room everyone has to walk through to get to work, I already know what the offices and the back areas look like. If they’re cutting corners in the lobby, they’re cutting corners everywhere.
There’s a story about Conrad Hilton that stuck with me. When he visited one of his hotels, the first place he’d go wasn’t the lobby or the rooms. It was the dumpster and the loading dock. If those were clean, the parts nobody glamorous ever looks at and no guests spend time in, he knew the rooms were clean too. He judged the whole operation by the part that was easiest to neglect.
Here’s another easy way to tell if the cleaners are really doing a good job: look at their janitorial closet. If their own supply closet is a disaster (dirty vacuums, filthy rags, spilled bottles, equipment thrown in a heap), then they’re cleaning your building with dirty tools. And you can’t make a building clean with dirty equipment. A messy closet means a messy building, every time.
You don’t need me to find any of this. Next time you’re in early, take thirty seconds in your own lobby. Look in the corners. Look under a chair. Then go peek at where the cleaning gear lives. You’ll learn more in half a minute than you will from any sales pitch.
And if what you find isn’t what you were paying for, that’s a good time for a walkthrough.