What to Ask an Office Cleaning Company in Sheffield Before You Sign

Most cleaning contracts are agreed on the strength of a quote and a pleasant phone call. The problems show up three weeks later: the bins are not emptied because nobody could get in, the alarm has gone off at 6am, or a cleaner has walked into a consultation room that should have been locked. Almost all of it could have been settled with a few direct questions before anyone signed.

This article is a checklist for office and practice managers in Sheffield who are choosing a commercial cleaner. It starts with the practical question that shapes everything else: when the cleaning happens, and how the cleaners get into your building.

RGS Cleaning Ltd, trading since the 1980s, cleans offices and medical premises in Sheffield, and the questions below are the ones any office manager should put to any provider, including us.

Can they clean outside your working hours, and how is access handled?

For most offices and GP surgeries, the answer you want is yes: cleaning before staff arrive or after they leave means no vacuums running over phone calls and no wet floors in the way of patients or visitors. At RGS Cleaning Ltd, the cleaning is done out of hours. Our own office is staffed Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 16:00, so you can reach a person during the working day to agree arrangements, and the cleaning itself stays out of your way. Whichever company you choose, ask the question plainly, then ask for the arrangement in writing, so that the times, the access method and who is responsible for what are all agreed before the first visit.

Don’t assume “out of hours” means the same thing to both sides. A cleaner who arrives at 5.30pm, when half your team is still at their desks, is not what you had in mind if you pictured an empty building. Pin down the window you expect and ask whether the company can work within it.

Who holds the keys?

If the cleaners need their own keys, ask who will hold them, how they are stored and what happens if one goes missing. You should also be clear about whether you are comfortable with keys being held by individual cleaners, or whether you would rather unlock and lock up yourself. A sensible provider will tell you what they need from you, not simply expect you to adapt.

Who deals with the alarm?

Alarms are where out-of-hours cleaning most often goes wrong. Ask who will be given the code, whether it is a shared code or a personal one, and who you should call if the alarm is triggered during a visit. If your building has more than one alarm zone, say so up front. Make sure everyone knows who is responsible for setting the alarm and locking up when the clean is finished.

What if the building is still occupied?

Some offices are never fully empty. There may be late workers, a shift pattern or a practice with evening clinics. Ask how the cleaning team will handle rooms that are in use: whether they will skip them, return later or clean around people. In a medical setting, ask which areas the cleaners should not enter at all, and how rooms holding patient information or equipment are to be left. Settle these points at the contract stage, when you can still adjust the scope, rather than after something has gone wrong.

How will you know the cleaners actually turned up?

You will only know if the company can show you. When cleaning happens in an empty building at 6am or 9pm, nobody on your team sees it being done, so “trust us” is not enough. Ask every provider what proof of attendance they give you, and in what form.

How RGS Cleaning Ltd verifies attendance

We use our own attendance system, called Staff-Check. When our cleaners arrive at your premises, they check in with a selfie and their location. That means each visit is tied to a named person and to the place they are meant to be, rather than resting on a signature or a promise.

Staff-Check also covers the case that worries most managers: a cleaner who does not arrive. If that happens, our managers are alerted before you are. We know about the missed visit first, and we can start dealing with it rather than waiting for you to find an uncleaned office and ring us.

Whichever company you choose, ask the same thing of its system: what does it actually record, and can you see that information or does it stay on their side? A provider should be able to answer that in a sentence.

Questions to put to any company, including us

• Can I see a record of who attended and for how long, or only a summary?
• What happens if a cleaner does not arrive? Who tells me, and how quickly?
• Who covers the shift when someone is off sick?
• Is there a named contact I can ring if something has been missed?

The answers matter as much as the system. A company with good records but no plan for absence will still leave you with an uncleaned office on the morning it counts. Ask for the cover arrangements in writing, alongside the access and alarm details from the section above.

Which standards and qualifications are worth asking about?

Two are worth asking about by name: ISO 9001 for how the company is run, and BICSc for how its cleaners are trained. Neither is a legal requirement for cleaning an office, so a company without them is not automatically a poor choice. But if a company claims either one, you are entitled to see evidence.

ISO 9001

ISO 9001 is an international standard for quality management systems. It is about process: how a company records its work, handles complaints and corrects mistakes. It does not say a particular office will be spotless. RGS Cleaning Ltd is ISO 9001 certified (certificate Q8092). If a provider says it holds ISO 9001, ask to see the certificate, check the name on it matches the company you are signing with, and look at the scope and the expiry date. Then ask a practical follow-up: how does that system change what happens when you report a problem?

BICSc

BICSc, the British Institute of Cleaning Science, offers training and qualifications for cleaning staff. RGS Cleaning Ltd is a BICSc member. Membership is only the starting point, though, and the useful question is not “are you BICSc?” but “which of the people who will clean my building hold BICSc training, and for what?” A company may have a trained supervisor and untrained operatives, or the other way round. Ask how new cleaners are trained before they are placed on a site, and whether that training covers the type of premises you run. A surgery has different cleaning needs from an open-plan office, and the answer should reflect that.

Is the company CHAS accredited, and does it matter for your premises?

It matters if you want evidence that a contractor’s health and safety management has been assessed by a recognised scheme. CHAS, the Contractor Health and Safety Assessment Scheme, exists for exactly that purpose. Many organisations ask contractors for it as part of their own procurement and risk checks, so it can save you time if you have to justify your choice of supplier to a director, a partner or a landlord.

RGS Cleaning Ltd is CHAS accredited, and we clean medical premises and GP surgeries as well as offices. That is the kind of detail you should expect from any provider you are considering: a clear statement of what they hold, and the paperwork to back it up. When you ask, check three things: that the accreditation is current, that it is in the name of the company that will be on your contract, and that the company can explain how its health and safety procedures apply to your type of building.

Put these questions to every company on your shortlist, not only the one you already favour. A provider who answers plainly about access, attendance, training and accreditation, and sends the evidence without being chased, is usually the one who will be easy to work with once the contract starts. The one who gets vague at the first direct question has told you something too.