The honest answer is that frequency is set by three things: how many people use the space, whether food is involved, and what the space has to look like to visitors. Square metres matter far less than most people expect.
A forty-desk office at full occupancy generates more work in a day than a hundred-desk office running at a third capacity. So the useful question is not "how often should an office be cleaned", it is "how often does this office, with these people in it, need each of these tasks done".
The three variables that set frequency
- Occupancy, not floor area. Bins, kitchens and bathrooms scale with heads on site. Floors and glass scale with area. Most offices are priced on area and then fail on the parts that scale with people.
- Food. A workplace where people eat at their desks or heat lunch daily needs a different kitchen and bin regime to one where everyone goes out. This single factor moves the frequency more than anything else.
- Visitors. A client-facing reception, boardroom and front bathroom carry a presentation standard that has nothing to do with hygiene. If clients walk through, those areas need daily attention even when nothing is dirty.
A starting point by office type
These are typical patterns rather than rules. Treat them as the opening position and adjust against the three variables above.
- Under ten people, no client visits. Two or three visits per week is usually adequate, with bins and kitchen on every visit.
- Ten to forty people. Three to five visits per week. Bathrooms and kitchen daily once you are past roughly twenty regular staff, regardless of what the floors need.
- Forty or more, or any reception with walk-ins. Daily. At this size the bathroom and kitchen load alone justifies it.
- Office attached to a warehouse. Daily is common for the amenities even where the office is small, because the amenities are shared with the operational staff and take a much heavier load.
- Childcare, medical or allied health. Daily, with a documented touchpoint and sanitising regime. Different standard entirely, and worth treating as its own scope.
What genuinely needs doing every visit
If budget forces a choice, protect this list. It is the work where skipping a day is immediately visible or immediately unhygienic.
- Bathrooms - pans, basins, mirrors, touchpoints, floors, and consumables restocked
- Kitchen and breakout benches, sink, and the front of the fridge and microwave
- All bins in kitchen and bathroom areas, with liners replaced
- Reception, boardroom and any client-facing surface
- Entry glass and door touchpoints
- Spot mopping of hard floor entry areas, particularly through a Melbourne winter
What is comfortably weekly
- Vacuuming of low-traffic carpet, meeting rooms and perimeter offices
- Desk dusting where desks are clear enough to actually dust
- Internal glass, partitions and door glass beyond the entry
- Skirting boards, sills and ledges
- Kitchen appliance interiors - microwave, and the fridge on an agreed day
- Bin store, including a wash of the bins themselves
What is periodic
These belong in the contract with a stated interval and a stated price. Left as "as required", they tend not to be required by anyone until something looks visibly bad.
- Carpet extraction. Six to twelve months in a typical office, more often on main walkways and reception.
- Hard floor machine work. Quarterly to six-monthly depending on the finish and traffic.
- High dusting. Vents, light fittings, cable trays and the tops of partitions. Six-monthly is usually enough, and it makes a bigger visible difference than people expect.
- External glass. Quarterly at ground level, less often above.
- Upholstery and workstation screens. Annually, or when they start to show.
Signs the frequency is wrong
It runs in both directions, and over-cleaning is a real and common waste.
- Too low. Bathroom consumables running out between visits, kitchen bins overflowing by the last day, a visible tide line on carpet walkways, and staff quietly buying their own wipes.
- Too high. Cleaners vacuuming rooms nobody entered, wiping desks that were never used, and emptying empty bins. If you are paying for daily attendance in a building that is half empty on Mondays and Fridays, the money is better spent on periodic work.
Hybrid work changed the sums
Most Melbourne offices now have a peak in the middle of the week and quiet ends. Cleaning to a flat five-day pattern spends the same money on a Tuesday with ninety people and a Friday with twelve.
A pattern that matches actual occupancy usually costs the same or less while producing a better result: full service on the busy days, a lighter amenities-only visit on the quiet ones, and the hours saved redirected into periodic work that would otherwise never get scheduled. If you know your own attendance data, bring it to the quote - it is the single most useful thing you can hand a contractor.