Resources
Starting Out With a New Cleaning Company: The First Weeks
A new cleaning company learns your building over its first few weeks. This guide covers the handover, the opening nights, the first joint inspection and the adjustments that turn a new crew into a steady routine.
Hand over the building, not just the keys
The quiet days between signing with a new cleaning company and its first night are the best time to settle the practical details. Gather everything the crew needs to get in, work and leave without phoning anyone: keys or fobs for each door they will use, an alarm code issued to the cleaning company rather than borrowed from an employee, the hours the building can be entered, and where to park and unload after dark.
Then show where things live. The janitor’s closet, the tap for filling mop buckets, the dumpster and recycling enclosure, the outlet that shares a circuit with the copier and the side door that sticks in cold weather all cost time on the first night if nobody points them out. A one-page sheet with these details, taped inside the closet door, saves the crew from guessing.
If you are switching from another provider, collect every key and fob it held and change the alarm codes it used on the day the new service starts. A clean break on a set date is simpler than a stretch where two crews share one closet and nobody is sure who missed what.
Tell your staff what is changing
Occupants notice a new crew sooner than anyone, so send them a short note before the first visit. Say which nights the cleaners come, roughly when they arrive and which surfaces they will wipe. Most offices ask people to clear the desk space they want cleaned, to label anything near a wastebasket that should stay put, and to keep food out of open bins over the weekend.
Name one person who collects feedback. When ten people each mention a missed trash can to whoever happens to walk by, nothing gets written down and the same miss repeats. One contact on your side, matched with one at the cleaning company, keeps the early weeks orderly.
The opening nights run long
Expect the first visits to take longer than the routine ever will. The crew is learning the route, finding outlets, discovering which rooms are locked and timing how long each restroom really takes. A careful first week is a better sign than a fast one.
Walk the building the morning after the first visit with the task list in hand. Start with the rooms people use most: restrooms, the breakroom, the main entrance and the busiest conference room. Check coverage before finish. Was every room reached and every bin emptied? Gaps in coverage usually trace back to the route, while a streaky mirror or a dusty ledge is a question of time or method.
Write down what you find by room, item and date, and note what went right as well. “Second-floor restroom, mirror streaked, Tuesday” gives a supervisor something to act on. “Restrooms not great” does not.
Keep a short log for the first two weeks
A shared log turns scattered comments into a record. It can be a spreadsheet or a single email thread, as long as every entry carries the room, the item, the date and a photo when one helps. The cleaning company adds a note on what it changed in response, so both sides can see an item open and close.
Read the log at the end of each week instead of reacting to every line. A miss that shows up once is a slip. A miss that shows up three nights running points to something built into the arrangement: a room left off the route, a door the crew cannot open, or a task nobody told them about. Those are the entries worth a conversation.
Walk the first inspection together
Within the first few weeks, walk a full inspection alongside the supervisor. Go room by room against the written task list and use the walk to agree on what finished looks like: how clear the entrance glass should be, which desks get wiped, and whether baseboards are a nightly item or belong on a periodic rotation.
Loom’s supervisors run quality inspections against each building’s own task list and share what they find with you. The early walks set the bar that every later check is held to.
Bring the log. Items that kept appearing in the first week should be the first ones you look at together, and the walk should end with a short list of changes and a name beside each one.
Adjustments that usually follow
Few first task lists last a month unchanged. Some rooms see more use than anyone described at the walkthrough and others far less, and the list should follow what the crew actually finds, just as cleaning frequency follows how each room is used. Typical changes include:
- More minutes for a restroom or breakroom that takes heavier use than expected.
- A reordered route, so vacuuming starts in the wing where nobody works late.
- Tasks moved from the nightly list to a weekly or monthly rotation, or the other way around.
- Rooms added or dropped, such as a storage room turned into an office or a suite sitting empty.
- Access fixes, like a door that needs a different key or an alarm zone that needs its own code.
Write every change into the task list itself, with the date. A change settled in a hallway and never recorded vanishes the next time the crew changes. Leave periodic projects until the crew has seen your carpet, hard floors and high surfaces up close; extraction, floor refinishing and high dusting then go on the calendar with real dates instead of guesses.
Paperwork, supplies and the end of month one
Count the toilet paper, towels, hand soap and can liners on the shelf on day one and settle who reorders. If the cleaning company provides janitorial supplies, agree on what a full stock looks like for each restroom and breakroom. If you buy them yourself, show the crew where the reserve sits and who to tell when it runs low.
File the documents while they are fresh: the current task list, emergency contacts on both sides and the certificate of insurance. Every Loom client receives a certificate of insurance when service starts, so it can go straight into your vendor file.
Once a month has passed, the log should be getting shorter and the inspection results steadier. If the same items still appear, sit down with the supervisor and decide whether the answer is more time, a different method or a different frequency. After that, regular inspections and a fresh look at the list whenever the building changes keep the routine on track. When you are ready to bring in a new crew, request a quote from Loom Janitorial.
A few useful answers
Common questions
How soon should the cleaning look settled?
By the end of the second week the route and the odd features of the building are usually familiar to the cleaners. Give the service a full month before judging it, because by then the opening adjustments are in place and one night should look much like the next.
Should the outgoing and incoming cleaning companies overlap?
Usually not. Two crews sharing keys, a closet and a task list blur responsibility for every miss. A set changeover date, with keys collected and alarm codes changed that day, gives the new company a clean start.
What should we do if the first week brings a lot of misses?
Log each one by room, item and date, then sit down with the supervisor once the week is out and read it line by line. Repeated misses in one area usually trace to the route, the time allowed or a missing instruction, and each of those has a direct fix.
Who on our side should be the contact for the cleaning company?
Someone who is in the building most days and can walk the floors in the morning, such as an office manager, a facilities coordinator or, for common areas, the property manager. Staff send their comments to that person, who passes them on in one place.
Will Loom check the work during the first weeks?
Yes. Loom supervisors inspect the cleaning against your task list, and the first inspections are a good time to walk the building together and settle any questions about the list.