The Ultimate Office Cleaning Checklist for Facility Managers

How to use this checklist

Treat it as an audit tool, not a wishlist. Print the daily and weekly sections, walk the floor at 7am before the team arrives, and score each line item: pass, fail, or not applicable. A vendor performing at hospitality standard should pass 95%+ on the daily list every single morning. Anything under 85% for two weeks running is a contract conversation.

Share the checklist with your vendor before the audit, not after. Cleaning crews perform to the standard they are measured against — when the scope is explicit, the work follows. When it isn't, you get whatever the previous building tolerated.

Daily — reception and entry zones

Reception desk wiped and disinfected, including the underside lip guests touch. Guest seating cushions straightened, arms wiped. Magazines and collateral squared. Entry glass spot-cleaned at hand height (inside and out). Walk-off matting vacuumed end-to-end — three lengths of footstep at every external door.

Elevator lobby floor mopped or vacuumed. Elevator interior: floor cleaned, walls spot-wiped, button panel disinfected, mirror polished. Wayfinding signage dust-free. Reception bin emptied and relined even if it looks empty — odour builds in 24 hours.

Daily — washrooms

Toilets, urinals and seats disinfected top to bottom, including the hinges and the base flange. Sinks scrubbed, faucets descaled with a soft cloth, mirrors polished edge to edge with no streaks at eye level. Floors mopped with a washroom-only mop head; never the same mop used in the kitchen.

Consumables restocked to 100% before the day starts: toilet paper, seat covers, hand soap, paper towel, feminine hygiene products, air freshener. Empty bins, replace liners, and wipe the bin lid — the lid is the dirtiest surface in the room. Check and refill the soap dispensers; an empty dispenser is the single most common complaint in any office.

Daily — kitchens and breakrooms

Countertops cleared, wiped and disinfected. Sink scrubbed, faucet polished, drain rinsed. Microwave interior wiped (yes, every night). Fridge exterior wiped including the handle. Coffee machine drip tray emptied, exterior wiped, water reservoir checked.

Tables wiped, chairs pushed in, floor swept and spot-mopped under tables where crumbs collect. Recycling and compost bins emptied and rinsed if soiled. Dish soap and hand soap topped up. Paper towel restocked. Anything left in the sink: photographed and reported, not washed (that's a tenant-relations decision, not a cleaning one).

Daily — workstations and common areas

All bins emptied at every desk, even if only paper. Liners replaced on any bin with food or liquid residue. High-touch surfaces disinfected at every shared station: printer touchscreens, copier handles, conference room phones, AV remotes, light switches, door handles on both sides.

Spot-vacuum visible debris in open-plan areas. Straighten conference room chairs and clear the table — pens, mugs, scrap paper. Whiteboards left as-is unless marked 'erase' (a wiped strategy session is a real workplace incident).

Weekly — the work that protects the building

Detail vacuum under every desk and along every baseboard, including corners the upright misses. Damp-wipe desk surfaces, monitor stands, phones, chair arms and keyboards (paying attention to the gap between keys). Dust horizontal surfaces up to 6 feet — picture frames, window sills, monitor tops, the top of every filing cabinet, the tops of cubicle dividers.

Full washroom deep-clean: descale faucets and shower heads, scrub grout, polish mirrors edge-to-edge, disinfect partition walls floor to ceiling, wipe the underside of every toilet seat hinge. Mop all hard floors with a fresh solution per zone — never drag dirty water from washrooms into the kitchen.

Conference rooms: wipe table edges and underside, polish glass walls inside and out, vacuum upholstered chairs with the upholstery tool, dust AV equipment with a microfibre (never a feather duster — it just relocates dust to the screen).

Monthly — the work clients notice

High dusting — HVAC vents, light fixtures, the tops of door frames, exit signs, sprinkler heads. Interior glass and partitions cleaned streak-free at every height, not just hand height. Baseboards wiped throughout. Upholstered chairs and sofas vacuumed with an upholstery tool, not the floor head.

Buff and re-coat hard floors on a published schedule. Spot-extract carpet traffic lanes — don't wait for the annual deep clean to address visible soiling. Polish stainless steel in kitchens and elevators with a directional grain wipe. Wipe down all interior signage and frame edges.

Walk every storeroom and janitor closet with the cleaning lead. A disorganised closet is the most reliable predictor of a slipping standard on the floor.

Quarterly — the work that extends asset life

Full carpet extraction in lobbies, elevator vestibules and high-traffic corridors with truck-mounted or high-flow equipment. In Montreal, extract entry zones every 60 days from November through April — the salt and slush load is brutal on fibre and matting.

Strip and re-wax VCT in kitchens and back-of-house. Detail-clean kitchen appliances inside and out, including the back of the fridge and the underside of the microwave. Descale dishwashers. Deep clean inside cabinetry on a rotating schedule.

Quarterly walk-through with the account manager: re-score the checklist together, document changes in occupancy or layout, and adjust frequency where needed. A scope that doesn't move with the building stops being accurate within two quarters.

Annual — the work that resets the baseline

Full carpet extraction across all carpeted areas, not just traffic lanes. Interior window cleaning at every elevation; exterior window cleaning on a separate contract for anything above the ground floor. Deep clean all upholstered furniture. Detail-clean every light diffuser and HVAC grille.

Re-baseline the scope of work with your vendor. Office layouts change, headcounts change, hybrid policies change — the checklist should change with them. Get the updated scope, frequency matrix and pricing in writing before the next contract year starts.

Hospitality-standard quality checks

A four-star hotel runs three layers of quality control: the cleaner self-checks at the end of every room, a supervisor inspects a random sample nightly, and a manager scores the property weekly. Office cleaning at hospitality standard runs the same way. If your vendor's QC is 'call us if there's a problem', they are operating one layer below the standard you should expect.

Ask to see the inspection sheets. Ask what percentage of rooms are sampled. Ask what happens when a fail is logged — is it a coaching conversation, a re-clean, or both? The answer tells you whether quality is a system or a slogan.

Red flags when auditing a vendor

Bins emptied but not relined. Mirrors polished at eye-level only. Vacuum tracks that stop at the edge of the open plan and don't continue under desks. Mop water still in the bucket from last night. A janitor closet you can't open the door of. The same checklist used in five different buildings with no zone-specific notes.

Any one of these on its own is a coaching moment. Three of them on the same audit means the contract is being run on autopilot, and you should expect tenant complaints inside 60 days.

Green flags worth paying for

Colour-coded microfibre system (red for washroom, blue for general, green for kitchen, yellow for high-touch) — proves the team is trained on cross-contamination control. Dated inspection sheets in the janitor closet. Consumables stocked one full case ahead. A named account manager who answers the phone before 7am. Photos of completed work shared after every shift on request.

These cost more. They are also the difference between a building tenants quietly enjoy and one they quietly complain about.

Get the full Vertex audit sheet

We use this checklist across every commercial building we service in Montreal — offices, clinics, residential common areas, healthcare. If you want the full scoring sheet as a printable PDF (with the line items above plus the hospitality-standard QC grid), get in touch. We'll send it over with no obligation, whether or not we ever quote on your building.