A Clean Warehouse Floor Is the Foundation for an Orderly Business

Photo courtesy of Husky Rack & Wire.
Photo courtesy of Husky Rack & Wire.

Have you ever walked into a vendor’s dock or warehouse and found dirty, stained, and unsanitary flooring? How did that make you feel about that business? Probably, it made you want to run out the door and never come back!

Keeping the floors or your warehouse and dock clean at all times isn’t just good sanitation. It’s also good for your business. In the same way that you recoiled at the sight of another business’s inattention to its floors’ cleanliness, your customers, vendors, and other visitors will make snap judgments about your business if you ignore your floors or let them get too dirty.

There are three essentials to keeping your warehouse clean and orderly at all times. Once you learn these five steps, you will never have to worry about your flooring making a bad impression again.

Create a Warehouse Cleaning Schedule

The best way to keep up with cleaning anything is to create a schedule and then stick with it. Depending on the volume of traffic, your workplace floors should be cleaned at least weekly but preferably daily.

The overnight shift is generally the best time to clean because it’s the slowest. If you don’t run 24 hours then before or after your staff arrives is best.

Assign specific cleaning tasks to specific employees then hold them accountable for performing them according to the cleaning schedule you created. People want to know what you expect from them so it’s important that you be as specific as possible.

Also, inspect what you expect. Don’t take your employee’s word for it that your floors are being cleaned regularly. Have your supervisors conduct inspections after every cleaning. Or better yet, take a walk through your facility and see for yourself.

Clean as You Go

Once a day cleaning is not enough. A better plan is to create a culture in which your workers clean as they go. When everybody is in the habit of keeping your flooring clean, it will ensure your floors are always neat and orderly.

Make sure you provide the proper tools. There should always be plenty of brooms, dustpans, mops, buckets, and cleaning chemicals available at all times.

Heavy-Duty Cleaning Equipment

You may also want to invest in some heavy-duty floor cleaning equipment, such as a ride-on floor sweeper, buffer, or other floor cleaning machinery.

These not only simplify the task of keeping your floors clean but also make the process faster and more efficient.