How to Choose a Cleaning Company for an Office Building — And Supervise It Properly

Cleaning is the service everyone sees and no one manages. In an office building it's the first thing a tenant, client or visitor notices — a filthy lobby, restrooms without paper, or dusty emergency stairs shape an impression within seconds. And yet most buildings choose a cleaning company by the worst method there is: whoever gave the cheapest bid. In this article I'll explain — from direct experience in building management — how to choose a cleaning company by a measurable specification, how to supervise it over time, and why cleaning is an integral part of the building's maintenance array.

Why "the cheapest" is almost always the most expensive

Cleaning is a labor-intensive service — the dominant cost component is man-hours. When a company offers a price significantly lower than its competitors, it didn't invent magical efficiency; it cut something. Usually it's one of three:

• Fewer actual work hours — less coverage, floors that aren't touched, areas that are forgotten.
• Pay below the legal minimum for workers — a legal exposure that spills directly onto the service purchaser under the Law for Increased Enforcement of Labor Laws (5772-2011).
• Giving up materials, equipment and a supervisor — the crew works without supervision, with unsuitable materials and old equipment.

Each of these three paths comes back to you — in the form of poor quality, a lawsuit, or constant employee turnover that leaves the building perpetually with a new cleaner who doesn't know it. Cleaning without a measurable specification is an open invitation: you pay for "cleaning" without defining what that means, and every argument about quality becomes a question of feeling instead of meeting a condition. As I explained in the guide on the annual preventive-maintenance checklist, the problem isn't the price itself but the inability to measure what exactly you received for it.

The foundation: a measurable cleaning specification (SLA) instead of "clean the building"

Before you request a single bid, you need to write a specification. A good cleaning specification is not a wish list — it's a document that defines what is cleaned, how often, and to what result level. Without it you're comparing apples to oranges, and you have no basis for supervision.

A recommended structure by areas and frequencies

• Public areas at a daily frequency: lobby, elevators, main corridors, public restrooms, entrances — these are the building's face and see high traffic.
• Restrooms and kitchenettes — several rounds a day: replenishing consumables (paper, soap, towels) and documenting who checked and when is a minimum condition.
• Glass surfaces and interior facade: display windows, glass doors and partitions — weekly to daily frequency depending on load.
• Low-frequency areas: stairwells, storerooms, parking, technical roofs — weekly or monthly, but not "never."
• Periodic works: floor polishing, carpet cleaning, facade washing, cleaning ducts and high surfaces — monthly to quarterly, scheduled in advance and written in the contract.

A verifiable result level

For each item in the specification you attach a criterion you can hold to: "no visible dust on horizontal surfaces at hand height," "trash bin empty and lined with a clean bag," "mirror free of stains and fingerprints." This is the difference between a specification you can supervise and a statement of intent you can't enforce. In my experience, a specification that includes both a frequency and a result criterion eliminates most arguments with the contractor before they start.

The selection criteria — beyond price

Workforce stability

The most important question is not how many employees the company has — but how long they stay. High turnover is the silent killer of cleaning quality: every new cleaner doesn't know the building, doesn't know where the water tap is, and doesn't remember that the third floor is especially sensitive to dust because there are open servers there. Ask the company for a figure on annual turnover rate and average tenure, and ask explicitly: will a permanent employee be assigned to our building? A company that refuses to give any answer to this question — a sign of a problem.

Built-in supervision by the company itself

A serious company brings its own supervisor — someone who comes to the building on an ongoing basis, checks the work and reports. If all the supervision falls on you, you bought cheap labor, not a managed service. Ask explicitly: who is the supervisor, at what frequency does he come, and how are his inspections documented — and demand to receive the reports.

Compliance with labor law — this protects you, not only the workers

The cleaning sector is one of the sectors where Ministry of Labor inspectors identify common violations of the minimum wage law and the Women's Employment Law. The Law for Increased Enforcement of Labor Laws (5772-2011) imposes liability also on the service purchaser when the contractor fails to pay minimum wage, recuperation pay, pension contributions or vacation pay. In other words: if the cleaning company steals from its workers, you are exposed to a lawsuit. Demand at the bidding stage:

• A valid bookkeeping certificate from the Income Tax Authority.
• Sample pay slips (with personal details redacted) — to verify that minimum wage and overtime are paid as required by law.
• Evidence of a pension contribution — full and not partial.
• Confirmation of compliance with the collective agreement in the cleaning sector, if relevant.

Materials, equipment and safety

Cleaning materials are hazardous materials in every respect. Check that the company uses approved materials, that safety data sheets (SDS — Safety Data Sheet, replacing the old MSDS) are available in the building, and that the workers are equipped with personal protective equipment. A wet floor without a warning sign is a slip accident waiting to happen — and it's your responsibility as the building's occupier under the Torts Ordinance.

Valid and sufficient insurance

A valid confirmation of insurance coverage — including professional liability and third-party — is a threshold condition, not a "nice to have." A cleaning worker who breaks expensive equipment, floods a tenant's office or is injured in the building — who covers it? If there's no suitable insurance, the answer is you. Demand that the policy include the building as an additional insured.

Cleaning is not an island — it's part of the maintenance array

A common mistake is to treat cleaning as a service disconnected from maintenance. In practice, the cleaning crew is your daily eyes in the building. A cleaner who passes through every floor every day is the first to notice a damp stain on the ceiling, tiling that has lifted, a smoke detector that was torn off, or a leak under the kitchenette sink. If the reporting system lets him report a fault within seconds — whether it's a WhatsApp to the building manager or a computerized system — you've turned a cleaning expense into an early-detection channel for faults. Exactly as IoT sensors in buildings explain, only here the sensor is a person with eyes and judgment.

There are also physical overlaps that need to be coordinated. Cleaning HVAC ducts and filters directly affects air quality and system efficiency, a subject expanded on in the guide to HVAC maintenance in office buildings. Proper management of trash and food scraps affects pest control in office buildings — a dirty kitchenette is an invitation to pests. When cleaning is disconnected from the rest of maintenance, these gaps fall between the cracks and no one is responsible for them.

Accessibility and safety — what the cleaning crew must know

The cleaning crew affects the building's compliance with accessibility and safety requirements more than people think. A cleaning cabinet that blocks an escape route, a cart left in a passage, a rug that slips, or a bucket placed by an emergency door — all of these harm accessibility and safety. The Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law (5758-1998) and the accessibility regulations derived from it require that circulation routes remain clear and safe, and that includes the cleaning crew's working hours. A short briefing of the crew on the subject — which is part of what you should demand from the company at the start of the engagement — prevents many deficiencies that surface precisely in a safety inspection.

Anyone operating according to Israeli Standard 1525 for building maintenance should remember that cleaning too is included in the maintenance web: cleaning water reservoirs, cleaning cooling towers and cleaning technical surfaces are not "regular cleaning" — they are part of a standard maintenance plan, and sometimes require a certified professional. It's important to define clearly in the contract what is the responsibility of the general cleaning company and what requires a specialized vendor, so that no gap is created where no one is responsible.

Ongoing supervision — how you know you're really getting what you paid for

A good contract without supervision is worth little. Supervision is what turns a specification on paper into a result in the field. These are the supervision mechanisms every building manager should operate:

• A documented inspection round: a periodic pass according to the specification list, with a score for each area — documented in writing, not "in your head." You can do it in an Excel sheet, a simple app or a printed form — the main thing is that it be recorded and dated.
• Attendance forms in critical areas: in restrooms and kitchenettes — a board that documents who cleaned and when, visible to tenants too. It also deters hour theft.
• A simple reporting channel for tenants: a WhatsApp number, a button on the tenant page, or any accessible way — with follow-up that the report was indeed closed and within how long.
• A periodic control meeting with the company: reviewing recurring deficiencies, trends and complaints — not only when something blows up. Once every month or two is enough for most buildings.
• Numerical quality metrics: percentage of compliance with inspection rounds, deficiency-closure time, number of tenant complaints per month. What is measured — is managed. What is not measured — falls apart.

The principle is the same as any supervision of a maintenance vendor, as detailed in the guide on preventive maintenance by property type: a deficiency that is documented and closed within a defined time is management. A deficiency everyone knows about but no one recorded — is a fault that will recur again and again.

What must be in the contract

The cleaning contract should include the measurable specification as a binding appendix, a quality-measurement mechanism and a response mechanism for non-compliance. Define a clear process:

• What happens when a deficiency isn't corrected — a warning period, followed by a defined sanction (a penalty, an offset from the invoice).
• The boundary of responsibility — which works are included and which require a separate order, so you're not surprised that facade washing or floor treatment isn't included.
• A commitment to workforce continuity — an employee who knows the building is worth far more than a new employee every week. It's worth anchoring in the contract a commitment to assign permanent staff as far as possible, and to define a procedure for replacing an employee.
• Grounds for termination and a notice period — so you can exit the contract when the company doesn't meet the conditions, without being left without cleaning for months.

Questions worth asking in the tender process

When you invite several companies to submit a bid, these are the questions that separate a serious company from one that submits numbers without backing:

• How many employees will be assigned to the building and in what hours format?
• Who is the supervisor on the company's behalf and at what frequency does he come?
• What is your annual turnover rate?
• Are you signatories to the collective agreement in the cleaning sector?
• Which materials do you use and what is the policy regarding SDS?
• Give me two references from buildings similar in size and type — where you've been for more than a year.

The last question is especially important. A reference who is a building manager like you can give a real picture: is there a supervisor who comes? Are deficiencies closed? Was there an argument over employee rights?

Bottom line

Choosing a cleaning company is not a decision of "who is the cheapest" but of "who provides the best measurable value under supervision." You start from a measurable specification, choose by workforce stability, built-in supervision, full compliance with labor law and valid insurance, and operate an ongoing supervision mechanism that turns the contract into a real result. When you do this right, cleaning stops being a source of complaints and an entity managed on the side — and becomes a defined part of the maintenance array, with a crew that both keeps the building clean and functions as daily eyes that report faults before they blow up.

At Domera we build measurable cleaning specifications, manage ongoing supervision and integrate the cleaning crew into the building's reporting array. For more on comprehensive property management — get a quote.