Recently we compiled a list with what we think are the World’s Coolest Offices and now decided to keep on our quest for more cool offices but this time we will focus only in Europe.

We start our series with Nykredit’s Office in Copenhagen. Nykredit is one of Europe’s leading financial services providers with commercial and mortgage banking as cornerstones. In addition, Nykredit has activities within insurance, pension and estate agency business.

The ten-storey glass structure is one of Copenhagen’s largest and coolest office buildings. The building features glass elevators, balconies, and exposed stairways, creating an open and clean-looking work environment. It also has state-of-the-art insulation systems that captures and hold heat while it is cooled with water from a nearby harbour not to mention the options to open specific areas of the roof and double layered facade to allow natural ventilation.

But it’s the meeting rooms that make this office stand-out. Nykredit’s office has meeting rooms that hang 50ft above ground which give a new meaning to “high-fly business meetings”.

There are two of these “high-fly” meeting rooms made out of dark polished wood hanging inside Nykredit’s office building. Their office cleaning company must have really though cleaners that are not afraid of heights to clean those hanging boxes.

About Nykredit

Images from this article where sourced from a Daily Mail Article

Back in July we reported that the demand for Grade A offices in the metropolis would boost office cleaning in London. This is starting to happen as more and more overseas companies seek for an office space in renowned regions such as the City of London and Canary Wharf, as well as high-end places such as Westminster.

According to Ian Smith London Chamber of Commerce and Industry spokesman there are other emerging areas and projects that London office cleaning companies should keep an eye on, he remarked:

“You’ve got the Olympic site and the surrounding area and there’s hopefully the Northern line extension,”

Another area London office cleaners should keep a close eye on is on the construction of the Bath House complex that is being built on Holborn Viaduct in the centre of the city. The £65 million project will have a myriad of luxury offices, leisure areas, a retail zone as well as a car park.

But it is not only on the high end that office cleaning is on the rise in London. According to Mr Smith, more and more businesses are moving into buildings in cheaper parts of the city such as Croydon and Enfield.

One way or the other this is all good news for London office cleaning companies.

Red Bull UK Headquarters in London

Forget stairs and lifts to move from one floor to another, Red Bull’s UK HQs in London has slides, another innovative creation by interior design company Jump Studio. The place also has a bar, cafe and a roof top terrace.

Facebook Studio O+A California

The social media giant also has one of the coolest offices in the world, located in Palo Alto in sunny California. The place was designed according to poll results conducted amongst employees.

Besides the sleek furniture and funky décor the place as a unique sound system with a complete DJ booth to cause envy in many clubs around the globe. Believe it or not the place has its own Facebok Page.

Good Technology HQ in London

Good Technology headquarters in London is an award-winning office designed by interior whizzes Spacelab. The place was designed mixture of old-fashioned gentleman’s club luxury and modern practical workspace, all that to bring the best out of their staff.

Good’s office is so cool that employees end up staying after hours to socialise round the office pool table.

Comvert Office in Milan, Italy

In my opinion one of the coolest offices I have ever seen simply because it was a skateboarding bowl over it. Comvert is an Italian based manufacturer of snowboards, clothing and accessories developed by skateboarders and snowboarders for all the young people out there.

Their new office was built inside an old movie theatre large enough to hold the admin area, a store, products depot and over it a state-of-the-art wooden skateboarding bowl.

TBWA/Chiat/Day LA Office

Gargoyles, cafe with a balcony made with old surf boards, a basketball court and a small garden make the TBWA/Chiat/Day office in LA one of the most trendy and inspirational places to work.

With more than 274 offices in 100 countries TBWA is amongst the top ten advertising agencies and its employees must be on top of their game at all times, reason why the LA is so inspirational.

Nike’s UK headquarters

Another Jump Studios creation Nike’s headquarters in the UK has a sleek, clean and modern design. The walls are packed with match balls and every where you look there is a high def telly showing the latest games, a dream come true for sports-fans.

Bahnhof Office in Stockholm, Sweden

Located 30 metres below the surface the Bahnhof office and data centre in Stockholm, Sweden looks more like Dr Evil’s hideout place. The place used to be an old nuclear bunker and now is one of the most unique workplaces in the world.

Greenhouses, artificial waterfalls, German submarine engines used for backup power, simulated daylight emphasize that. The place is sealed from the outside world by a 16 inches thick doors capable of withstand a hydrogen bomb explosion.

Google’s Stress Free Office in London

We have already talked about Google’s refurbished London HQs, please read Google’s Stress Free Office in London.

GooglePlex

Last but not least we have GooglePlex, the global headquarters of the search giant. To describe all the features Google provides its employees would require a whole article. Basically the place has everything an employee could ask for, free food, games room, cafes, swimming pool and a design to inspire even the less creative of all employees.

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Relaxation areas, games room, corridors inspired on the insides of the SS Enterprise, meeting rooms with sofas and loads of cushions make it one of the trendiest work environments in the world. A dream come true to any employee not to mention an office cleaning company.

Nelson Mattos, Google’s Vice President of Engineering, said: ‘We hire the brightest and best engineers in the UK and put them together in a highly creative, relaxed and exciting environment.’

The office has four FREE restaurants including a tapas and sushi bar and a “coffee lab” with nothing less than 19 different blends of coffee.

Labelled L4, this dream come true office also has a gym, games room with pool table and gaming consoles as well as a sound-proofed music room with drums and guitars.

Mattos adds: ‘Contrary to accepted wisdom, fun offices don’t hurt. Our experience is that a comfortable, open and fun environment encourages creativity and openness.

‘Open spaces make chance interactions more likely and chance interactions often lead to the greatest ideas.

‘Many of our products came from unrelated teams finding out about each other’s work and physically meeting to discuss fresh approaches.’

Google’s London office one of the corner stones of its global operation. Voice search, personalised local search and the most popular Android and iPhone apps were created in there.

Recently Google announced a new service that will boost the cleaning industry but image landing a contract with the search giant to clean that state-of-the-art office.

For competitively price office cleaning services in London contact Total Clean, 15 years of experience in office cleaning London.

Despite all the privacy concerns and complaints I find Google Street View one of the most useful tools offered by the search engine giant. Getting a glimpse of a place you have never been before or been once and don’t quite remember it, it is quite useful.

Now Google wants to offer the same kind of service to shoot inside commercial buildings that request the new service. This new service with no name yet will be a mixture of Google Street View with Google’s Art Project, which recorded famous paintings and art works from 17 museums around the globe.

For the cleaning industry this could mean more business since business owners who request such service will want to tidy up their establishments before they are filmed. Commercial and Office Cleaners in London are already preparing themselves for a possible surge in work since London is one of the first cities to be included in the initial phase of the this new service.

There are already talks about privacy issues but Google made it quite clear that the service will be completely voluntary and advise participating outlets must forewarn customers they are going to be filmed.

Another piece of news from Google that is causing a stir on London’s office cleaning companies is the new ten-year lease the Internet giant signed for a huge seven-storey office building in the East End of the capital. So far no London office cleaning company has been hired but I bet there are thousands of quotes on the desk of whoever is in charge of making such decision.

Entitled Cleaners for Causes, this “charitable cleaning company” started off by offering retail dry cleaning services to charity shops but it is no expanding its range of business to offices and industrial centre around the North East of England.

Cleaners for Causes director Craig Heathcote said:

“We’ve been working with local charities for some time and, having spoken with their corporate supporters, it was obvious to us that there was demand for a professional and well-priced service that drove charitable revenue, built charitable awareness and met corporate social responsibility goals.

“Our service vehicles can visit all manner of workplaces, from offices to industrial sites and village garages, picking up clothing, curtains, covers and work wear, so any firm or employee can get involved, no matter how small.

“Our billing systems also allow us to produce a bespoke invoice that tracks how much each individual customer is raising for St Oswald’s Hospice, or whichever charity they’re supporting.”

It sure is an honourable way to do business but I don’t think the trend will catch with office cleaning companies here in London. But it wouldn’t put London office cleaning companies out of business just for doing the odd cleaning job to raise money to their local charity.

For competitively priced office cleaning in central London and surrounding areas contact Total Clean now for no obligation quote.

In this series of articles we’ll be providing creative office cleaning tips for and your employees to maintain the workplace tidy and clean without much hassle.

The best place to start introducing tidiness and cleanness measures is at individual level with employee’s workstations, cubicles and desks. Every employee should be responsible for its work space; he or she must keep it uncluttered and speckless most of the time.

Do not allow employees to eat at their desks and incite them to clean their hands every time they return from a meal or a snack specially if they went out to eat. A recent study revealed that offices that allow employees to eat at their desks tend to turn their keyboards into bacteria’s hives responsible to transmit could and flu, especially at this time of year with the cold season approaching.

If you hire the services of an office cleaning company make sure their office cleaners disinfect keyboards and phones every time they come to your office and also sure they use appropriate cleaning products. Electrical equipment can not be cleaned with any polish or cleaning product. Use the wrong products and you will end up damaging them.

Promote random audits to make sure employees are keeping their workstations organised and penalise those who don’t. By implementing these audits and penalties you will force your employees to maintain their work place tidy most of the time.

Be careful with what you can’t see!

Make sure you inspect the drawers you will be surprised with stuff you will find in some of your employees’ workstation drawers. That said, what was the most unusual thing you found on an employees’ drawer? Share your findings in our comments.

Do not allow them to store food in them and make sure they keep them tidy and clean as well.

Provide files and folders so employees can store their paper work and avoid paper clutter on their desks.

That is it for now but stay tuned for more office cleaning tips here at Total Clean Office Cleaning London!

Bacteria’s are an essential part of our day to day lives, we have it in and outside our body and without them we would be very sick indeed. While I’m no advocating dirty lifestyles certain types of bacteria work as defence systems of our bodies.

Speaking to BBC News, cleaning expert Aggie Mackenzie said that 99% of bacteria’s are harmless and it is with the 1% that we need to be watchful of.

The survey swabbed a number of office keyboards from around the country and found bacterias such as Staphylococcus, Bacillus and Micrococcus, indicating a poor level of hygiene and that changes in office habits like hot desking and eating while working are the cause of such dirtiness.

Dr Lisa Ackerley, an environmental hygiene expert, said: “This research has shown that there are some very unhygienic desks right now in office across the UK, which is very worrying as those who work in open-plan offices tend to start coming down with illnesses this time of year.”

She added: “Keeping equipment such as keyboards, phones and desks as germ-free as possible is even more important during the cold and flu season.”

Despite need for a change in habits of office workers, office cleaning companies should take the blame for the dirtiness found on the surveyed desktops. It is an essential part of any office cleaning job to make sure keyboards and phone are cleaned and disinfected regularly.

Carlos Garcia, owner of an office cleaning company in central London said: “The results of this survey are rather worrying and show that office habits should be revised and office cleaning companies should emphasize with their workers the importance of cleaning and disinfecting desktops”.

It is important to note that electrical equipment can not be cleaned with any polish or cleaning product. Use the wrong products and you will end up damaging them.

If you are not sure what to use, Total Clean Services Ltd offers bespoke computer and telephone equipment cleaning, for more information please contact us.

Participants included industry representatives from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, UK and the USA. The purpose of this report is to discuss the key themes and issues reported from the conference and to suggest how they will impact cleaning businesses in the future.

It is estimated that the cleaning industry generates total revenue of 35 billion Pounds worldwide based on the data provided by the WFBSC members. Off course this is an under estimate of the true size of the cleaning industry. If we were to include non-members of the WFBSC and countries like Chine and Indian numbers would be much higher.

According to data provided by WFBSC member countries the cleaning industry employs 4.5 million people worldwide. It is estimated the in the UK the cleaning industry employs 452,000 people but then again numbers could be higher since the relationship with between the UK and the WFBSC inconstant. Countries like Japan and Brazil the number of jobs generated by the industry surpass the 1 million mark.

This is only the first part of a series of articles about the state of the cleaning industry worldwide and it is important to note that the data used to compile this report was based on numbers provided by members of WFBSC from the year of 2010.

Next week we take a look at the macroeconomic context influencing the cleaning industry and current market conditions.

Source: http://www.wfbsc.org/news/The%20Worldwide%20Cleaning%20Industry.pdf

For experienced and reliable office cleaning in London contact Total Clean now!

The new commercial complex being built in Covent Garden will consist mainly of Grade A office spaces. The project is a redevelopment by Legal & General Property and it will cost the company £65 million making it the biggest project of its kind in this particular area in 2012.

In total 55,000 sq ft are being built with a focus not only in catering for the growing demand of office spaces in the area but also with great emphasis on sustainability. For starters bicycle units and showering facilities are being implemented to encourage workers to cycle to work.

This is great news for office cleaning companies providing their services in central London where the market seems to be saturated due to the lack of office spaces in the area. But new developments such as this one from L&G is giving new hopes for London office cleaning companies which are already working hard to secure future contracts once these new buildings are ready.

While office cleaning companies are working hard to provide competitive quotes for their services, the demand for property is becoming so intense that property market analysts are predicting that rents would spiral due to such high demand and lack of new office space.