Half of Brits asked to clean the office

More than half of British workers have been asked to clean their place of work by their boss despite it not being in their job description, according to new research.

A survey of 1,000 UK workers carried out by interiors etailer Furniture123.co.uk found British employees are losing 13 working hours per year cleaning their office or workspace. Despite 85% claiming their company employs a cleaner, staff across the UK spend three minutes a working day on average cleaning their office or workspace.

Cleaning desks topped the list as the most common cleaning task UK workers are asked to carry out, with 85% doing this weekly. 52% say they are asked to clean communal kitchen or food preparation spaces every week, while 47% say they are asked to vacuum weekly.

Less common but still interestingly, 17% say they are asked to take time out of their working week tending to the office plants, while an unfortunate 15% even have to clean the bathroom that they share with colleagues on a weekly basis.

Mark Kelly, marketing manager at Furniture123.co.uk said: “It is really interesting to see how many British workers are being asked to carry out cleaning tasks by their employers. Not only are staff carrying out tasks outside of their job description, it’s eating in to their normal working hours, which in turn will be costing businesses.

“It’s fair enough for employers to ask their staff to keep their office or workplace tidy and do their best to limit the amount of cleaning required, but it’s likely in most cases to be more cost effective in the long run to hire a professional cleaner to carry out tasks such as vacuuming and leave workers to do the job they are hired to do.”

The data revealed those who work in marketing are the most eager cleaners – the average cleaning time rose to 17 hours annually for this industry compared to those who worked in financial services, where the average yearly cleaning time fell to just nine hours.

Top 10 cleaning tasks carried out by employees:

1. Cleaning desks – 85%
2. Cleaning the kitchen – 52%
3. Vacuuming – 47%
4. Loading and emptying the dishwasher – 51%
5. Emptying bins and recycling – 47%
6. Tending to office plants (removing dead leaves, watering etc) – 17%
7. Cleaning the bathroom – 15%
8. Cleaning windows – 11%
9. Tidying communal areas – 10%
10. Mopping – 8%