How to adjust your retail store cleaning schedule for the holidays

Your retail store cleaning schedule for the holidays should add hours where customers are, protect the floor before the weather turns, and end on a set date. Most stores need more porter time during open hours, a longer or extra night clean in the peak weeks, heavier entrance matting, and a floor reset in January.

What follows is a four-phase plan, a sample schedule, the change list to settle with your contractor, and the January reset that keeps winter damage from turning into a floor replacement.

When should holiday cleaning changes start and stop?

Start planning in October and have changes running by the first week of November. The peak for most stores runs from Thanksgiving week through Christmas Eve, and returns keep traffic high into early January.

Think of the season in four phases:

1. Pre-season (early to mid November). Deep clean and floor work while the store still has quiet nights.
2. Peak (Thanksgiving week through Christmas Eve). More porter hours, a fuller night clean, more frequent burnishing.
3. Returns (December 26 into early January). Porter coverage stays on for the returns counter, fitting rooms and restrooms.
4. Reset (mid to late January). Floors, carpet and entrances brought back to standard, and the schedule returns to normal.

A sample holiday retail store cleaning schedule

Adjust the hours to your store's traffic, but keep the structure: each phase has its own porter hours, night scope and floor work.

A note on porter hours. Holiday traffic is uneven, so match the hours to it. Many stores get more from a porter on 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and full weekends than from an extra morning shift when the store is quiet.

Where the extra porter hours go

During peak weeks, a day porter keeps restrooms, entries and fitting rooms in shape while the doors are open. Associates are tied up at registers and on the floor, and cleaning is the first task they drop.

A holiday porter route usually covers:

• Restrooms checked and restocked on a set round, more often on weekends.
• Entrance floors spot-mopped and mats straightened after every wet spell.
• Fitting rooms cleared of hangers and tags, mirrors and benches wiped.
• Checkout counters, card readers and belts wiped through the day.
• Spills handled when they happen, with wet floor signs out.
• Trash and cardboard pulled from the floor and checkout before bins overflow.

Write the route into the change, with the areas and the rounds per hour you expect. "Porter: 8 hours" tells nobody what gets done.

Entrances and floors in winter

The stretch of floor just inside your door takes the most damage in a holiday season. Grit, slush and ice melt come in on every shoe. Ice melt is the one buyers underestimate: it leaves a white film on floor finish and dries into crystals that act like sandpaper on the finish and carpet.

What protects the floor:

• More matting, and longer. A short mat at the door stops a fraction of what a run of mats inside and outside the entrance stops.
• Matting care. Saturated mats push water further in, so vacuum, rotate and swap them on a schedule.
• An ice melt neutralizer on entries. Ice melt leaves an alkaline film that an ordinary neutral cleaner does not lift. A product made to remove it, mopped on and picked up, stops the white haze from building.
• Frequent dust mopping and burnishing. Dry grit removed before it grinds into the finish, and gloss restored in the lanes.

Carpeted entries and fitting rooms need the same thinking. Our commercial carpet cleaning schedule explains why heavy zones get extracted more often than the rest of the floor. For hard floors, floor care covers burnishing, scrub and recoat, and refinishing.

The holiday change order

Seasonal programs usually go wrong on paperwork. Hours get added by a phone call to the night supervisor, nobody writes an end date, and in February you are still paying for an afternoon porter. Or the store extends its hours, the crew arrives at the old time, and the doors are locked.

Before November, send your contractor one email that sets every change. Include:

• Start and end date for every added hour, visit or task.
• Porter hours by day of week, with clock times and the route.
• Night crew start time for each change in store hours, including late-night events and early openings.
• Rate for each added line, so the seasonal cost is visible on the invoice.
• Floor work dates for the pre-season and the reset, plus blackout dates when no floor work happens.
• Access: alarm codes, keys, and who lets the crew in during extended hours.
• Overnight crews: dates when merchandising, stocking or fixture teams will be in the store, so floor work and stocking are not booked for the same night.
• Display and fixture moves: who moves holiday displays before floor work, and who puts them back.
• Who approves changes during the season, at the store and at the contractor, by name.

Extended hours shrink the night crew's window

Longer store hours eat into cleaning time. If the store closes at 10 p.m. instead of 9, and stocking teams work the floor until midnight, a crew that normally has six quiet hours may have four.

Plan for it:

• Add crew for peak weeks rather than expecting the same team to do more in less time.
• Sequence the night: restrooms and back-of-house while stocking teams are on the floor, sales floor and entries after they leave.
• Move heavy floor work out of the peak entirely.
• Ask whether the store can close off a section early on slow weeknights so the crew can start there.
• Keep restroom and trash work on its normal frequency even when floor work is paused. Those are the complaints customers make out loud.

The January reset

The reset is where winter damage gets fixed or carried into spring. Once returns slow, book a one-time detail and floor work before the schedule goes back to normal.

The reset list:

• Scrub and recoat entries and main traffic lanes, or a full strip if the finish is worn through.
• Extract carpet in entries, fitting rooms and any carpeted aisles.
• Clean ice melt residue from thresholds, door tracks and baseboards near entrances.
• Replace mats that are worn or no longer lying flat.
• High dust and clean fixtures as holiday displays come down.
• End every seasonal line on the invoice, as agreed in the change order.

Plan your holiday schedule

October is the month to walk the store, while the floor can still close for a night. We look at your entrances, floor finish, restroom count and holiday hours, then send a written quote you can set up as dated seasonal lines: pre-season floor work, peak porter hours, returns coverage and the January reset. See how we handle retail store cleaning.

Get a Free Facility Assessment or call (202) 968-1190.