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Written by The McCarthy's Team on May 7, 2019

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Springtime… it’s all about lambs and chocolate and bank holidays – and cleaning.

OK, so spring cleaning might not be your favourite thing to do, but it is definitely something you’ll feel better for afterwards. A survey a couple of years ago revealed that 70% of Brits admit to doing a deep spring clean, spending on average 11 hours sprucing up their homes for the season.

But it’s not just homes which can need a good sort out – workspaces do too. For many of us, we’ll spend a third of our lives at work (although, possibly it feels like more!) so it’s important your surroundings there are as pleasant as they can be.

It can be all too easy for clutter to collect and before you know it, there’s piles of stuff everywhere. That’s never going to be conducive to a good and productive working environment. So, here are our top tips for getting a workplace spring clean underway:

1. Make it a team effort – ok, this one doesn’t work if you’re a sole trader, but if you’re part of a team, get everyone involved. Many hands make light work. Give everyone responsibility for their own working space and share out any communal areas. Put the time in everyone’s diary so there’s no wriggling out of it!
2. Decluttering is key – it’s always easier to clean when there’s less clutter to work round. Be ruthless. Are you hanging on to things ‘just in case’? How likely are you to need them? If you’re genuinely not sure you can quite get rid of them yet, but you really don’t need them day-to-day, consider using self storage. We have three self storage centres in Leeds, Harrogate and Wakefield all in convenient locations with loads of parking. You can hire a unit to suit your exact needs – it can even be one you drive right up to and have wifi and power if needed – and you can gain access whenever you want. So, if you suddenly realise you’ve stored something you urgently need for a meeting the following morning, it’s not a problem. Self storage is the ideal solution for helping you clear some much needed space, whilst allowing you to hold on to things you’re not yet ready to part with.
3. Go paperless – getting rid of paper entirely might be tricky, but it’s certainly something you can reduce around the office. With new GDPR legislation and then rules varying over how long you need to keep documentation for, it can be hard to know what to do. McCarthy’s can provide a shredding service to get rid of any sensitive information (which is anything that contains anyone’s details – even such as an email address). We can either come along regularly to empty special bins we leave at your premises or come on an ad hoc basis – like after a Spring clean! Everything is shredded in our secure warehouse and then sent to be recycled in the UK. It’s good to be green!
4. File it away – For paperwork which does need to be kept, it might be worth considering some out of office storage. We can offer a document management service. We take your important files and file them in our warehouse with a special barcode, meaning you can retrieve the file you need within two hours. We can even set an automatic time limit, meaning we shred the files on a given date, if they’re no longer needed. Saves you from having an office full of filing cabinets and archive boxes and is particularly useful for those law firms, accountants and public sector organisations which need to keep lots of records. Self storage could also work, if you’re happy to instigate your own filing system.
5. Get tech savvy – Get rid of any old electronic equipment, whether it’s PCs which are no longer functioning or crashed laptops. Be careful to ensure any data is properly disposed of – some criminals are even able to access wiped data. If the equipment is no longer working, consider having it recycled. We can offer a service where we securely wipe hard drives, computers, laptop, USBs, DVDs and CDs before disposing of them safely in line with the WEEE Directive. You even get a certificate to prove it.

And if all those fail, and your workplace is still looking overcrowded, maybe it’s time for a move. In which case, give us a call for a hand with your business removal!