Most office cleaning in Hampton and the surrounding area happens after business hours. That means your cleaning contractor has unsupervised access to your building, your equipment, and potentially sensitive areas. Managing that access correctly protects you from both liability and loss.
What an access protocol document should contain
Before any crew member enters your building, you should have a signed document from your cleaning contractor that includes:
- The full name of each crew member who will have building access
- How physical keys are stored when not in use (locked key box, contractor's office, etc.)
- The alarm entry and exit procedure, in writing
- What the crew does if an alarm is triggered — which means who they call and in what order
- The procedure for reporting any building condition found on arrival (unlocked door, damaged property, equipment left on)
- What happens to access credentials if a crew member leaves the company
A contractor who will not provide this document in writing is not ready to manage after-hours access responsibly.
Key handover
Physical key handover should be documented with a receipt. The receipt should identify the key, state who received it, and note the date. You retain a copy; the contractor retains a copy. If keys are ever copied, you should be notified in writing before the copy is made.
For buildings with keycard or fob access, prefer issuing a dedicated contractor fob rather than a staff member's fob — dedicated access credentials can be revoked without affecting other users, and the access log is tied to a specific credential rather than a shared one.
Alarm codes
If your alarm system allows it, set up a dedicated disarm code for your cleaning contractor. This has two advantages: the code can be changed without affecting your staff, and your alarm event log will show entries under the contractor code rather than a shared code. If your system does not support multiple codes, keep a log of when you shared the code, to whom, and when it was changed.
Change your alarm code any time a contractor's crew membership changes. A crew member who leaves the company should not retain a working access code to your building.
Restricted areas
If parts of your building are restricted — server rooms, executive offices, records storage — document those restrictions in your cleaning scope. The crew should know which areas are off-limits and why. If a restricted area also needs cleaning, establish a separate supervised-access protocol for it rather than leaving the decision to the crew.
What to do if something goes wrong
If a key is lost, an alarm is triggered without cause, or a crew member reports an anomaly in your building, you should have a documented escalation path: who do you call at the cleaning company, and what is the expected response time? Establish this before day one, not after an incident.