Mark Heppelthwaite, Co-CEO at NJC, reflects on what cleaning standards really mean, shaped by more than three decades working in and around commercial buildings. Starting out on the floor and learning the job first-hand, he shares why standards are set through people, presence and care for the detail.
I started out in commercial cleaning in 1991. On my first day in the industry, my mum worked alongside me. Like anyone starting out, I was keen to finish quickly and move on. Each time I thought a job was done, her answer was the same: no. If it wasn’t right, it wasn’t finished. No shortcuts, no arguments.
That lesson stayed with me. My understanding of standards didn’t come from training manuals, but from doing the work properly, even when it would have been easier not to. Cleaning quickly reveals attitude: the difference between “good enough” and real pride in getting it right. One leaves issues behind; the other leaves buildings better than they found them. That mindset has shaped my entire career and still defines how I view cleaning standards today.
Back then, cleaning standards were judged very simply. You walked through the building. You looked closely. You knew whether it was right or not. And if it wasn’t, you fixed it, usually there and then.
Nearly thirty-five years later, the industry has changed beyond recognition in some ways. The language is different. The expectations are higher. Buildings are bigger, smarter, and far more complex. But in other ways, not much has changed at all.
Because when it comes to cleaning standards, the truth is still the same: they are created on the ground, not in boardrooms.
Over the years, I’ve sat in countless meetings discussing specifications, KPIs, audits, and frameworks. All of them have their place. But none of them clean a floor at 6am or notice a problem before an occupier does.
Real standards come from people who know their building and care about how it looks and feels. They come from supervisors who walk the space every day and spot small things before they become big ones. They come from cleaners who understand that what they do shapes how people experience a workplace.
Some of the best standards I’ve seen in my career have come from teams with modest resources but strong leadership. Some of the worst have come from contracts that looked perfect on paper but were hollow operationally.
Commercial buildings today demand far more than they did when I started. Mixed-use estates, high-end finishes, longer hours, sustainability targets, and wellbeing expectations all place pressure on cleaning teams.
Cleaning is no longer invisible. It’s front of house. It’s part of the occupier experience. It’s noticed when it’s good, and even more so when it’s not.
That visibility has raised the bar, but it’s also exposed a hard truth: generic, remote, or overly fragmented cleaning models struggle to cope with modern buildings.
You can’t manage complexity from a distance.
One lesson that has stayed with me since the early days is that consistency only comes from control. When responsibility is blurred, too many subcontractors, too many layers of management, too little presence onsite, standards drift.
The strongest operations I’ve been involved in share common traits:
Cleaning is a practical discipline. It responds badly to abstraction. The closer decision-making sits to the building, the better the outcome.
Technology has changed the way we manage cleaning. Reporting is sharper. Data is more accessible. Audits are more frequent. All that helps.
But I’ve never seen an app fix a disengaged team……………….
Cleaning standards rise when people feel valued, listened to, and supported. They fall when teams feel stretched, overlooked, or disconnected from the purpose of their work.
The most reliable indicator of a strong operation isn’t the software; it’s the attitude of the people delivering the service at 7am on a Tuesday.
Some of the biggest challenges I’ve seen in cleaning have nothing to do with day-to-day delivery and everything to do with how a contractor's building was set up in the first place.
Mobilising a building, especially one coming out of the ground, is not a paperwork exercise. It’s about understanding how the building will be used, not how it looks on a drawing.
When mobilisation is rushed or under-resourced, operations spend years trying to recover. When it’s done properly, standards feel natural rather than forced.
You can always tell which path a building has taken.
Good cleaning operations don’t exist in isolation. They support asset value, occupier satisfaction, and the reputation of everyone involved, from landlords to managing agents.
The best teams I’ve worked with don’t just clean. They observe. They report. They take pride in being part of something bigger than a task list.
That mindset doesn’t come from targets alone. It comes from leadership that respects the operational reality of the job.
After over three decades in commercial cleaning, I’m more convinced than ever that the fundamentals still matter most.
Standards aren’t created by slogans or spreadsheets. They’re built through:
The industry will keep evolving, and that’s a good thing. But as it does, we shouldn’t forget where standards really come from.
They start on the floor. They always have.
Mark Heppelthwaite,
Co-CEO