What to Do When Your Cleaning Contractor Sends a Different Person Every Week

Ask for three things in writing: a named primary operative for your site, a named relief who has already been inducted on your premises, and a written cover procedure. That is the fix, and it usually takes one email. Most Irish cleaning contracts say nothing at all about who actually turns up, so continuity was never bought, which is why your contractor is not technically in breach of anything.

Rotation costs you twice. Nobody ever learns the site, and nobody is ever accountable for it.

The second cost is the one facilities professionals in Dublin 2 and the IFSC actually worry about: a rotating cast of people holding keys and alarm codes, working unsupervised, beside unlocked screens and open files.

Below: the six documents to request this week, the clause to add at renewal, and a straight answer on what Garda vetting does and does not cover in a commercial office.

Quick answer: If your cleaning contractor sends a different person every week, ask for a named primary operative, a named inducted relief, and a written cover procedure. Most Irish cleaning contracts are silent on staffing continuity, so it has to be specified. Also request confidentiality undertakings and a keyholding register for anyone with after-hours access.

Why contract cleaning has so much churn

Churn in this sector is structural, not personal. We say that as an employer who recruits against it.

Look at the shape of the work. Shifts start at 6am or finish at 10pm, most roles are part-time, and an operative may travel between two or three sites in a day. Travel between a Sandyford site and a Dublin 8 site is unpaid and unglamorous, and it is the most common reason we lose good people to a competitor closer to their home.

Then there is pay, where most buyers guess wrong. Under the Employment Regulation Order (Contract Cleaning Industry Joint Labour Committee) 2025 (S.I. No. 430/2025, full text on the Irish Statute Book), the adult rate rose to €14.10 per hour from 17 October 2025 and to €14.80 per hour from 1 January 2026. That order covers roughly 30,000 contract cleaning workers and binds every compliant contractor equally, as confirmed on the WRC Contract Cleaning ERO page.

So pay is not a differentiator. A cleaner cannot raise their hourly rate by moving from one legitimate Dublin contractor to another.

They move for hours, shift pattern and travel. That reframes your problem usefully: turnover is an operational design question, and a contractor who builds routes and rosters properly holds staff far longer.

Which brings us to the distinction that matters on your site.

Planned cover is normal and healthy. Every contractor has annual leave, certified sick leave and the odd resignation to absorb, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Premier included.

What is not normal is a floating relief pool used as a permanent staffing model, because it means no cover plan was ever built. That is a contractor failure, not a cleaner failure, and it is fixable with a specification change rather than a new tender — the same underlying gap we cover in why cleaners keep missing the same areas, where an unwritten scope produces the same kind of silent shortfall.

What rotating staff actually costs you

A practice manager at a professional-services firm in Dublin 2 called us a couple of years back, not about cleaning quality, but about a filing habit.

Her out-of-hours cleaner was tidying. Genuinely trying to help. Files left on desks were squared into stacks and moved to a credenza, and because a different person came most weeks, the stacks landed somewhere new each time. Nobody was doing anything wrong. Nobody had been told what to do either.

That is what rotation looks like in practice. Not drama, just an absence of instruction repeated fifty times a year.

Quality: the twenty things that are not in the specification

Every site has a private operating manual that exists only in one person's head. Which cupboard holds the spare bin liners. Which alarm zone trips if you enter the server room after arming. Which meeting room is used twice a month and does not need a daily vacuum.

None of that is in the written scope, and no scope could contain it. It takes roughly three weeks of the same person on site to absorb it. If your own scope document is thin to begin with, what a proper office cleaning specification should cover is worth reading alongside this one.

Reset that clock every week and you get a permanent beginner. The floors look fine and the detail slips, which is the complaint we hear most: "it is not dirty, it is just never quite right." This is often the same pattern behind cleaning standards dropping after the first few months of a new contract. For a task-by-task benchmark, see our guide to what is expected of an office cleaner.

Security and access: keys, fobs and alarm codes

Count how many people have held your keys in the last six months. Most managers cannot, and that is the finding, not the number.

Fobs get passed hand to hand. Codes get shared verbally because someone was covering at short notice. Access logs show entries attributed to a person who left the contractor in March.

None of this implies anybody is dishonest. The risk is unmanaged access, and that is a documentation problem sitting on the contractor's side of the line.

Confidentiality: paper, screens, bins and whiteboards

In a solicitor's office, a dental practice or a recruitment agency, the sensitive material is not locked away at 7pm. It is on desks, on monitors, in confidential waste bins and written across a meeting-room whiteboard.

Here is the part buyers get wrong. Your cleaning contractor is usually not a data processor, because they are not processing personal data on your instructions. They are cleaning a room that happens to contain it.

You remain the data controller, and your obligation under Article 32 of the GDPR to maintain appropriate technical and organisational security measures covers physical access to the premises where that data sits. The Data Protection Commission publishes guidance on organisational measures worth reading before your next contract review.

In practice that means a clear-desk policy and a locked-screen policy. Both are your job, not the cleaner's.

The six documents to request this week

Send one email. A competent contractor will have five of these six ready and will not be offended by the request.

1. Named primary and relief operative for your site, in writing. Proves a specific person is assigned to you rather than a rota gap being filled each week.
2. Site induction record for each named person. Proves they were walked through your layout, alarm zones, restricted rooms and escalation contact before working alone. A relief with no induction record is not really a relief.
3. Signed confidentiality undertaking for anyone with after-hours access. Short and specific, covering documents, screens, conversations and waste. Standard in professional-services and medical settings.
4. Right-to-work verification confirmation. Ask for written confirmation that checks were completed, not copies of the documents. Holding employees' identity documents pulls in personal data you have no need to keep.
5. Garda vetting disclosures where the setting involves children or vulnerable persons. See below, because this one is widely misstated.
6. Keyholding and alarm-code register, with a stated leaver procedure. Proves someone can tell you today who holds what, and what happens within 24 hours of a person leaving.

On vetting, be precise. Vetting through the National Vetting Bureau under the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012-2016 is mandatory only for work involving children or vulnerable persons. A cleaner in a general commercial office is not automatically vetted.

If a contractor states "all our staff are Garda vetted" as a blanket claim, ask to see the disclosures. Sometimes they genuinely exist, because the contractor also services schools or care homes. Sometimes the phrase is being used loosely to mean reference checks.

In a crèche, a primary school, a nursing home or a healthcare setting, vetting is a real requirement and you should insist on it. Details are on the Garda National Vetting Bureau site.

For an ordinary office, the other five items carry the weight. Reference checks, verified right to work, confidentiality undertakings, photo ID badges and a named-personnel list will do far more for you than a vetting claim that does not apply.

Printable request checklist

• ☐ Named primary operative confirmed in writing
• ☐ Named relief operative confirmed in writing
• ☐ Induction record on file for both
• ☐ Confidentiality undertaking signed by both
• ☐ Right-to-work verification confirmed (confirmation only, no documents)
• ☐ Vetting disclosures obtained where the setting requires them
• ☐ Keyholding and alarm-code register received and dated
• ☐ Leaver procedure stated, with a time limit
• ☐ Photo ID badge policy confirmed
• ☐ Escalation contact named, with a mobile number

A fair benchmark to hold your contractor to: the named primary and named relief between them should cover at least 90% of your scheduled shifts. Anything below that is a rota being improvised.

The clause to add at renewal

Continuity is bought, not assumed. If it is not in the specification, no reasonable contractor prices for it.

Here is wording that has worked well in Dublin contracts. Have your own advisor review it against your agreement before you use it.

Sample staffing continuity clause

1. Named personnel. The Contractor shall confirm in writing a named primary operative and at least one named relief operative assigned to the Client's premises, and shall maintain a current named-personnel list.
2. Continuity level. The named primary and relief operatives shall together perform not less than 90% of scheduled cleaning attendances in any rolling three-month period.
3. Notice of permanent change. The Contractor shall give the Client not less than five working days' written notice of any permanent change of named operative, save where the change arises from illness, resignation without notice, or other circumstance outside the Contractor's control, in which case notice shall be given as soon as practicable.
4. Induction. No operative shall attend the premises outside the Client's normal business hours unless a documented site induction has been completed and recorded.
5. Right to refuse. The Client may decline out-of-hours access to any person not appearing on the current named-personnel list, without such refusal constituting a failure of access on the Client's part.

That last line matters more than it looks. Without it, a contractor can argue you obstructed the service when you turned away a stranger at the door.

Pair the clause with a supervision standard so someone is actually checking the work. We covered that in how do you supervise cleaning staff, worth reading alongside what a trained commercial cleaner should be able to do before you finalise a specification.

Plan for two related points at the same time. Annual leave cover should be named in advance rather than sorted out in July, and if you switch contractor entirely, the transfer of undertakings rules may move the existing team across to your new provider.

What to fix on your own side

A good contractor will ask you for most of this. When we run a free site survey, these come up in the first fifteen minutes, and the answers tell us more about a building than the floor plan does.

• Clear-desk policy. Nothing sensitive left face-up at the end of the day. Practical, not perfect, and far easier to enforce once people understand why.
• Locked screens. Set an automatic lock at ten minutes. It removes an entire category of risk without asking anyone to change their habits.
• A lockable pedestal for HR and payroll paperwork. One drawer, one key, one named holder.
• A defined cleaning access window. "Between 6pm and 9pm, weekdays" is a control. "Some time in the evening" is not.
• A signing-in book or access log at reception. Name, time in, time out. It protects the cleaning team as much as it protects you.

Back to that Dublin 2 practice. The fix was not a new contractor. We named one operative, inducted a relief on site before she ever worked alone, and agreed a simple rule: papers on desks are not touched, and the client introduced a clear-desk policy in the same week. The complaint stopped, and the file stacks stayed where the fee earners left them.

Frequently asked questions

Should the same cleaner come to my office every time? Ideally yes, and it is reasonable to specify it. Aim for a named primary operative plus one named relief covering at least 90% of scheduled shifts between them. Total continuity is not realistic, because leave and illness happen in every workforce. What matters is that cover is planned, inducted and communicated rather than improvised each week.

Are office cleaners Garda vetted in Ireland? Not automatically. Vetting through the National Vetting Bureau is mandatory only for work involving children or vulnerable persons, so a cleaner in a general commercial office is usually not vetted. In crèches, schools, nursing homes and healthcare settings it is a genuine requirement. For ordinary offices, ask instead for reference checks, right-to-work confirmation, confidentiality undertakings and photo ID.

Can my cleaning company change staff without telling me? Usually yes, unless your contract says otherwise. Most Irish cleaning agreements are silent on staffing continuity, so the contractor is not in breach when a new person arrives unannounced. Add a notice clause at renewal requiring written notice of any permanent change of operative, and a documented induction before anyone works your site out of hours.

What should be in a cleaning contract about staff continuity? Five elements: named primary and relief operatives, a minimum continuity percentage measured over a rolling quarter, written notice of permanent changes, a mandatory site induction before unsupervised attendance, and a right to refuse out-of-hours access to anyone not on the named-personnel list. Add a keyholding register with a stated leaver procedure alongside it.

Who is responsible for data protection when cleaners work after hours? You are. As the organisation holding the personal data, you remain the data controller, and your Article 32 obligation to maintain appropriate organisational security measures covers physical access to the premises. A cleaning contractor is generally not a data processor. Your practical controls are a clear-desk policy, locked screens, lockable storage and a controlled access window.

Why is turnover so high in the contract cleaning industry? Structure, not attitude. The work is often part-time, on early or late shifts, across multiple sites, with unpaid travel between them. Pay is set industry-wide by the Contract Cleaning ERO, so moving employer does not raise anyone's hourly rate. People move for better hours, shorter travel and a steadier roster, all of which a well-run contractor can offer, and it is the same driver behind the daily cleaning checklist never quite being finished when a route is unfamiliar.

Talk to us before you go to tender

If you are seeing a new face most weeks, you probably do not need a new contractor. You need a named team, a written cover plan and a keyholding register, and your current provider may well supply all three if you ask in writing.

If they cannot, that tells you something useful.

Every Premier contract names the operative who cleans your site and the relief who covers them, and both are inducted on your premises before they work alone. If a permanent change is needed, you hear it from us first, not from a stranger at your door. We are family run, based at Mount Argus Mill in Dublin 6W, with a 5.0 rating from over 100 Google reviews — you can read more on our about us page. This is the same continuity standard behind our full office cleaning Dublin service, and our re-clean guarantee applies regardless of which named operative is on site.

The site survey is free and comes with a written, room-by-room scope before any quote. Call Catalin directly on 086 083 6141, email enquiries@premiercontractcleaning.ie, or use the contact page.

If you are earlier in the process, read how we approach choosing the best office cleaning company in Dublin, and our note on carpet cleaning frequency is a useful companion if periodic work is also part of what's slipping through the cracks.

One last note. The clause wording above is a sample, and employment, data protection and contract questions turn on your specific agreement and circumstances. Take your own legal advice before you rely on it.

Catalin Fatul

Catalin Fatul is the founder and expert behind Premier Contract Cleaning, dedicated to providing top-notch cleaning solutions and tips. With a passion for cleanliness and a commitment to quality, Catalin brings years of experience in the cleaning industry to help readers maintain pristine spaces. Whether it's offering the latest cleaning hacks or recommending the best products, Catalin's mission is to make cleaning efficient, effective, and enjoyable.