The clean desk

The clean desk

Written by Luciënne van Leest

During my graduation internship I was part of the Green team, a global initiative of Amgen (Internship Company). As member of the green team, it was my task to set up a clean up day for Amgen Breda. This means that all, 600 employees working in one building, needed to clean up their desk. What do you think; “Is this a challenge or not?”

At first instance I thought this was not difficult or challenging, you just ask them politely to clean up their desks. But then I searched clean desk policy on www.google.com and it showed me over 26.700.000 hits. On that moment I realized that a clean desk policy is more then only cleaning up the desk once, but is a part of the business culture.

What is clean desk policy about?
The clean desk is first an aid to clean work environment, clean profit and clean reputation. A clean desk signifies not merely a piece of furniture but more a mental process and a moral principle. A clean desk provides the clean start and the clean finish for every day’s work. It has a financial value because it hastens production, lessens spoilage, reduce waste of time and money caused by needless mistakes. The definition of a clean desk policy is at the conclusion of a work day; employees are expected to straighten their desks and documents to be filed in an appropriate cabinet or filing drawer.[1]

What are the benefits of a clean desk policy?
When a policy first adopted to encourage clean desks, it may be viewed as an extra burden in an already busy office, especially too those who work with layers or clutter and paper on their desk. They mindset of many of these individuals is that their messy desk does not affect anyone but them, but professors discovered that people with a messy desk waste 15 percent of their time looking at things. To encourage employees to clean up it is important to mention following benefits:
- It creates the right image when customers and vendors visit you company
- It reduces the chance of confidential information being compromised or passwords being stolen
- Employees stress is lessened when an employee’s desk is clean
- The occurrence of workplace accidents and spills drops when a policy supporting clean desks is enforced
- People who keep a tidy desk are often considered for a raise because of their organizational skills
- It reduce the amount of paper use[2]


How to reach a clean desk?
There is a Japanese methodology which is called 5S. 5S is the name of a workplace organization methodology that uses a list of five Japanese words which, transliterated and translated into English, start with the letter S. It is a philosophy and a way of organizing and managing the workspace and workflow with the intent to improve efficiency.

Phase 1.
Seiri (sorting)
Going through all documents and keeping only the essential ones.


Phase 2.
Seiton (set in order)
Focuses on efficiency. This phase is to arrange documents in a manner that promotes workflow. For all documents and tools everything should have a place and everything should be in its place (binders, archive cabinets etc.)


Phase 3.
Seiso (sweeping or shining)
The key point of this phase is that maintaining cleanliness should be part of the daily work and not an occasional activity initiated when things are getting too messy.


Phase 4.
Seiketsu (standardizing)
Standardized work practices in a consistent and standardized fashion. Everyone knows exactly what his or her responsibilities are to keep above 3S’s.


Phase 5.
Shitsuke (sustaining the discipline)
Once the previous 4S’s have been established, they become a new way to operate. Only when the first 4 phases are done probably this phase will succeed.[3]

Tips for keeping your desk clean
Once your desk is clean, keeping it tidy and organized is easier if you follow these steps:
- Set aside a planned time each day to clear paperwork from your desk
- Paperwork builds up just like junk mail at home when you don't deal with it daily. Don't keep papers you don't need. Strive to handle papers as few times if possible. If you're cleaning your desk, file papers in the proper file or into the trash bin. Shred any papers of a sensitive nature.
- Don't print emails to read them. All it does is turn into clutter.
- Deal with cleaning your desk before you leave for the day so that you start the next workday with a clean desk and documents in their proper place.
- Scan documents when possible and store them on your computer using paper filing software. This eliminates paper filing and makes documents easier to find no matter that is looking for them.
- If you have not opened or read a document for over six months scan it and get rid of it, or keep it if you still want to use it.

Finally I learned a lot about the clean desk policy. I noticed that based steps are important, to reach our final goal. At Amgen Breda we decided to explain our internal clients what clean desk policy means, what our final goal is and how the 5S methodology can be implemented in the work cultural. It is important that the internal client has a change in their mindset about the policy. Let’s end with the introduction question “Yes, it is challenging to implement the clean desk policy in any organization. But with the use of right tools and experiences from others, it definitely is possible!”

Curious how we reached our goal? Please wait for my other articles!

[1] Edward Earl Purinton, 1919, Personal efficiency in business, Robert M. McBride & Company
[2] http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/business/clean_desk_policy.html
[3] Ron Emmerik, 2007, Kwaliteitsmanagement, Pearson Education Benelux