eBay’s UK headquarters in Richmond, Surrey is not a quiet building. Across multiple floors of open-plan workspace, meeting suites, staff canteens, and client-facing reception areas, several hundred employees pass through each day. The building runs on tight operational rhythms — early starts, late finishes, back-to-back meetings, and a campus culture where shared spaces are in near-constant use. When the facilities team needed a commercial office cleaning partner who could work around that reality without disrupting it, they brought in Crystal Facilities Management.
The Environment
The Richmond site is a modern corporate campus. Open-plan floors account for the majority of the footprint, with clusters of hot-desks, fixed workstations, and collaboration zones spread across each level. Add to that a ground-floor reception that handles both staff and external visitors, a staff canteen serving three meal periods, several fully-equipped meeting rooms booked back-to-back most days, and breakout areas used informally throughout the working day.
In a building like this, the cleaning schedule is not a background operation. It directly affects how the space functions, how it presents to visitors, and how staff experience their working environment. Hygiene failures in a shared kitchen or a busy washroom do not go unnoticed. Neither do desks left sticky, carpets left gritty, or glass partitions left smeared after a full day of use.
The challenge is not simply cleaning the space. It is cleaning it consistently, at the right times, without becoming an obstacle in a building that never really stops.
What the Facilities Team Needed
Before Crystal came on board, the site’s cleaning provision had developed gaps. The previous arrangement covered the basics but lacked the flexibility to respond to the site’s actual rhythms. Scheduled cleans were happening, but not always when they were most needed. The canteen area was being turned around between meal services but not to a standard that reflected well on the building. Shared surfaces across hot-desking zones were being wiped down but not sanitised consistently. Meeting rooms were being serviced in the morning but not refreshed after heavy afternoon use.
The estate team was specific about what they needed. Daily cleaning across all floors during low-footfall windows, with the ability to turn around high-use areas — washrooms, the canteen, and reception — multiple times across the day. Periodic deep cleaning of the full site, including upholstery, carpeted areas, and the kitchen extraction infrastructure. Window cleaning on a scheduled rotation for the external glazing. And a point of contact who could respond quickly when something needed addressing outside of the standard programme.
Crystal’s Commercial Office Cleaning Programme
Crystal deployed a dedicated team to the Richmond site, structured around the building’s actual usage patterns rather than a generic cleaning schedule.
Morning cleans begin before the majority of staff arrive. Floors are vacuumed, hard surfaces sanitised, glass partitions cleaned, bins emptied, and washrooms restocked and disinfected. The canteen is turned around between breakfast and lunch service, and again before the end of the working day. Meeting rooms are checked and refreshed between morning and afternoon blocks, not just at the start and end of the day.
The hot-desking areas receive particular attention. Shared keyboards, desk surfaces, and monitor screens are sanitised daily. In an environment where a different person may sit at each station every day, surface hygiene is not a minor detail. It is a direct measure of how well the building is being managed.
Washrooms across all floors are serviced three times per day as standard, with additional checks during peak periods. Consumables — soap, paper towels, hand sanitiser — are monitored and restocked as part of each service visit rather than on a separate schedule.
Deep Cleaning and Periodic Works
Twice annually, Crystal carries out a full site deep clean outside of normal working hours. This covers areas that the daily programme maintains but cannot fully address: upholstered seating in breakout zones, carpeted areas throughout the office floors, behind and beneath fixed workstation furniture, and the kitchen extraction system serving the staff canteen.
Kitchen duct cleaning is handled by Crystal’s specialist team, working overnight to clean the extraction canopy, filters, ductwork, and fan units in line with TR19 standards set by the Building Engineering Services Association. For a canteen preparing food for hundreds of staff daily, maintaining a clean extraction system is not optional. It is a fire safety and compliance requirement.
Window cleaning covers the full external envelope on a six-weekly rotation, with internal glass cleaned as part of the weekly deep programme. The building presents well from the street, and the glazing — which is substantial — is kept clear without scheduling disruptions to the working week.
Operational Fit
One of the consistent points of feedback from the site’s facilities manager was the importance of the team feeling embedded rather than transactional. Crystal’s operatives work to a programme they know in detail, understand the site’s layout and access arrangements, and escalate issues — a blocked drain, a damaged ceiling tile, a failing hand dryer — through a single point of contact rather than leaving them unreported.
Building maintenance is handled through Crystal’s handyman service, which picks up minor reactive tasks on a scheduled basis. This has removed the need for the facilities team to manage multiple contractors for small works that would otherwise sit on a list for weeks.
The cleaning team also operates with a clear understanding of data sensitivity. In a corporate technology environment, cleaning personnel have access to desk-level spaces across the entire building. Staff awareness, confidentiality protocols, and supervision are built into the operational structure from the outset.
The Outcome
The Richmond site now runs on a cleaning programme that matches how the building actually functions. High-use areas are serviced when they need to be, not when a generic rota says they should be. Deep cleans happen on a schedule that protects the condition of the building and meets compliance requirements. The facilities team manages one contract, one point of contact, and one invoice — and the building reflects that consistency every working day.
Crystal Facilities Management continues to deliver commercial office cleaning across the eBay UK site as an ongoing contract partner, with the programme reviewed and adjusted quarterly to reflect any changes in the building’s usage or operational requirements.
