The math behind housekeeping ratios.

A single number is tempting because it feels like an answer. But the number is a function of five variables, and a vendor who skips the variables is guessing at one of them.

Carpet area is the obvious one — more square footage, more cleaning. But area alone misleads. A 25,000 sqft office with a cafeteria that feeds 300 people needs more housekeepers than a 25,000 sqft office where staff bring lunch from home. Similarly, a single-shift call center behaves differently from a 24×7 operations floor of the same size. Same square footage, completely different cleaning intensity.

The five variables that actually matter: carpet area (how much surface), staff count (how much human load the surface carries), shift pattern (how many clean cycles per day), pantry load (how many cups and dishes pass through), and access complexity (how many entry points, floors, and service areas the team has to cover). Change any one and the headcount changes. A vendor who asks about all five is worth listening to; a vendor who quotes off the floor plan alone is not.

Housekeeping is the largest line item on most contracts. The baseline below is what we use as a starting number before site-specific adjustments.

• Baseline: 1 housekeeper per 8,000–12,000 sqft carpet area for a standard corporate office.
• Pantry intensity: add +0.5 housekeeper per 100 staff when the office has an active pantry with daily tea, coffee, and meal service.
• Shift pattern: multiply by 1.5 for double shift coverage, by 2.0 for 24×7 operations. You cannot ask one housekeeper to cover 24 hours; the arithmetic breaks at the person.
• Floor complexity: add approximately 10% for multi-floor buildings where vertical movement consumes working time.

The 8,000–12,000 sqft range exists because offices differ. Open-plan technology offices at the lower end of density use the 12,000 side of the range. Dense corporate floors with many meeting rooms, pantries, and enclosed cabins use the 8,000 side. Most Bengaluru IT parks we work in sit around 10,000 sqft per housekeeper once you include common areas, corridors, and washrooms.

The pantry adjustment matters because cups don't wash themselves. Even in self-service pantries, someone clears the counter, reloads the dispenser, and resets the area after each rush. A 500-person office with a pantry needs 2 to 3 additional housekeepers beyond the baseline — most vendors bury this adjustment into a 'pantry boy' line item, which is cleaner, but you should still be able to see the math.

A supervisor is the operational difference between an assembly of cleaners and a running service. The ratio matters because the moment you go past it, someone stops being supervised.

• 1 supervisor per 8 housekeepers: premium ratio. Used when the account demands tight escalation, like a corporate headquarters with visible client traffic.
• 1 supervisor per 10 housekeepers: standard ratio. Doctrine default for most Bengaluru corporate offices. PROWESS uses this as baseline.
• 1 supervisor per 12 housekeepers: thin ratio. Acceptable only on mature, stable sites that have run 12+ months without supervisor churn.

Below 1:12, supervision stops being active — the supervisor becomes a phone number rather than a walking set of eyes. Some vendors quote 1:15 or 1:20 to save cost. The quote looks cheaper; the operation looks noticeably worse by month three. If you're comparing two proposals and one has a supervisor ratio of 1:8 while the other is 1:15, they are not the same service.

The premium 1:8 case deserves a note: it costs more, and it is almost always worth it in client-facing buildings where the expectation of standard is high. If the visible decision-makers in your building notice when the reception carpet has a mark on it, you're in the 1:8 band.

Security ratios are shaped by physical building layout, not by area.

• Per access point, per shift, minimum 1 guard. Unmanned entry points create liability windows.
• Night shift: minimum 1 guard, unless the building is entirely dark (no occupancy after hours). Most Bengaluru IT parks have night traffic — cleaning, security checks, the occasional late employee — and need a night presence.
• Multi-entry buildings: 2 day guards plus 1 night guard is the minimum. A single day guard cannot manage two entrances simultaneously without creating a weak access point.
• Security supervisor threshold: when total guards reach 6, dedicated security supervision is triggered. Below 6, the site supervisor covers security oversight; above 6, specialized security SOP is needed.

The most common security cost-cutting is to trade two entry points against one guard. A building can technically be run this way; it cannot be run safely or insurably. If a proposal lists one day guard for a two-entry building, the second entry is either being locked (which defeats its purpose) or left open (which creates the liability).

Night shift deserves special attention. A vendor claiming 'no night guard needed because the building locks at 7 PM' has not walked the service lift, the parking exit, or the data room. Night shift intensity is low but the coverage itself is not optional on corporate buildings.

Pantry and office boy staffing are about service tempo, not surface area.

• Pantry boys: 1 per 75–125 staff depending on hospitality intensity. Default 1:100. Offices that serve lunch or run multiple daily service cycles use the 1:75 side; offices where the pantry is self-service with weekly setup use 1:125.
• Office boys: 1 per 100–150 staff, or 1 per executive floor (whichever is tighter). Executive floors get their own office boy regardless of headcount because the work (meeting-room reset, document courier, post-meeting cleanup) is time-bound to meeting cadence, not to staff count.

The distinction between pantry boys and office boys matters operationally. Pantry staff are food-safety trained; office boys are not. Cross-training is tempting on paper ('fewer heads') but creates hygiene gaps when an office boy fills in at the pantry. On PROWESS sites, the two roles are dedicated.

Multi-technicians cover the small-repair, asset-maintenance, and basic-technical-trade work that arises on any live office: tap fixtures, light fittings, door adjustments, minor electrical and plumbing resets. Not HVAC, not fire-system, not major electrical — those are trade specialists. Multi-technician is the generalist tier below specialists.

• Below 25,000 sqft: typically not needed as a dedicated resource. Small-repair work is batched weekly and handled by a visiting technician from the vendor's pool.
• 25,000–50,000 sqft: 1 multi-technician dedicated to site, full-time.
• 50,000+ sqft: 2 or more, or specialized trade coverage (dedicated electrician plus dedicated plumber), depending on building age and asset density.

The 25,000 sqft threshold is pragmatic, not dogmatic. A 20,000 sqft building with aging fixtures may need a full-time technician; a 30,000 sqft building with brand-new fitout may not. The planning rule: dedicated multi-technician when the small-fix queue averages more than 1 item per working day. Below that, a visiting technician is more cost-efficient.

The live planning tool at /plan applies every ratio above. It asks about area, staff count, shift pattern, pantry, and security complexity, and outputs the headcount and an indicative monthly range. Use it before a vendor call; compare its output to what the vendor proposes.