Workplaces are rife with germs. This can lead to health issues and lost productivity when employees get sick. To that end, creating a cleaner office environment benefits employees and employers alike. Not controlling the spread of germs results in higher absenteeism, decreased productivity, and even potential liability issues. So if you take a proactive approach to cleanliness and disinfection, your business can cultivate a safer, more hygienic workplace culture which prioritizes the well-being of their teams.
How Germs Spread in Offices
Germs spread rapidly across office spaces when proper precautions are not taken. Employees usually congregate in common areas like conference rooms, cafeterias, and breakrooms, while opening doors and handling shared surfaces. This facilitates contact transmission of bacteria and viruses from one person to another or from contaminated surfaces to people’s hands. It then ultimately gets into their airways and mucous membranes if they touch their faces. Airborne particles also spread quickly in indoor spaces. Without intervention, germs continuously circulate through an office via human vectors and accumulate on frequently handled objects like telephones, coffee makers, counters, faucets, doorknobs, copy machines, and computer keyboards.
Impacts of Office Germs
Employee illness from germs tends to lead to higher rates of absenteeism as they stay home to recover. This causes projects to fall behind schedule. Those who do make it in hamper productivity as they struggle to get through their workday. Such declines in output take a financial toll on companies. Workplace germs can even contribute to serious infections and epidemics without vigilant containment efforts. However, employers can keep their teams healthy through proactive policies and practices to clean and disinfect all areas of their offices.
Effective Disinfecting Strategies
Sanitizing Solutions
Commercial cleaning services like those from All Pro Cleaning Systems use hospital-grade disinfectants in hand soaps and surface cleaners to neutralize pathogens. The right sanitizing solutions applied properly can eliminate 99.9% of germs from workers’ hands and common touchpoints like doorknobs, counters, desks, and chairs. Cleaners also sanitize restrooms, kitchens, and break areas with antimicrobial agents to prevent growth and transfer of bacteria and viruses via direct contact.
Routine Disinfecting
Offices require regular sanitization to counteract the continual spread of germs from employees and HVAC systems. Commercial cleaners systematically cover all rooms to scrub surfaces of built-up contaminants and treat them with germ-killing solutions. They follow definitive plans with set schedules, using checklists to document completion of each task for quality assurance. Some cleaners also mist offices periodically with sanitizing fog that permeates the entirety of a space to neutralize airborne viruses.
Deep Cleaning
Deep cleaning involves intensive decontamination measures that sanitize deeply embedded pathogens to restore facilities to the cleanest possible state. Commercial cleaning services perform these multi-step treatments quarterly or bi-annually using the following practices:
- Vacuuming debris with powerful HEPA-filter equipment.
- Washing all surfaces with germicidal detergent solutions.
- Steam-cleaning soft surfaces like chairs and carpets.
- Hand-scrubbing and pressure-washing restroom fixtures.
- Using UV wands to penetrate tight spots with germicidal rays.
Deep cleans provide superior contamination control between routine cleanings for optimal mitigation of virus and bacteria levels.
Staff Habits to Discourage Germ Growth
Employees play a crucial role in stemming germs by altering a few key behaviors:
- Sanitizing hands before eating and after coughing or sneezing.
- Disinfecting personal items like telephones, staplers, and mouse controls.
- Cleaning up minor spills to avoid leaving bio-matter for germs.
- Reporting leaks, standing water, ventilation issues, etc.
- Staying home when sick to avoid infecting others.
Reorienting staff habits through training and incentives boosts communal efforts to curtail germs. Small daily acts of conscientiousness collectively produce major improvements.
Conclusion
With collaborative diligence between management, commercial cleaning crews, and staff, companies can create clean, healthy offices where germs stand little chance of affecting attendance, morale, and productivity.
