Your workplace may look sparkling clean on the surface, but germs can hide anywhere. While keeping your office looking the part will impress clients and visitors, ensuring that your workplace is germ free will ensure your workforce stay healthy.
Although the average number of sick days taken per worker has fallen to just 4.2 days each year, there’s always room for improvement. Improved workplace hygiene can prevent colds, flus and other illnesses spreading amongst staff, so there’s less chance of a period of absences amongst your staff. If you want to keep your team productive and minimise disruption due to contagious illnesses, tackling germ hotspots in your commercial office is an important step.
But where do germs lurk in the workplace? Your first thought may be the bathroom and kitchen, but there are many other “secret locations” where bacteria collect. It’s these lesser known hot-spots which are especially dangerous. These locations are frequently used but infrequently disinfected, resulting in higher levels of risk. While your bathrooms and kitchens are likely cleaned regularly and thoroughly, these are the hotspots you should be paying more attention to…
1. Telephones
When the phone rings, we grab it without hesitation. We may be halfway through licking our fingers after finishing up our favourite Pret sandwich, we may have just arrived after travelling on public transport, we may have just sneezed. After we’ve answered the phone, we seldom think about washing out hands either. This means that any bacteria existing on the phone can easily reach our mouths, eyes and noses. As hands are a major carrier of bacteria in everyday life, this can easily spread illness.
2. Door handles
Just like office phones, door handles get – well, handled! – very frequently. We also rarely consider using a hand sanitiser or washing our mitts after opening or closing a door. If your commercial cleaning company isn’t paying attention to your door handles and door knobs, make sure they include regularly disinfecting them on the cleaning rota – especially if your office space welcomes a large volume of people on a regular basis. Door handles can be paradise for germs and other nasties.
3. Printers, scanners & photocopiers
You won’t be surprised to know that the third germ hot-spot on our list is another item we touch regularly but clean infrequently. Shared office technology is a haven for germs and bacteria. Just think of all the different fingers which press those buttons every single day. Cleaning these surfaces is important but can also be intimidating. Your cleaning team may not feel confident cleaning technology items. To solve the issue, keep some sanitising wet wipes next to each machine and give the buttons a daily wipe down.
The Abbey Cleaning Service ensure workplaces in South Wales are both hygienic and sparkling clean. Book a one-off deep clean, arrange a regular rota or consult with us about specialist commercial cleaning tasks. Contact us today on 029 2067 9323 or use our contact form.
