Hygiene and sanitation in the workplace are more important than ever as your employees start to come back in for work. Improving your workplace hygiene helps keep your employees and customers safe in addition to slowing the spread of the virus.
Even after the pandemic has ended, though, hygiene standards are going to be a little higher than they once were. We’re going to take a look at a few ways that you can improve the cleanliness of your office in the future. Hopefully, the ideas below can offer a few ideas that significantly improve the health and wellness of your customers and staff.
Let’s get started.
1. Inform Staff on CDC Updates
One thing you can do to significantly improve your workplace hygiene is to simply make your staff aware of the latest information coming from the CDC. This is especially true as the pandemic continues.
There are always various bugs and illnesses going around, though, regardless of whether or not they’re pandemic-worthy. Having the most up-to-date information on current viruses will help your employees remember what needs to be done to stay safe.
2. Distribute Sanitizing Duties
Depending on the size of your business, you may not be able to afford a regular cleaning crew right now. Even in situations where you do have a cleaning service, keeping employees safe requires a greater deal of effort.
Consider giving your employees varied responsibilities throughout the day when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing. This doesn’t have to be anything too time-consuming.
It could simply mean that everyone has the job to wipe down a surface or two with sanitizing wipes every few hours. If you’re making sure surfaces, door handles, and desks are sanitized often you’ll be in a much safer position.
3. Post Reminders
It’s generally the case that your staff should know how to be sanitary. The difficulty comes when we get into the swing of things and forget about sanitizing or conducting the proper washing routine.
Post signs at areas where germs are commonly spread. For example, post a sign above the sink that gives a reminder of the appropriate time needed to wash one’s hands.
You could back your suggestions up with data. Give employees a regular reminder of what your hands look like when you don’t wash them properly and how that can spread disease.
4. Reduce The Need to Touch Surfaces
At the end of the day, hygiene is improved when we don’t have as many opportunities to spread our germs. As we’ve all learned too well recently, those opportunities come when we’re face to face with one another or when we’re touching surfaces.
Railings, desks, countertops, door handles, utensils, and more are all hotbeds for the spread of germs. For the time being, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to prevent your staff from touching common surfaces like the ones listed above.
Many of those surfaces are ones we touch unconsciously as a habit, but you can help reduce that contact by posting signs or putting coverings on things. An unusual covering on a door handle might be enough of a reminder to “push” instead of twisting the door handle open.
Prop doors slightly ajar if you need to. These small measures are what will keep your employees a great deal safer. It seems tedious to do these things, but if they prevent one of your employees from getting sick, they’ll be well worth the effort.
5. Invest in New Cleaning Products
Before the pandemic, most offices were home to a dingy closet with five-year-old cleaners with jugs dirtier than most of the surfaces in the office.
It might be time to revamp your cleaning supplies with modern antimicrobial products. See if you can’t get a suite of supplies that you can distribute to the employees in your office.
When everyone’s equipped with a set of supplies to use on various surfaces, they’ll be far more able to keep things clean. Set your staff cleaning supplies out in the middle of the office where nobody will forget about them.
If it’s easy to access the new supplies you have, it will seem like much less of a hassle to use them.
6. Adjust Your Food Handling Practices
One of the most common places for us to spread germs is the place we eat. We’re touching different pieces of food, plates, utensils, surfaces, and we happen to be talking most of the time that we’re eating as well.
Make sure that you and your staff are looking critically at the way you deal with food in the office. If there’s a break room that you take lunch in, make sure that the surfaces are wiped after every use.
If you sell food, make sure that there’s a method for keeping “grab & go” options sanitary. You should also make an effort to establish comfortable socially-distanced eating options for your staff.
7. Allow Staff to Stay Home
Offering your staff sick leave is a huge piece of keeping your office safe. Many people come into work when they’re feeling unwell because they feel like they’ll lose their job if they don’t or they’re too financially pressed to miss out on work.
Paid sick leave is one defense against this. Make it as easy as possible for your staff to stay home and keep the rest of your employees safe. When you consider all of the factors in this equation, it’s far more financially intelligent to allow staff to take their time to feel better.
If they bring something into the office and everyone catches it, your entire workflow is out of commission. Not to mention, allowing people to stay home when they’re sick is the ethical and compassionate thing to do.
Need More Workplace Safety Tips?
Hopefully, our exploration of workplace hygiene tips has been helpful to you moving forward. You can never have enough information on how to stay safe, though.
We’re here to help you in that respect. Explore our site for more insights into hygiene, sanitation, and a whole lot more.
