Office culture, or workplace culture, and company culture have and will continue to change drastically in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Why? Employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity is now very much tied to the health and safety of employees while they’re at your office. Separately, these things are very important and will play a significant role in individual and collective performance as it relates to employee health and safety even outside of office and company culture.
This makes office sanitization very, very important. Not taking this topic seriously will not only put your employees at risk, but will have an inevitably negative effect on your company or business. That said, here’s how to keep employees safe and healthy at work by properly sanitizing your office:
Office Sanitization: The Official Steps
The CDC, or Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has been very busy for the last calendar year, releasing guidance after guidance on how to effectively clean and disinfect different types of facilities. We’ll summarize the steps you should follow, but you can read their publication here.
The steps include developing a plan, implementing the plan, and maintaining and revising the plan. Further, the CDC includes instructions on how to first clean and then disinfect, as well as instruction on how to adequately clean and disinfect other common office items and surfaces, including porous surfaces and electronics.
Office Sanitization: Color Coding
Whether you or one or more of your employees performs the janitorial services in your office, or you hire professional janitors to do the job, think about color coding your cloths and other cleaning materials, so that clothes of a certain color are always used to wipe the same rooms, areas, and surfaces. This will help prevent cross-contamination. It may also look a lot cooler than the usual, same grey cloth or wipe being used everywhere.
Office Sanitization: The Right Way to Wipe
This isn’t English class, as in there is a right or wrong answer. As far as office sanitization concerns wiping, the right way to wipe (during cleaning and disinfecting) is in the same direction. In other words, don’t wipe back in the same direction while sanitizing, and definitely don’t wipe in circles, as these both deposit back germs and other contaminants that were just removed.
Office Sanitization: General vs Focused Efforts
By general efforts, we’re referring to sanitizing efforts that are planned and performed more broadly, or that may be included in your janitorial checklists and protocols. General efforts are performed by specific individuals routinely, and when done by professionals, achieve the desired outcome and are very effective. To best keep your employees safe and healthy in your office, though, your plan should include employee-driven focused efforts. These include cyclically cleaning and disinfecting work stations and the items within them, including computers, screens, keyboards, mouses, and the various other employee resources available to each individual.
