When it comes to keeping your workplace clean, the most important sanitation issues are often the easiest to overlook. Most workers understand the importance of washing their hands in the bathroom, cleaning their dishes, and taking other basic hygiene steps. But there are subtler sanitation issues that are no less important to protecting your health and that of your employees. In order to create an office that is healthy and sanitary for all, watch out for the following simple but serious hygiene issues:
Dirty Keyboards
Keyboards are breeding grounds for a wide variety of bacteria, with recent studies finding that the average keyboard hosts 20,000 times the number of germs as the average toilet seat. Yet few workers give any thought to cleaning these, continuing to use the same keys for years on end. Worse yet, employees often switch between using their keyboards and eating, drinking, or rubbing their eyes, making it easy for diseases to spread.
If you own the computers that your employees use, countering this problem is simple; just ask your cleaners to wipe down the keyboards with a sanitary solution as part of their regular duties. But when employees use their own laptops, improving cleanliness is more difficult. The best strategy is to educate your workers on the importance of keeping these items clean, perhaps while offering them free cleaning solution and equipment. While you’re at it, let them know that their smartphones are similarly germ-laden, and should also be cleaned regularly.
Unclean Equipment
In addition to keyboards, pay attention to shared items, like printers, phones, and temperature controls. While these aren’t used as frequently as keyboards, and thus have fewer opportunities to attract germs, they also have the potential to spread the germs they do attract to larger numbers of workers. Because these items are almost always company property, keeping them clean is easy. Simply instruct your cleaning staff to sanitize them every time they clean the building. You should also encourage employees to wash their hands after using them.
Used Coffee Filters
The modern office runs on caffeine, so it’s important to make sure that your coffee and the equipment used to make it is sanitary. Unfortunately, employees often leave used coffee filters in the machines, where they become breeding grounds for mold and bacteria. You should thus instruct employees to throw out used coffee filters, or if you have a reusable filter, to clean it out as soon as they are finished making coffee. Then check the machines each night to make sure no one forgot.
Food Scraps
A few crumbs here or there may not seem like a big deal, but the more they accumulate, the greater your risk of attracting germs, bugs, or even rodents. The easiest way to keep this problem under control is to limit where employees are allowed to eat. Set up designated spaces, such as your kitchen or break room, where eating is permitted, and establish clear negative consequences for employees who eat in other parts of the office. Not only does this prevent sanitation issues from spreading, but by concentrating crumbs and scraps in one place, you make them easier to clean up.
For more information on simple, effective sanitation for your workplace, contact FAST today.
