Expert Tips for Maintaining Office Hygiene

Cleaning can not only help make your premises look good but also it’s one of the best ways to maintain good hygiene practices in your office. By maintaining proper and round-the-clock cleanliness in your commercial premises you can keep your workers safe and protect your visitors from infection-borne diseases. Hire CLEANA office cleaning for comprehensive office cleaning.

Did you know infections spread much faster in a closed facility like an office than anyplace else? Office toilets, desks, and various touchpoints can become breeding grounds for germs if not cleaned properly and routinely. Cleanliness is a crucial part of office hygiene practices. Here are some expert tips by Clean Group office cleaning professionals to maintain adequate hygiene in an office space.

#1 Routine Office Cleaning

Daily cleaning of your commercial premises is a necessity, something you cannot afford to put away for later. Daily office cleaning should involve dusting fixtures, mopping floors, cleaning toilets & kitchens, and cleaning up the garbage, among other things.

Routine cleaning will ensure you are not giving dust and germs a chance to settle up for good or make your premises their home. This should be accompanied by deep office cleaning once a month or so to clean up any dirt and germs that might have escaped routine cleaning as well as clean the places that might have been missed in general cleaning. Areas such as under desks and couches and the top of cupboards are not always cleaned in general cleaning, so thorough cleaning is as much necessary.

#2 Hand Hygiene

Most infections can spread through hand contact and respiratory actions. While you use masks to control the spread of infections through sneezing and coughing, frequent handwashing can also help keep germs at bay. Washing your hands frequently, especially after using the bathroom, before eating, before cooking food, after cleaning, after touching a possibly infected surface, and after sneezing or coughing can greatly reduce the possibility of infections spreading on your premises. At the same time, you need to instruct your office workers and staff to follow strict hand hygiene practices and wash or sanitise their hands frequently.

Make sure to use water and soap or a good quality handwash to clean your hands multiple times throughout the day.

#3 Use Hand Sanitisers

Now, your staff might make an excuse that the trips to the bathroom to wash hands, again and again, are taking up too much of their time. Well, there is a simple solution to that. Use hand sanitisers.

Hand sanitiser is a liquid or gel-based solution that you can use to instantly kill germs or bacteria on your hands. The thing to note is that sanitising will not necessarily wash or clean your hands, so it should not be considered a substitute for handwashing.

In your office, you can place hand sanitising stations in multiple places, at all entries, doors, toilets, kitchens, dining areas, and desks such that they are easily accessible to your entire staff. Today, hand sanitisers are available in easy, small, portable bottles, which can be kept at every desk around the office. Since an office desk happens to be one of the germiest places, having access to and using hand sanitiser can greatly help reduce bacteria and infections in the office.

#4 Make disinfectants accessible to everyone

Studies show that more office workers wouldn’t mind cleaning and disinfecting their own desks only if they had convenient access to sanitary supplies. In other words, by keeping cleaning and disinfecting supplies within reach of everyone, you can ensure better overall hygiene in the workplace. If any of your employees want to clean their desks or hands, they should have easy access to the tools to do that.

Disinfectants are chemical solutions that kill or remove bacteria from surfaces. Disinfectants are generally used for removing bacteria from hard surfaces such as floors, counters, table tops, desks, etc. and are effective against a variety of germs. If you are allowing your office staff, which is untrained in cleaning, to use disinfectants, make sure they are doing it properly and following precautions.

#5 Provide Antibacterial Wipes

Disinfectant or antibacterial wipes are also a great tool to keep your workplace clean and germ-free. These wipes can be used both for cleaning and disinfecting and are suitable for a large variety of surfaces, including desks, mouse, computer monitors, keyboards, phones, bottles, printers, coffee machines, copiers, door handles, etc.

As you may know, the average office desk and equipment, including computer keyboards and shared phones, are among the germiest things in an office. If your workers had access to disinfectant wipes, they could often wipe off heavy-use equipment and touchpoints to help reduce harmful bacteria in the office.

#6 Encourage hygiene in common areas

Common areas and shared spaces in your office are the most prone to the spread of infections, which is why your office cleaning services should include a routine cleaning of all shared spaces, including dining areas, toilets, kitchens, break rooms, gyms and playgrounds.

In addition, you can encourage your workers to maintain a high level of hygiene when using communal spaces. A few simple steps, such as cleaning up after yourself in the dining room, not littering break rooms and gyms, and using garbage cans can make a lot of difference. At the same time, you should regularly replace shared disposables including office tea towels, cleaning cloths, soaps, etc. to boost office hygiene.

#7 Cleaning and sanitising kitchens

Kitchen sinks and eating stations are among the dirtiest places in an office. The sink area should be wipe-cleaned and sanitised at regular intervals and between uses to maintain proper hygiene in the kitchen. In addition, you can ask your workers to wipe clean eating stations, desks, tables and chairs after every use and provide them with tools to do so.

Office cleaning is full-day work, so you should consider hiring an office cleaner for the whole day rather than just a few hours a day.

#8 Hand towels over cloth towels

Cloth towels in the bathrooms can get very dirty very quickly as many people are using them throughout the day. It may not be possible to frequently replace bathroom towels or as many times as you should. Instead, you can consider using paper hand towels, which are equally good and can be disposed of immediately after use.

Did you know shared office towels can contain as much bacteria as a work desk? They become moist after constant use, which makes them the perfect breeding ground for germs. Replace your office towels routinely or use paper towels for overall better hygiene.

#9 Avoid eating at desks

One of the major reasons why office desks are one of the breeding grounds for germs is that many workers tend to eat at their desks, which results in food particles getting into gaps inside desks, in between keys of the keyboard, inside the mouse, and other areas of equipment on the desk. Over time, the food particles will rot and invite germs and bacteria to feed on them. This can be avoided by making it a rule to not eat at office desks. To compensate for that, you can allow your employees to take an appropriate number of breaks during the office period and use the dining room or cafeteria whenever they need to eat.

#10 Use office hygiene signs

Using hygiene signs all around the office, including toilets, kitchens, dining areas, workspace, and bathrooms is a great way to encourage and/or remind your workers to follow hygiene practices. Using a sign in the toilet that asks people to wash their hands or using a sign at every entrance to advise people to sanitise before entering can make a lot of difference in keeping your offices clean and improving workplace hygiene.

You can get different varieties of hygiene signs in many styles as well as can design and print them yourself to match your office vibe.

Final Thoughts - When to Hire An Office/Commercial Cleaning Company

While you can always hire professional cleaners for routine cleaning of your premises and to keep germs away, hygiene should be an integral part of your office and goes beyond routine cleaning. When your entire workforce embraces hygiene habits and follows the practices mentioned above, your office will truly become clean and hygienic, which will help boost productivity. A clean office also tends to impact other parts of the business, including the growth of the company's revenue. If you are not sure that you can manage it, hire a professional cleaning company for help.

Hiring an office cleaning company

An office cleaning company can help you with routine and deep cleaning of your offices. Cleaning has a direct relation with office hygiene. The cleaner your premises are, the better your office hygiene will be. Our cleaners will not just clean your office floors and toilets and be done with it, but they clean every single place and surface with the aim to make your entire office spotless. They’ll also routinely disinfect all touchpoints and high-traffic places across your property, including workstations, desks, tabletops, counters, chairs, door handles and knobs, lift buttons, switchboards, sinks, water taps, basins, toilets, floors, kitchen slabs, and others. Moreover, you can retain a Clean Group cleaner or team for maintaining hygiene in your office space throughout the day.

We offer free on-site estimates. Your cleaning plan will be tailor-made after our team gets to analyse your place and cleaning requirements. You get to choose the cleaner you want to work with. We’ll try and use the same cleaner every time you use our service to maintain a high level of trust. All our cleaners wear company uniforms and carry identity cards, so they are easy to verify. We bring our own cleaning supplies and equipment, including eco-friendly cleaners, so you do not have to worry about buying cleaning products separately. Call us today to book a service.