There are lots of different health conditions which can affect employees. And yes, there are plenty of “sickies” pulled after heavy nights. But many of these absences will have been caused by contagious coughs, colds, sniffles, flus and stomach bugs which were picked up in the workplace itself.
Working in close contact with lots of different people exposes us to all sorts of germs every day. Most of these will be harmless, but every now and again your colleague will have been close to someone poorly on the train, or your office manager’s daughter will have picked up a nasty cold at school. Before you know it, your entire office are going down like flies…
We all know that hand washing is one of the very best ways to avoid picking up and passing on germs. Equipping employees with hand sanitiser, placing antibacterial soap by all sinks and encouraging regular hand washing will make a big difference to reducing germs and nasties in your workplace, but there are other places germs loiter and linger in office spaces – just waiting to take down your team…
Here are three of the worst offenders:
1) Telephones
When the phone rings, you answer it – there’s no time to think about hand washing. This makes office phones one of the most widely handled pieces of communal equipment in your workplace. Regularly cleaning handsets with an antibacterial wipe will help you avoid transferring germs via your office phones.
2) Keyboards
In most workplaces, employees stick to their own keyboard but in more flexible spaces, shared keyboards can accrue lots of nasty germs. That’s because they’re in contact with our hands almost all day; immediately after we’ve taken the morning commute, when we’re eating our lunch – you name it. Just take a peek at your keyboard, if it’s completely fluff and crumb free – we’ll eat our hats.
A regular antibacterial wipe down will help get rid of any germs loitering in your keyboard, but a monthly clean out of this piece of kit will make the world of difference. It’ll help your workplace look more professional too.
3) Chair arms
You may not have considered just how often your hands come into contact with chair arms – especially those found on shared pieces of furniture. From meetings to lunch breaks, these seemingly innocuous office essentials can come into contact with all manner of germs over the course of just one day, making a regular wipe down very important part of tackling workplace germs.
Regular, thorough cleaning services are one of the best ways to minimise germs in your office space. Talk to a team that truly understands “clean” to discuss your cleaning requirements. Koreserv Cleaning Service have been providing office cleaning services for over 14 years.