Where are the dirty areas in your office?

As an office manager, identifying where the dirty areas of your office are is vital.

Putting in place good cleaning and hygiene practices will ensure that your team remain healthy. It will minimise the spread of diseases and reduce office sickness too.

It is easy to overlook some areas of your office when it comes to cleaning.

It’s not always the most obvious places that in fact have the highest concentration of germs and dirt.

Making sure you and your team are aware where germs and diseases might spread, will mean you understand how to keep these areas clean, hygienic and safe.

So where are these dirty places in your office?

A study undertaken by Kimberly Clark Professional found that these are the worst culprits:

 

Coffee pots

Do you love making a cup of coffee to get you started in the morning? Be aware that coffee pot handles can host unpleasant bacteria which can easily spread throughout the office.

Because so many people are likely to touch the pot throughout the day, it’s a good idea to remind everyone to wash their hands before and after use.

Perhaps keep a little bottle of anti-bacterial hand sanitiser next to it. This will make it super easy for your employees to reduce the risk of germs spreading.

 

Telephones

Naturally, telephones are going to be high on the list when it comes to harbouring germs and bacteria.

Spit be transferred from our mouths to the mouthpieces of telephones. Handheld phones are also likely to pick up germs from unwashed hands too.

Cleaning their phone isn’t something that would necessarily be high on your employees to do list.

However, encouraging them to wipe down phones with anti-bacterial wipes often, will help to keep diseases at bay.

 

Meeting rooms

It’s all too easy to forget about meeting rooms. Behind those closed doors, many germs can spread.

A study undertaken by Regus found that in the UK 38% of staff were unhappy with the level of cleanliness in their meeting rooms. They believed that this was to blame for a poor first impression when meeting with external clients.

Remind your staff to clean up after they have their meetings. Make sure that meeting rooms are regularly cleaned too.

Water fountains

We’re always being told to drink more water. However, staff who use the water cooler could easily be picking up and moving germs around the office.

The buttons on water coolers are pressed by many different people throughout the day. This makes them hotbeds for bacteria – which can then be spread to different surfaces.

Encourage your staff to wash their hands before and after use and this will help keep the spread of water fountain germs to a minimum.

 

Keyboards/ computer mice

Another big offender where germs and bacteria gather is in and around your computer keyboard and mouse.

We are touching our keyboards throughout the day, so any germs we have picked up from elsewhere will easily spread to here.

Also, many office workers tend to grab a bite to eat and have lunch at their desks on a busy day, which means bits of food can end up stuck in the keyboard creating a breeding ground for multiplying germs.

 

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are communal areas with plenty of different surfaces where germs can breed and spread. Office workers can only be responsible for their own cleanliness and, let’s face it, some are better at this than others!

If employees don’t wash their hands thoroughly enough, they will take the remaining germs with them and move them around the office – onto door handles, keyboards and so on, where they can be picked up and spread further by other employees.

While staff may be more aware of the spread of germs in bathrooms and kitchens, when it comes to cleaning office equipment properly and regularly it is easy to fall short.

The most important thing office managers can do is encourage proper and frequent hand washing as this is how the majority of germs and bacteria spread from surface to surface.

Hiring a professional office cleaning company will ensure that all areas of your office are thoroughly and regularly cleaned to the highest standards, minimising the spread of germs and disease in your office.

At Swift Office Cleaning Services, we work with you to create a tailored cleaning package to suit your workplace requirements.

We specialise in all areas of office cleaning including general daily cleaning, carpet and window cleaning, specialist office equipment cleaning and bathroom and kitchen deep-cleaning.

For more information get in touch with our friendly, professional team today.