According to the National Small Business Association, close to 99% of small business owners are worried about the impact of the Coronavirus on the economy. However, there’s still hope considering that a few enterprises have begun the process of reopening their doors to clients. Even as these move towards a resumption of normalcy, a genuine concern is emerging regarding their employees’ safety.
Your employees are at the front line when serving clients and interacting with other staff on a routine basis. Keeping your office and business premises disinfected during this season is important. More so given that safe employees are also productive, which is a major advantage for your business.
Are you wondering how to improve your employees’ safety and enhance productivity? Disinfecting your business premises is the easiest way to ensure safe employees. Read on for more tips on how to disinfect workspace for a safer working environment.
Know the Most Vulnerable Areas
When thinking about your employees’ safety in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, you might be at a loss on where to start. According to recent studies, the virus thrives on common surfaces in your office.
When addressing the issue of safety for your employees, your first step should be to clean and sanitize all the high contact surfaces. Door handles, switches, and countertops are the most common areas your staff touch on more than one instance. Your sanitization process should commence with these high contact surfaces.
Other high contact spaces include light switches, phones, and faucets. If your employees use communal spaces, toilets and doors should also top the list of common areas that need sanitization. You should ensure consistent cleaning and disinfection in these areas to minimize the risk of reinfection.
Once you identify these vulnerable areas, your next step should be to ensure adequate disinfection. Compared to other viruses, the COVID-19 virus is proving to be a real nightmare. As such, it’s important to consider the services of a professional when disinfecting.
Understand the Difference Between Cleaning and Disinfecting
There’s a difference between a clean office and a safe office. A clean office may not guarantee safe employees. Cleaning your workspace means removing dirt and impurities from surfaces.
You might do your best to clean these high contact areas often. Even so, it takes disinfection to keep the workspace safe.
Disinfection means killing germs and keeping your surfaces clean. It takes more than just water and soap to keep your workspace safe.
Most of what your employees do internally is to clean the workspace. However, if the goal is to ensure you have safe employees, it’s vital to go beyond cleaning.
You might need to call in professionals who understand the need to go beyond cleaning. Most disinfectant service providers use modern disinfection approaches to ensure a clean and safe workspace.
Consider Professional Services
The COVID-19 virus can last for up to 72 hours on some surfaces. This reality underscores the need to ensure adequate disinfection within your work setting.
Ensuring safe employees calls for specialized disinfection. Your internal staff may do their best to clean the mentioned high contact surfaces. Nonetheless, they might not have the capacity to ensure maximum disinfection.
This is why you need to call in professionals to help with the process of keeping your employees safe. Most professional disinfecting companies have the training necessary to ensure thoroughness when cleaning and disinfecting surfaces. As opposed to novices, who may lack the professional touch, working with specialists will provide effective disinfection methods.
Working with experts will also ensure that they detect all the potential high-risk infection spots. Most times, you or your staff may not notice such infection spots. Sourcing disinfectant cleaning services from seasoned contractors is the surest way to ensure safe employees in your workplace.
Plan a Disinfection Schedule
A common question you’ll likely grapple with relates to the frequency of disinfection. This question depends on a few other issues and factors. For instance, how often does your premise have inbound traffic?
If your business has inbound traffic often, it would be necessary to have more frequent disinfection schedules. Other factors include the number of employees and the building’s size.
The frequency of disinfection also depends on whether your business is always open to the public. Private office settings may require fewer disinfection exercises compared to public business settings. This is because businesses that are open to the public stand a greater risk of reinfection.
Considering the importance of employees’ safety, you should never limit disinfection schedules. Workplace disinfection should be done as many times as possible.
Sensitize Your Employees
It’s impossible to keep your staff safe if they lack insights on the importance of disinfection. One of the main ways of keeping your workers protected from the virus is to invest in employee information.
Ensure that your staff have firsthand insights on the effects of COVID-19 and other germs-related infections. That way, they will be cautious about disinfection and safety protocols.
You might need to consider in-house training on safety procedures. Other measures include setting informational materials on specific sections of the workplace.
Have Multiple Disinfection Points
You might do your best to disinfect surfaces. However, it might be a waste if your workers don’t undertake personal initiatives to keep safe.
One of the ways to ensure safe employees is to introduce multiple disinfection points.
Your staff should have more than one point where they can wash and disinfect their hands. It would also be advisable to distribute pocket sanitizers for each member of the team.
Ensure Safe Employees With These Disinfection Tips
Your employee’s safety is paramount if you want to achieve consistent growth. Even so, ensuring your staff’s welfare during the current pandemic might be a tall order. Your only option is to consider expert disinfectant cleaning services in your workspace.
Are you wondering how to keep employees safe during the current public health crisis? Considering disinfectant cleaning services can help ensure safe employees and enhance productivity.
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Erika White is a graduate of Parsons School of Design. Erika is based in Manhattan but travels much of the year. Erika has written for NPR, Motherboard, MSN Money, and the Huffington Post. Here at Morning News Ledger, Erika covers entertainment stories, focusing on performance arts and culture.