Tips

How to Maintain Strong Hygiene Standards at Work

April 27, 2022

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When it comes to maintaining strong hygiene standards, the emergence of Covid19 has made personal hygiene, especially at work, more important than ever. Handwashing and sanitation stations are vital for the safety of employees and it is therefore important to take careful measures to protect everyone from the range of dangers when it comes to potential virus exposure.

Everyone should maintain exemplary personal hygiene at work. This is because it is professional, considerate, and often necessary for productivity of the business. Bad personal hygiene at work can affect a team or even an entire company. As such, it must be treated seriously. With this in mind, we have listed below the top hygiene methods you can take in order to reduce any workplace illness and maintain strong hygiene standards at work.

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Clean Your Windows Regularly

Depending on the size of your business, there could be hundreds of windows that need to be cleaned effectively. This is because windows can get stained from constant exposure to wind, rain, snow and for street-level display windows, customers’ fingerprints may get plastered all over the window. Not to mention, light is vital for the functioning and mood of your employees, so cleaning windows creates a productive atmosphere and tells workers that they are cared for. The solution: utilise a cleaning cloth that can easily wipe residue and dirt off from your window to make it as professional and hygienic as possible. Alternatively, you can hire out a window cleaning company but a cost will be involved and depending on the size of your business/building, this may be expensive.

Keep Key Areas Disinfected

To promote and maintain strong hygiene standards at work, it is advised to get into the habit of regularly disinfecting surfaces that are used frequently. Constantly disinfecting desks, doorknobs, handles and other flat surfaces where germs breed will decrease the chances of harmful bacteria and virus from being transmitted between employees. The best way to do this is to spray a sanitising solution onto the desired area and thoroughly wipe down with paper hand towels. Key hotspots to regularly clean include:

Toilets, cubicle handles and flush buttons
Common areas such as kitchens, cafeterias and hallways
Reception and entrance areas
Lifts, stairways and handrails
Meeting rooms and equipment such as keyboards and monitors

Educate Yourself And Inform Employees

The next piece of advice we are going to discuss when maintaining strong hygiene standards at work is to educate yourself and fellow employees on the best and most optimal cleaning practices available. More often than not, people are unaware of the information necessary to avoid getting sick around the office. The solution: host company meetings to discuss healthy habits before, during and after work. For example, you may advise employees to sanitise their hands before entering the building, each time they use the bathroom and one final spray as they leave work. Equally, you can make them aware of all the hand sanitising stations around the workplace should they require it and to further prevent the transmission of harmful bacteria between the workplace.

Allow Sick Days

People get sick. It’s just typical human nature. However, at many workplaces, there is a notable culture which causes people to disapprove of anyone who regularly takes sick days. While this can be largely out of the employee’s control, it is still best to allow them to have time off to recover. The reason for this is that if they are genuinely too ill to work, there will be a number of repercussions that can occur:

Their productivity and concentration levels may be hindered which can affect the functioning of the entire business depending on what job they are required to perform and the industry they operate in.

2. They could affect other employees if advised to attend work which will leave business owners in an even worse spot if more of their staff are signed off as sick.

3. If not given adequate time to recover from the illness, there could be even more stress applied to the sick individual which could cause them to take more sick days in the future and further decrease business productivity.

If you allow the employee to have time off to recover, they will likely be incredibly thankful that you understand their current health status and will no doubt try to work extra hard when they return into the office.

As a final note, it may be possible for workers to be able to work remotely, especially due to the introduction of Zoom and other online video calling services which allow people to communicate with work/employees from the comfort of their own home. If this is encouraged, it may be possible to maintain some productivity whilst protecting the office environment from illness.

Notify HR

A final note we would like to discuss is if a manager becomes aware that an employee has poor hygiene or endangers the health of others in the office, they should act quickly, discreetly and notify HR. The employee should be made aware of the need to rectify the situation and know exactly how to do this. It is absolutely imperative that this is done without others knowing as you do not want your employee to feel embarrassed and end up withdrawing from the company. If handled correctly, the person may well be grateful that you have brought it to their attention. By incorporating this in your office environment, you can drastically improve hygiene standards of your employees which will no doubt be translated to the cleanliness of your office building.