As fall prepares to take over, you feel the weather cooling, see the colors of plant life changing and leaves dropping. Along with these changes, however, come the sneezes, sniffles, and coughs, which are all reminders that the flu and cold season is likewise fast approaching.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to help prevent these infectious illnesses to ensure you and your workers’ health and safety. To help improve the hygiene standards in your workplace, follow these no-nonsense sanitation guidelines.
Ensure Proper and Regular Hand Washing
Proper handwashing is among the easiest and most effective ways to prevent the spread of many different communicable diseases in the workplace. This is very effective at eliminating and reducing potentially dangerous viruses and bacteria, particularly if the quality and time of washing are suitable, and you dry your hands thoroughly after washing them.
The CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommends that everyone must wash their hands for at least 30 seconds, enough to sing the Happy Birthday song twice. Everyone must wash their hands before preparing or cooking food, eating meals and after using the bathroom.
These also include touching communal things in the workplace such as phones, door handles, elevator buttons, railings and the like. Also, refrain from touching your mouth and eyes unless you’re sure that you have thoroughly sanitized your hands.
Always Cover the Mouth When Coughing or Sneezing
While this might seem like a no-brainer, a lot of people actually forget to do this very simple courtesy. Make certain that everyone cover their mouths while coughing or sneezing to help reduce the risk of spreading whatever infectious disease they’re afflicted with.
The CDC recommends that you should sneeze or cough into a clean tissue that you must dispose of right away. Otherwise, coughing or sneezing into the elbow or upper arm will do.
Make Certain That Everyone Has Easy Access to Hand Sanitizer, Especially in Public Spaces
When choosing hand sanitizers, the CDC recommends that you pick those with a 60% to 95% alcohol concentrations because these have been proven to be more effective at eliminating germs than sanitizers with lower concentrations of alcohol.
Ensure Thorough and Regular Cleaning of the Workplace
Make certain that your commercial cleaning services provider in Kansas City – such as MC Janitorial – regularly cleans all surfaces in the workplace, paying close attention to communal spaces such as changing rooms, storage rooms, bathrooms, canteens, and meeting rooms.
It’s also best that you have your office deep cleaned professionally at least once a year to help prevent accumulation of concealed contamination sources and dirt.
Encourage Sick Employees to Stay at Home
In the event that an employee does contract a communicable disease, make certain that he or she stays at home to prevent others in the workplace from contracting the disease. Likewise, make sure that your employee stays home and gets ample rest for at least two days.
As an added measure, consider using air disinfection or purifying devices to help further reduce the chances of contamination.
These easy workplace sanitation practices should suffice to reduce the spread of common communicable diseases in the workplace. Making these strategies routine and mandatory will help promote compliance from everyone.
