CoronaVirus had a huge impact on so many businesses, and unemployment rates have soared. For the lucky amongst us, all that happened was that they spent a couple of months working at home, and though this allowed many businesses to stay open during the worst of the lockdown, as curves are beginning to flatten, businesses are investigating how to open the doors safely once more. Trying to find a solution that creates a good equilibrium between the health and safety of workers as well as the economic health of the business is not easy.
The number one solution for ensuring that your business is capable of reopening safely is to employ effective sanitizing practices today.
To give businesses the best chance of reopening safely, here are the sanitizing practices that your office should be implementing.
1. Arrange Your Office for Social Distancing
Social distancing has been the most important solution that countries and governments have implemented in order to stop the spread of Covid-19, and likewise, arranging your office to maximize the potential for employee social distancing should be your number one priority. Take note of the places in the office where your workers gather like around the water and coffee machines or near the refrigerators. Ensuring that you open your business safely for your employees is your responsibility to explain your social distancing policy and then make sure to enforce it. Medical experts recommend staying at least two meters apart from each other and wearing masks whenever possible.
During the lockdown, a lot of employees were able to work from home, and if this is possible for your employees, then it is a very good way to minimize the number of people you have in the office. If for example, you allow every employee to work from home two days a week, then you will have 40% of employees in the office at any one time. Remote working was so effective during lockdown that it seems certain to be how businesses operate in the future, so you may as well start bringing it in now.
2. Consider Your Office Furniture
Your office furniture is one of the most important things that you need to consider when implementing sanitizing practices. Ensure that all furniture is cleaned at least once a day using bleach. Bleach is capable of killing almost 100% of all germs and was shown to be effective in killing the Covid-19 virus during the pandemic. The experts at this website explain that there are now some ingenious pieces of office furniture with screens that divide desks and provide physical barriers between employees so that germs can not be transferred through vapor. CoronaVirus, the flu, and many other nasty diseases are airborne and so investing in custom-designed furniture which stops their transmission is a great idea.
Make sure that your employees understand the importance of keeping their office furniture clean. Not only will this ensure that they remain safe and healthy, it also supports a productive work environment. Messy offices and dirty, cluttered desks often lead to inefficiency and poor work performance. Give every employee a supply of sanitizing wipes which they can use to quickly wipe down their desk, computer keyboard and the handles of their desk drawers which will kill any germs that have settled there during the day. Maintaining a thoroughly sanitized office is all about teamwork.
3. Provide Hand Sanitizer and Soap
Washing your hands properly was one of the first pieces of advice that the medical experts gave after the scale of the pandemic was becoming apparent. It is really important that your employees know how to wash their hands properly, which will stop the spread of germs and bacteria through physical contact.
Your responsibility as their employer is to provide plenty of hand soap and hand sanitizer in every employee bathroom as well as paper towels or electric hand dryers. A lot of people don’t like using bars of soap in public or work bathrooms, so hand soap in a squeezy bottle is more likely to encourage your employees to wash their hands properly. Electric hand dryers and paper towels are always preferable to regular towels because when these become wet and dirty, they become a breeding ground for germs.
It is so important to implement the correct sanitizing practices into your office space so that all your employees are safe. With lockdowns lifting and medical services around the world starting to get a grip on the disease, we are just now seeing how the land lies and what the new reality of our personal and work lives looks like. Stay vigilant, and you have every chance of both your business and your employees coming through these difficult times in good health.
