How To Sanitize Your Workplace To Prevent The Spread Of Germs
Prevent The Spread Of Germs By Sanitizing Your Workplace
Perhaps now more than ever before, keeping your workplace free of germs is essential. The notion of washing your hands, maintaining personal space, and even wearing a face mask has become de rigueur all over the world. Steam cleaners are perhaps used by the cleaning staff at your place of employment, and you may have noticed an extra air quality monitor or air purifier installed strategically in recent months.
By following some simple rules and adhering to cleaner habits, you can not only reduce the risk of contracting or spreading the Covid-19 virus, but can also stave off nasty bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, Campylobacter, as well as viruses like flu, norovirus, and the common cold. The best thing to do is to get into good habits so that they become second nature. Here’s how.
1. Desk job
Your job is not only to fulfill all the requirements made of you but also to maintain a clean working-space, enabling you to stay healthy, not to mention your fellow co-workers in the team. Phones are incredibly full of thousands of organisms, which when you think about it makes sense, because of the proximity of the phone to your hand and mouth. Studies have even suggested that your desk-phone is dirtier than the average toilet seat. Yuck! It would be an extremely good idea for you to cleanse your desk-phone with anti-bacterial wet wipes at least once per working day.
2. Keyboard warrior
With all the bacteria that accumulates on your finger-tips and underneath your fingernails, not to mention the odd cookie or sandwich which may have been munched ill-advisedly at your keyboard, your keyboard should be viewed as quite a filthy thing, which needs to be vigilantly sprayed and wiped with an antibacterial spray, on a regular basis. The bacteria Staphylococcus has apparently been found on 60% of desks, and the keyboard is the prime culprit for passing nasty things on to others. As long as you wipe dry after you spray, there should be no long-term damage done to keys and circuit boards; be a true keyboard warrior in the fight against potentially deadly viruses.
3. Fridge magnet
Germs love to congregate on fridge door handles; they also thrive on anything that has passed its use-by date. The chances of contracting Listeria remains a very real and deadly threat, especially if various colleagues are placing different foodstuff side by side. One colleague, for example, might like to store meat-heavy products in the fridge, which can be magnet for all sorts of germs and bacteria. You can take steps to make sure your own food is tightly sealed in an airtight container; you and your team should make a concerted effort to trash everything which has reached its use-by date, perhaps each Friday.
4. A mug’s game
Mugs can contain delicious coffee, but without proper cleansing can be storing up hidden mold and germs which will make you sick. You, therefore, need to ensure that all mugs which are communally used are put through the dishwasher, not just hand washed. Better still, don’t share mugs but keep your own to yourself. Wash it daily, preferably with very hot water and ample liquid detergent. Make your own drinks, resisting the kindness of your co-worker who might offer to make you one – you don’t know where their hands have been!
5. Handling door handles
If your ideal winter break doesn’t feature the unwelcome presence of norovirus or gastrointestinal illness, be very careful about the various door handles which exist in your office building. It is well documented that over half of men do not wash their hands after using the bathroom, while almost half of women don’t, either. That means you are touching whatever they’ve been touching whilst on the toilet! On a practical level, keep a bottle of anti-bacterial gel handy, try not to touch the toilet door (use a tissue or your blazer sleeve) on exiting the bathroom, always washing your hands most thoroughly before eating sandwiches. Thirty seconds is the recommended amount of time, and is about the same time it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’.
6. Don’t photocopy germs
Of course, that’s impossible literally, but it’s actually what you are doing if and when you lift the lid of the photocopier and don’t cleanse your hands immediately afterwards. Try not to touch your nose or face, too, a thing which is surprisingly difficult to do. A bottle of hand sanitizer can be kept actually on the photocopier or very close by it.
Overall, remember that your hands are generally the key to you transferring other people’s germs to yourself, and you passing yours on to others. Try to be as vigilant about this as we have all had to be during the difficult months of the ‘lockdown’. It might end up saving someone’s life.
Sources:
- Sanitize Surfaces – Campus Ready
- Stopping the Spread of Germs – UMGC