How to Deal with Unhygienic Workplace Habits

Germs can spread like wildfire in any work environment as a result of unhygienic employee habits. Whether it be sneezing without using a tissue, leaving dirty dishes in the communal kitchen sink or not wiping away food crumbs on desks.

But exactly how germy is your place of business? And how important is it to ensure good workplace hygiene?

Here’s some facts and figures about office hygiene to put things into perspective:

• The typical desk is home to more than 10 million bacteria. That’s 400 times more than a toilet seat!
• High bacteria counts are routinely found on elevator buttons, office phones, and vending machines.
• In a recent academic study, 50% of office workers admitted they do not wash their hands after going to the toilet. Bacteria and viruses that people bring back from the bathroom multiply on the surfaces they touch, such as their desk, and remain infectious for 24 hours.
• Workers in open-plan spaces have a 62% higher incidence of sickness absence than those in private offices.
• Poor workplace hygiene costs businesses up to $800 million in lost wages and sick days each year.
• 40% of office workers have reported concerns that they might fall ill due to poor office hygiene, while 50% said office hygiene concerns affected their productivity.  
• One study of 43,021 respondents from 351 office buildings found that cleanliness was correlated with employee satisfaction.

The truth of the matter is…a lot of people have unhygienic habits.

Reminding staff to flush the toilet and wash their hands with strategically placed signage, having a clear desk policy and providing employees with separate areas to eat are all simple, yet proactive ways to tackle poor hygiene.

Whilst promoting hygiene education in the workplace can help to combat some of these problems, it’s often difficult to change people’s deeply ingrained behaviours.

Employing the regular services of a commercial cleaning company is ultimately paramount to maintaining a healthy working environment.

When you consider the loss of revenue a bout of norovirus could cause, the excellent ROI of handing over the responsibility of keeping your premises clean and germ-free becomes much clearer.

It’s not an entirely altruistic act. The healthier your staff are, the less time off sick they’ll take, and your company will be more productive.

Here’s some ways you can team up with a commercial cleaning company to tackle those unhygienic workplace habits:

Arrange deep cleaning of workplace fridges

The inside and outside surfaces of workplace fridges need to be periodically scrubbed and disinfected, paying particular attention to all handles and fittings as they are commonly the most germy surfaces in a kitchen. Moreover, many employees fall into the bad habit of leaving food in the workplace fridge and then neglecting to take it home or throw it away. 

Even in the cold environment of a fridge, food can go off and bacteria can rapidly contaminate other items, leading to people becoming sick.

Fridges need to be routinely emptied of all that long forgotten food. If it’s out of date, it belongs in the bin. 

Ensure there is always enough hand soap and paper towels

If there’s no soap and no paper towels in your workplace bathroom and kitchen areas…then you’ve got a team of employees walking around with germy hands.

Having a commercial cleaning company look after restocking these consumables is the easiest way to avoid this. 

Also, a good tip to improve workplace hygiene is to have a soap dispenser in the kitchen. This encourages more frequent hand washing and ensures people don’t have to wash their hands in the bathroom before and after eating.

Have your carpets steam cleaned

Vacuuming alone is not enough to remove all the nasties from your workplace carpets.

Carpets are a hotbed for dust and dust mites. A gram of dust contains as many as 1,000 dust mites and 250,000 allergenic dust mite faecal pellets. As these pests multiply, dust mite allergy sufferers will experience symptoms including sneezing, a runny nose, itchy eyes, wheezing and eczema.

The good news is that professional carpet cleaning can help manage the problem. Steam cleaning is powerful enough to remove dust mites, mould, mildew as well as fleas and their eggs.

A periodical deep carpet clean will help to significantly improve the quality of air in your workplace, keeping your employees happy and healthy.

Need help tackling those unhygienic workplace habits? Let the In-Tec team take care of it for you

If you’re looking for an experienced commercial cleaning company with high attention to detail, get in touch with In-Tec Commercial Cleaning today.  

We’re here to help clean your workplace and KEEP it clean for your employees to enjoy.

Simply click here to arrange a no obligation quote.