Germiest Places in Your Workplace (How to Keep Your Worksite Germ-Free)

After Corona’s arrival, talking about germs seems like a trivial matter. Germs started to seem less harmful and no one likes to think about germs that cause disease, but we at Clean Group are well aware of it because we know around 98% per cent of workers are affected by minor diseases every year and you know the reason – germs in the office. In recent times Clean Group included COVID cleaning services and disinfection services. Our services have been appreciated by many customers and authorities.

Yes, you read it right, germs are the primary reason that 98% of workers get affected by some minor diseases. Well, it turns out that germs move faster. Really fast.

A recent study by some researchers suggests that it takes only 2-4 hours for germs to spread from an infected surface to 40 to 60 per cent of office surfaces.

A sick person touches the door on the way and most of their germs have spread to the office before lunchtime.

So, in this case, what do you do to stop the spread? There are some precautionary measurements that you can follow in your office and also encourage your employees to do the same.

All of them are listed below the most basic one is: Keep hands and shared surfaces clean. With the proper use of disinfectant wipes and hand sanitisers, as well as frequent hand washing you can reduce the number of infected surfaces by up to 80%!

But your employees have work to do and local cleaners don’t care about germs much. So what is the solution? Hiring a professional cleaning company is the solution you are looking for. Professionals will take care of everything so that you and your employees can focus on work.

Today, in this article we are providing a list of the 20 germiest places in your office, suggestions for keeping them germ-free, valid reasons to hire a professional cleaner and all the bits and pieces of this topic. Let’s start with the germiest places in the office.

20 Germiest Places in Your Office

According to an estimate, about 80% of diseases are spread by direct contact with contaminated surfaces. There are countless things at your workplace that your employees are touching every day and are in the grip of a variety of diseases – inadvertently. The following are the most germ-prone areas in your workplace. Keep an eye on them next time.

1. Door Handles

Everyone including you, your employees, customers, delivery guys etc uses door handles to get around your workplace. The more people do, the more types of germs can move from one person to another among all of your staff.

Make your staff aware of the risk, and guide them to wash their hands regularly with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds to help prevent the spread of germs and viruses. You can also ask your cleaners to regularly disinfect all the door handles at your workplace.

2. Desktop

Desktops contain about 400 times more germs than a toilet seat. It has approximately 21,000 bacteria, viruses and fungi per square inch. As you have probably noticed, these microbe creatures travel on your hands as soon as you touch them and move through things. Therefore frequent hand washing is the key to preventing the infection from spreading.

3. Keyboard

You probably sneeze on it, eat on it, and sprinkle drinks on it. And you never clean it. Maybe sometimes not all the time. Even after that time, you had to check an important email in the middle of a cinnamon twist.

Do you know who likes the sticky fingerprints and pieces you leave on the keys? Germ. And if you share the keyboard with your colleagues, it could be worse. Each person adds their own oil, grime and food information.

4. Telephone

The office phone on the desk may be worse than your desktop, with an average of 25,000 germs, and viruses per square inch. Your staff or cleaners have to wipe the phone with a sanitizer a few times a day, especially if other people use it as well.

5. Office Equipment

After reading about phones, desktops and keyboards you probably understood that everything people touch frequently will have germs. Germs can hide and flourish on the buttons of printers, copiers, faxes, postal meters and other devices.

People rarely think about cleaning them. Each time you use the machine, keep some sanitizing wipes nearby to remind yourself that you are not the only one that is utilizing this equipment.

6. Watercooler, Drinking Fountain Buttons or Handles

Mostly the delivered water dispensers are not safe as compared to the regular tap water. Germs and bacteria can sit on the bottles while transporting the campers. Indeed people touch the cooler to get water.

Also, the water supplier does not pose any safety measures while refilling. So as to prevent illness and diseases like cold or fever, bring your own water bottle from home or purchase water bottles from shops.

Nothing can stop the germs and bacteria from spreading through dirty hands, moisture and spitting. In a study of drinking fountains, it comes known that the Colorado State Capitol, the Denver public library and a Denver bus terminal saw that they have mutual sources of rotavirus (a common cause of diarrhea) contamination and influenza A.

Your effective effort is to make the water run for 5 seconds prior to drinking and then wash your hand’s post utilization of the same. You can apply hand sanitizer to your infected hands.

7. Coffee Maker

The person who takes charge of cleaning the shared portion must be recognized. Choose a volunteer. Inside the damp germs get increased, dark in the machines.

Pour 4 cups of plain white vinegar, and leave it for a half-hour. Then start it and let it run inside, subsequent to the water cycles, unless the smell of vinegar emerges.

8. Coffeepot

The germs not only reside inside the coffee maker. They also sit on the pot which gets washed out as it must be on the daily grounds. You often do not pay attention to its handle which everyone touches.

9. Coffee Mugs

Sharing the mugs is safe when it is cleaned and washed and then dried however in research it is revealed that 90% have notable germs like “fecal matter” (that’s “poop” to you and me).

The issue is not only about the cups themselves or the users who use them. The major issue is that it arrives when you attempt to clean it through less than pristine supplies in the kitchen.

10. Sink

Similar to your house, a range of hands and food attracts germs and viruses. A faucet handle is the most touched part where everyone seeks to use it for themselves.

11. Kitchen Sponge

It poses wet and absorbent, touching it gives you germs and bacteria. Within 3 weeks the new sponges engaged with bacteria like E. coli and salmonella and people used the sponge daily, the germs and bacteria inside it get transferred to the other space of the office which includes coffee cups. Within 2 minutes the microwave kills most of the germs. You must use the technique and get rid of using the sponge every 2 weeks.

12. Microwave Door

In the present era, the majority of people warm or heat their lunch in these machines. Also, every person touches the door various times to open or close it, putting it inside or taking out the edibles.

The same handle is one of the dirtiest places inside the office. Half of the people tested have found that a higher level of chemicals is associated with living organisms. Sanitize the space and wipe it.

13. Vending Machines

Eating prepackaged food is also not a good option. The buttons on around 1 or 5 food machines are said to transfer the disease through germs as found in the research. (And refrigerator door handles about one-fourth of the time.) it does not increase up to that level but requires cleaning. Perhaps you do not think of these areas as these are food prep areas, but this needs to get cleaning attention.

14. Restrooms

There is a chance that bacteria like E. coli bacteria can overcome the office bathroom. You might face some problems in washing your hands as the faucet handles are dirty. Take a paper towel when you turn the water on and off or on pushing the handle to flush the toilet.

15. Refrigerator Door Handles

Bacteria grows inside the refrigerator home to leaking plastic food bowls, pull-out containers, mouldy yogurts, and furry sandwiches. You or your servant must clean and wipe the fridge of the office every 2 days with the help of an antibacterial cleanser.

However, this has not been going to get implemented by anyone. But once a week, the company must do it. An average fridge consists of nearly about 7,850 bacteria colony-forming units per square inch.

16. Door Handles

In recent times the CBS news has performed a test in which they put a non-harmful tracer virus on a single doorknob in an average-sized office. The tracer virus copied the mutual norovirus inside the contagiousness and resistance to antiseptics.

After 4 hours, 60% of office surfaces like doorknobs, light switches, phones, computers, and work areas, showed contamination. This is highly disappointing.

Nearly 19 to 21 million diseases every year are caused by noroviruses and are rooted in 56k to 71k hospitalizations and 800 or more deaths. The most common source of infection is reaching the surface of things that are contaminated through norovirus and then touching the mouth.

Gerba stated that washing the hands in a proper way and utilization of disinfecting wipes for norovirus and flu, can decrease the virus from getting spread by 80 to 99 per cent.

Declaration: In the last year when I read this, I brought a tube of antiseptic wipes, and every 2 to 3 days, I wiped down all the doorknobs in between my office and the lobby when I went to my house. I didn’t stop Howard Hughes-ish in my germophobia, though I was resembling.

17. Handrails on Escalators or in Stairwells

Gerba’s staff found food, E. coli, urine, mucus, feces, and blood on escalator handrails, and in mucus, there are cold and flu viruses as you will see. On handrails, it poses respiratory flora as people usually cough in their hands and then they touch the railings.

You should prevent touching handrails unless it is important to touch them. Use a hand sanitizer if you come in contact with the rails.

You must tell the person who takes care of the building to put the hand sanitizer dispensers at the tops and bottoms of every escalator, or on the stairwell doors.

If your urge is more than the amount paid then pose someone from the upper management to request that. When you tell them how many leaves your employee takes.

18. Non-Automatic Soap Dispensers in Restrooms

In Gerba’s research fecal contamination on a quarter of all office soap dispensers. If you touch it so as to take out the soap then scrub your hands and nails for some seconds prior to washing it from water, then you will be safe. In our previous blog, we revealed how lazy and reckless people are in washing their hands and leaving themselves in a hazardous state.

19. Your Desk

Most of the time you shall spend in your home and it is said to be your surface in which there are nearly 10 million germs at one time which is 400 times more with respect to the toilet seat. Eating on your desk is an irrelevant thing as the germs get accumulated on the edibles that you just set it down for some seconds.

In order to clean your space, you should wipe it with the help of an antibacterial wipe or through a vinegar-based solution. You should implement it once a week, it only takes 10 minutes. Indeed it saves that time of yours when you are on sick leave.

20. Shared Pens

It is important to think about giving the pen to the person nearby. The germs remain hidden for up to 72 hours on the surface.

You should clean it. People in your surroundings mostly asked for the pen as it is wholly used by you only and is no more infected. You must see the germs in your hand and wash your hands or disinfectant your hands through sanitisers.

Don’t freak out … take precautions and you should be fine

In the present time, you are just surrounded by billions and billions of germs and bacteria, it does not imply that you do not have to go all over Howard Hughes and get locked in the darkroom.

Humans are a wonderful creation and even though the germs harm the body, if you eat enough, take full rest, and wash your hands then you shall be fine in the cold and the flu season.

You should not be embarrassed by anyone when someone sees you wiping the office, doorknobs through citrus-smelling antiseptic wipes.

Tips for Keeping Your Office Germ-Free

Not feeling well in the flu season? Don’t think you are alone. This is the most harmful flu season in 10 years. All the people have tightened the sanitisers in their hands but they are thinking about how we look wearing a mask in public.

The manager’s responsibility is to prevent the flu from getting it held inside the office. As we are all familiar with, the flu seems to appear between work, it is a regular cycle of sick days and missed the last dates for the left-winger. Below are the mitigations for maintaining a healthy environment.

Offer Flu Shots

It is not a delay if you still have not seen the corporate flu shot firms to visit it in the offices. It is the case in which an ounce of precaution proves to be effective.

Stock Plenty of Cleaning Supplies

You must ensure yourself that your workers pose their bacteria-killing tools and solutions. You should motivate your employees that they should wipe their phones, desks, computer mice, and keyboards.
Ensure that Common Areas Are Cleaned Regularly

Your technical expert should be urged to have attention to those spaces in which the germs reside. They must wipe down elevator buttons, door handles, keypads, and public phones on a daily basis.

If you see that they are not paying attention to the cleaning in a strict way then you should notify them. You can wipe out the doorknobs in the current flu season. You are saving the company 100 working hours that might get lost if the employees take leave.

Have Your Ventilation System Checked

There are various stories about why we catch the colds and flu in winter inside the home with the close sick people, who find it more suspicious. You must ensure that your office has ventilation and heating systems for maximum airflow.

You should lessen the odds so that your workers shall not spread the flu, along with taking the prevention off from any diseases such as Legionnaire’s Disease, which is affected by germs that may hide in dirty vents.

Encourage Hand Washing

Think those hand-washing signs are only for the employees at the fast-food restaurant? This will make you think about your employees. One of the biggest things your employees do to stay healthy is that they regularly wash their hands.

The majority of people do not wash their hands properly so as to avoid the disease which causes germs and bacteria. The CDC advises humming “Happy Birthday” to yourself besides rubbing your hands with soap together, prior to rinsing them beneath the water, and drying them fully on a clean towel or through the dryer.

Remind Sick Employees to Stay Home

You must ensure that your workers should remember that they are not being offered any brownie points by the company by taking action in the work in their sickness. It is effective to stay at home for the day or exceed that so as to avoid the danger of infecting the whole department through the flu.

Hire Professional Office Cleaners

All above covid cleaning checklist & tips for keeping your office germ-free will surely help you to keep your staff safe but to guarantee your staff safety and to maintain a clean germ-free environment you can consider hiring a professional commercial of office cleaners.

They are professional and with their experience and quality services, equipment, knowledge, and effective cleaning products you can rely on them to keep your complete area germ free and clean.

Keeping the office and commercial premises clean and germ-free is usually more work than sight. Professional cleaning companies such as Clean Group are skilled in these types of cleaning tasks including dusting, mopping, sweeping disinfecting properly.

Experienced and well-trained cleaners with relevant practical experience in cleaning services provide hygiene solutions to issues that an untrained eye usually misses.

Why Every Office Need Professional Cleaners

Even when your workplace looks clean, germs can still be present, leaning and breeding in the corners of your workplace. Commercial places such as restaurants, health facilities and schools are committed to protecting the health of the public.

All workplaces should be sanitized. This includes ensuring proper disinfection of surfaces. Commercial cleaning services have the expertise to clean facilities properly.

Professional cleaning service providers can reduce the amount of absenteeism in your office to a minimum level. Billions of dollars are traded each year on sick days, employee compensation, and other costs associated with workplace illness.

Additionally, a large number of employees report to work when they are ill, increasing the risk of spread for those on the office premise. But professional cleaning companies can help your health by making it their business.

Why Do You Need a Professional Office Cleaner?

It is a well-known fact that viruses and germs cause common diseases like colds or flu. Professional commercial cleaning services know that virus-causing germs can remain on workplace surfaces for several days.

Normally viruses and germs are spread by people wiping their noses or mouth and then touching any surface. Whenever someone sneezes or coughs, these germs spread in the air and find a surface from which they can descend and become contaminated.

Professional office cleaning companies provide quality services to eliminate the risk of sickness and infection. They do this by creating a clean workplace and sanitizing thoroughly.

• Professional commercial cleaning services are experienced and thorough.
• Professional office cleaners know how and where germs work, live and spread.
• Professional cleaning companies have professional-class cleaning equipment and supplies to ensure that work is done properly.

A commercial cleaning company believes that the most common way for germs to spread in the workplace is to touch contaminated surfaces.

These surfaces are usually the places employees touch every day very frequently, these hot spots include tap handles, telephones, light switches, door handles, etc.

Commercial cleaners make it a business to get rid of germs. These office cleaning companies know that absence from sickness in the workplace can cost employers a lot of money in both productivity and wages. In fact, one sick worker can infect the entire department, not to mention customers and guests.

Employers can encourage employees to stay home when they are ill and they can encourage other healthy behaviours such as hand washing, but for making your office a germ and disease-free workplace a more proactive approach is to hire office cleaners for your office, Especially by a professional cleaning company.

Clean Group is a professional cleaning company trained to take care and pay attention at the required level on surfaces – such as tap handles, light switches, and door handles – that are known to carry germs and viruses. The service of a cleaning service company is the best defence of your office against germs.

How Does Your Company Benefit from Professional Office Cleaning?

Commercial premises that are consistently cleaned and well-organized have a very low risk of spread of disease for those working there. Office Cleaning or Commercial cleaning services can provide this high level of hygiene, which also comes with many benefits for employers, such as:

• Less sick days for employees
• A happy and safe working environment
• Increased productivity and subsequent profits
• Better protection of office property

Now after knowing all the benefits, precautions and top 20 Germiest Places in Office you will probably have understood the importance of hiring a professional cleaning company and if you are looking for a reliable company then Clean Group is here to help you. More details about our business and service are provided below.

Clean Group Is Here to Make Your Offices Germ-Free

The Clean Group has been a leader in the commercial cleaning industry for over 20 years. The company has periodically updated its services as per the requirement.

With this proactive approach, they are providing an even better quality and longer-lasting clean environment at commercial locations, while the price is still easily affordable.

Our company Clean Group is one of the renowned commercial cleaning companies in Sydney and has offices in several suburbs. We have been providing affordable quality commercial cleaning, strata cleaning, industrial cleaning, and residential cleaning services for the last 20 years without any complaints. 

Clean Group can provide cleaning services in all commercial properties including offices, entertainment centres, hotels, warehouses, restaurants, movie theatres, clubs and malls etc. The company can provide cleaning through dry and wet methods.

These methods include rotor wash, truck-mounted steam cleaner, deep extraction, steam cleaning, encapsulation, floor maintenance, germicidal disinfecting wipes, etc. We provide a complete office cleaning service to meet all your cleaning needs, you can check our office cleaning checklist to know more about our office cleaning services.

We Will Clean Every Corner

We will use a damp microfiber cloth to wipe all surfaces. Remove all your waste papers, file folders, calendars, staplers, and other items so that your desk can be cleaned and well arranged.

We will also take care of areas such as power strips, fan blades, window stitches, the top of your monitor, or the top of a picture frame behind your desk.

Proper Desk Cleaning

We will completely vacuum your desk and every surface of your office alternately between upholstery brushes, narrow attachments and carpet attachments. We will focus on the areas we dusted before and will clear any loose dust that the cloth could not catch.

Disinfect Electronics

We will also disinfect the mouse, keyboard, office phone, and all the office appliances and frequently touch areas to eliminate the spread of germs and viruses. We at Clean Group, are ready to provide services as per your requirements and at your convenience.

We can clean and organize your desk daily, weekly, or on a schedule. We maintain a cleaning routine that makes it easier for us and of course for you as well.

Up-to-Date Methods

As new scientific discoveries are made around germs and virus transmission, we will continue to add to our knowledge about what can stop the germs and viruses from spreading. And then implementing the suggestion of government bodies into our cleaning work.

Cleaning, Disinfecting and Sanitizing V/s Germs

Cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing are not the same thing, but people are getting confused about these terms. So, here is the difference and benefits you should know about.

Cleaning removes germs, dirt and impurities from surfaces or objects with soap (or detergent) and (hot) water. Cleaning does not necessarily kill germs but reduces their numbers and risk of spreading the infection.

Disinfection uses chemicals to kill germs on surfaces. It does not necessarily clean dirty surfaces or remove germs, but by killing germs on the surface after cleaning, it can reduce the risk of spreading the infection.

Sanitizing reduces the number of germs on surfaces or objects to safe levels. This process either cleanses or disinfects surfaces and objects to reduce the risk of infection spreading.

Conclusion

While sitting at the desk continuously for long periods of time, we do more than just work. We chew, sneeze, cough, touch and spill day by day. It is no surprise that our offices quickly become home to viruses, germs, and other microbes.

Above the germs is the clutter and filth of our busy lives that need to be organized and cleaned properly. It is necessary during the current situation as these microbe creatures are making our life harder.

Clean Group is a very reputed company especially known for Office Cleaning Sydney. The company has the experience, equipment, cleaning compounds and a team of experts. And by combining all together we will make your offices clean and germ-free. So, don’t wait and call us now.

 

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