With the new year comes all kinds of resolutions. For business owners, that resolution could be creating a safer office environment for your team. If you’re planning to bring your employees back to the office in 2022, here are six ways you can keep your office clean and safe.
- Go over the basics. As silly as it sounds, sometimes, a simple reminder can go a long way. Before bringing employees back to the office, provide information about general safety at work. Reminding your employees that they’ll need to wear masks when around other people or that they should wash their hands frequently can be highly effective, especially for people who may have been working from home for more than a year and are used to living in a bubble. You can also encourage everyone to wipe down their personal space with sanitizing wipes before they leave for the day.
- Schedule regular cleanings. The CDC provides a detailed list of how to safely and effectively clean and disinfect workspaces, but not every business owner has the capacity to follow those regulations. That’s where hiring a professional cleaning service comes in. They’ll ensure surfaces throughout your office space are cleaned and disinfected regularly to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. And they can perform office deep cleanings to further eliminate germs and contamination. Additionally, increase the presence of sanitizing stations around the office, especially in large gathering areas. Providing your employees with the supplies they need to stay clean and sanitized helps encourage everyone to actually use them.
- Check the air quality in your office. Poor indoor air quality can help spread disease and even limit your team’s productivity. Before bringing your team back to the office, check the plumbing, ventilation, and filtration systems to ensure they’re working correctly. In some cases, you may need to replace your filters, especially if you’ve been out of the office for months.
- Enforce social distancing measures. No matter how clean your office space may be, social distancing can still protect your employees from spreading the coronavirus to each other. Before you welcome employees back to the office, hold a meeting or send an email detailing the social distancing practices you’d like them to follow upon their return. Generally speaking, employees should maintain six feet of distance from each other. Additionally, you might consider spacing employees’ desks further or staggering the times people are in the office to limit their interactions with one another.
- Encourage communication and provide support. Keep an open channel of communication with your employees about the updated cleaning schedule, social distancing measures, and/or changes to the seating arrangements at the office. When it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, knowledge is power. Consider providing your employees with resources to educate themselves about what they can do to help maintain a safe workplace.
- Plan for the “what if” scenarios. Just as you’re preparing a plan to reopen, you should have a plan in place to address the “worst-case scenario,” including having to revert back to remote work. Some things to consider include testing plans for employees, contact tracing, and the use of paid time off for employees to recover.
Keep Your Office Clean and Safe
There are plenty of ways you can keep your employees safe when they return to the office this year. Something that’s not negotiable? Regular office cleanings. At Office Express Janitorial, we offer top-notch office cleaning services at a fair price, with standards set in best practices and procedures established by OSHA. Looking for the best janitorial services for your office? Contact Office Express Janitorial Services, Inc. today.