Workplace Germs And How They Can Be Avoided

Contributed by Stratus Building Solutions.

In most workplaces, a premium is put on safety — it isn’t just a matter of not wanting to pay workermens compensation. If you’re any sort of decent human, you want your work environment to be a safe space. So if, for instance, your workplace has dangerous equipment, you probably take pains to make sure it’s stored properly – and you would never let a building occupant go into an area of your workplace where they could be injured. But for some businesses, it’s easy to forget that employees can get hurt by what you don’t see.

Eradicating potentially problematic viruses and bacteria involves more than scrubbing down the restroom toilets. Some of the most dangerous office areas for germs include:

The desk.

Studies frequently show that we aren’t as clean as we think. For instance, University of Arizona researchers concluded that the average desktop has 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat. Research suggests that the office phones have 25,000 germs per square inch.

Elevator buttons.

Alas, we don’t have any alarming statistics on this, but if your office is on a floor with an elevator, think about all the people who push that button.

Hopefully, you get our point — cleaning should be more than just vacuuming the floor and wiping down the restrooms. Frequently-touched areas in the office need attention as well.

The company break room.

A facility that has space for customers or visitors – such as a car dealership or a school – may be thinking about the need to clean what members of the public will see. But the company break room, the teachers’ lounge or anywhere that staff congregates is an incubator for germs and should also be attended to. It doesn’t matter that the public doesn’t see the company break room. Think about the vending machine, and all the hands that touch it. Consider the microwave and refrigerator door handles that are constantly touched by germy hands. Studies have shown that the sink faucet in the company break room is usually the most contaminated in an office.

So, sure, you may have a facility/client that values safety, but unless they have a cleaning team to do deep cleaning on pretty much everything, they aren’t really putting a premium on safety. It’s more like a minimum on safety.