Whether your office is just returning to the ‘regular office’ life or you’ve been at it for a while, there’s no denying that things will not remain the same. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the workplace an entirely different place, and hygiene levels need to be upgraded to maintain safety among your employees and clients.
Although you should employ professional services like SafeFromSpread that uses advanced methods to quickly and thoroughly sanitize and disinfect your office spacem there are some DIY practices that you and your employees can adopt to prevent COVID-19.
Plan your cleaning and disinfecting
The first thing to do is to develop a cleaning and disinfecting plan. There are two essential things that you’ll do to make your office safe for your employee customers and business – cleaning and disinfecting.
There are different areas of your office that you need to pay attention to. You should determine what needs to be cleaned, how the sites will be disinfected, and the equipment you’ll use. You can also hire Safe from Spread to help you educate and train your team on the best practice and standard cleaning and disinfecting procedure before you begin the process.
Clean
The cleaning process comes before disinfecting. Cleaning reduces the number of impurities and dirt on the surface but doesn’t kill the main germs that can spread infection.
First off, wear disposable gloves whenever you are about to clean or disinfect surfaces and discard them after use. Also, wash hands thoroughly after removing gloves.
Visibly dirty surfaces should be cleaned with soap and water first. Practice more frequent cleaning and disinfection based on how frequently the surface is being used. If it is a public area of the office – like countertops, handles, desks, and doorknobs – you should clean as often as possible.
Cleaning includes reducing the sharing of frequently touched objects and other safe practices like frequent handwashing, use of hand sanitizers, and wearing masks.
Disinfect
To get the best out of disinfection, use any of those on the EPA list for COVID-19 to disinfect. It’s also imperative to follow the label’s instructions to ensure that it’s effective and safe for a particular surface. Although the product instructions vary, products are generally used in the following ways;
Wear gloves before applying the product and make sure the area is adequately ventilated.
Spray disinfectant on the surface and leave it on for some minutes (or as described on the product label).
Stay out of the areas for the time being, so disinfectants don’t get on your body and cause bodily harm.
Store and use chemicals away from general office spaces.
You can also use bleach solutions if EPA prescribed disinfectants aren’t available. However, the bleach must contain 5–9% sodium hypochlorite. The bleach product may have instructions on how to dilute for use. When they do, follow the instructions, and if they don’t, you can make your bleach solution by mixing 5 tbsp. of bleach or an equivalent with a gallon of water at room temperature.
For the application, you can leave it on the surface for at least one minute before wiping if there are no instructions relating to the application. Just like other disinfectants, the surface needs to remain wet for those few minutes. To get the best result, you shouldn’t use bleach that has been mixed over 24 hours.
You should use wipeable covers on electronics before cleaning and disinfecting them to make the process safe and straightforward.
Knowledge is power. Therefore, before any form of DIY office cleaning and disinfecting is carried out, be sure to educate workers on how to properly go about cleaning, disinfection, and keeping the office safe from COVID-19.
SafeFromSpread friendly technicians have thorough experience cleaning and disinfecting various properties and can bring all that knowledge to educate your staff.