Commercial Cleaning Innovations You Need to Utilize This Pandemic

Without a doubt, COVID-19 changed the way we worked. It’s surreal to think that just last year, we were able to meet with the whole team, have lunch with clients, shake each other’s hands, and even give a colleague a beaming smile (without being hidden from a mask) after a hard day’s work without thinking of risks to get infected or infect someone. Just like you, we never pictured the quarantine to be this long. However, with the number of cases continuously increasing, it’s now easy to think that the world would never be the same. There is a reason why the phrase “the new normal” suddenly became a cliche because, no matter how much we try to avoid the term, it really is what we should be embracing right now.

Not everyone has the privilege of working from home and minimizing going out during the pandemic. As business owners, we have to ensure the safety and health of our team, especially when we request them to show up. But before we open up our spaces again, we have to make sure there are precautionary measures that we have implemented. The first step to this is assessing how much risk you have at hand. It’s time to review where your weak spots are and where you are lacking when it comes to keeping the office clean. This way, you’ll know which area you should focus your attention on.

There are a lot of changes in the workplace to ensure that sanitation is at an all-time high and we lessen the risk of getting infected. Below are just a few of them which you can also adapt in your office.

Increased trash cans, sanitizers, and other stocks

Restrooms are definitely one of the most frequented rooms in any office. It’s high in foot traffic and could be home to a lot of germs. Many companies make sure to keep restrooms extra clean at the time of pandemic by providing more sanitizers, paper towels, liquid soaps, and other stocks. A study also shows that most Americans are hesitant to touch doorknobs and faucets with bare hands, which is good cause we want to avoid passing on bacteria as much as possible. Placing trash cans and sanitizers near the entrance and exit doors can encourage more people to do the same. Adding signages to how to properly wash hands, advising to use tissue papers when opening doors, and observing social distancing at all times can be helpful as well.

It’s also important to increase the number of times you disinfect the restroom (or any other rooms where a lot of people come in). To help you with this, there are commercial cleaning services that do a deep cleaning to make sure that rooms are not only clean on the surface but also kills the bacteria that you don’t want to spread.

Touchless features

One of the challenges when re-opening your office to employees is making sure to lessen the number of hand-to-hand contacts. Thanks to technology, there are many alternatives to make sure that your team’s hands are as clean as possible. Installing touchless features including face-recognition devices, automatic bathroom sink faucets, and doors with motion-sensors can avoid pathogens in the office, especially when your employees come in from different places. Keeping doors open can also be helpful and a much cheaper solution to this. By keeping doors propped, you provide visibility to the people when they need to practice social distancing, and people can come and go without reaching for doorknobs.

Cloud-based management systems

In connection to touchless features, having all documents in the cloud can not only help reduce the spread of diseases, but it’s also an efficient way to keep your office organized. There are many software and apps available online that can suit every office needs including attendance logs, payslips, reports, and folder organizers. By keeping track of your employee’s logins and logouts, it’s much easier to do contact tracing should one of your team be infected with the virus. Additionally, you can use one of these apps to keep track of your inventory so you can never run out of hand sanitizers, wet wipes, and masks that you provide to the people in the office.

Robots that fight coronavirus

Even during a world crisis, new innovations keep popping up to help us get used to our current living situation. I’m sure you’ve heard about those cleaning robots that can vacuum your floor without your help. However, there are many more cleaning devices that you might be interested in looking into. For example, did you know that there is a lightsaber-looking sanitizing robot that was developed by a Danish company? This robot targets harmful organic microorganisms in the room by breaking them down to their DNA-structure. There’s also another robot introduced by an Irish company that originally focuses on giving people company and reducing loneliness for when they’re at home. However, they’ve added UV lights and wavelengths into it that can kill harmful pathogens but are still safe for the people around it.

We truly are living in weird times– It is still best to stay and work at home if you can, but of course, we understand that there are situations wherein a face-to-face meeting is necessary. 

Although these solutions might seem expensive, it’s still much better to go to bed thinking that you’ve done everything you can to secure the health and safety of your employees. Labor care also does not stop on making sure your office is well-cleaned and sanitized. Should you come across an employee who tested positive for the virus, do your part in informing everyone who might have been in contact with that person. Mapping out where his/her infection came from is another step you can do to show how much you care for your staff. It takes so much work and money, yes, but now is the time to be nitty-gritty about things like this. It’s better to spend on prevention rather than trying to save a burning building where everyone is infected.